Business Plan Omani Webdev Company

Question :

The project would involve working with a group in writing a Business Plan for any business idea (of one of your group members) relevant to the Omani context. The project work would involve submission of a report (prepared by the group) contributing to 10% of the coursework and the group presentation would contribute 5% of the course work. In addition, each group will be evaluated in terms of effectiveness of group work and individual contribution to achieving project goal. The report has to be submitted on VeriCite. 

Answer :

1. Introduction

In this report, the business plan for Omani WebDev Company (OWC) has been presented. The business plan will help in understanding the areas that are critical to be considered prior to investing. A well laid out business plan will be of great help in progressing towards the success of the organization. A detailed financial forecast has also been presented to understand the expenditure and income of the company for the next three years and the profitability The business that has been planned as an internet company. The company will be selling website development, mobile application development, and search engine optimization service. It is a service based business and one person will be the sole proprietor of the business. The proprietor has ample understanding regarding the web and mobile app services. The understanding will help in achieving the laid out plans of the business.

2. The Business

The purpose of the business is to help businesses in Oman to get online. World is getting online and there are still several small and medium businesses in Oman that are running offline. If they will not get online, then they are likley to lose in the future competitions that are likely to get tougher. Therefore, businesses must get online so that they can serve their customers wherever they are whether it is online or offline (Ashrafi & Murtaza, (2008). The business can be started within a month’s time. The business requires minimal asset arrangement. Hiring of individuals who will work on the business will be followed by starting the business. The business will be under sole proprietorship. Single person will be handling the entire business activities. The trigger to launch this business was the desire to see businesses in Oman matching with those at the world level. But it cannot be possible until these businesses adopt methods, tools, and techniques that can keep them ahead. Therefore, there is a need for companies that can help these businesses grow (Hussein et al, 2017). Undoubtedly there are other companies in the market that are providing web development services, but they lack on various grounds that gives OWC better opportunities for growth. The unique feature of this business is that it will constantly keep track of the competitors and will make all effort to fill the gaps where they are lacking. The services provided will be of international standard. The designs and quality provided will match with those at the world level.

3. Product or Service

The company will sell three product lines. They are website development, mobile application development, and search engine optimization services. Under website development, businesses and individuals will be helped in building their online presence through websites. Having an account on the social media is a different thing, but in order to build brand and reputation, websites are inevitable. Websites are publicly visible and can be used as one stop information directory for all product and services sold by businesses. Further, usage of smartphones is constantly on the rise around the world. More and more people are getting online primarily through their phones (Sharma et al, 2017). Therefore, having a mobile website gives additional accessibility to the customers. The company will be building mobile application for two prominent operating systems, Android and iOS. The third service line search engine optimization. Through this the customers’ websites will be pushed to rank higher on the prominent search engines. This will help in increasing the visibility of the website for the customers. With increased visibility, the company can witness higher traffic on the website. A website without visitors is less useful. 

The main reason the customes will buy these products and services is that the world is getting online, and it has become more than necessary that those who are not online get online in order to fight the competitive scenario. Getting online is not a choice, it is the need of the hour. And OWC will help in meeting this need. 

4. The Market

The primary target customers of the company are the local small and medium sized businesses. The assessment of the market data has helped in understanding that regularly many businesses come into existence but only into product manufacturing. They do not get platform to reach their customers such as retailers or direct customers effectively. Therefore, targetting these businesses in Oman will help the company in gaining faster market share. The primary research that was conducted for understanding the market was asking informal questions from around ten known acquantainces who are in business in Oman. The secondary research was based on the collection of data and information from online reputable resources regarding the current business condition. As per the data of timesofoman, there were more than 150,000 businesses in Oman in 2017. The qualitative data collected from primary research has given insight that the businesses do need support in handling their online presence so that they can solely focus on their core activities (Qu & Dumay, 2011). 

4.1 Marketing Plan

In this section, the marketing plan of the business has been detailed under four key sections, product, place, price, and promotion. Marketing plan is vital for the company to be known, attract customers, and increase its sales (Resnick et al, 2016). An effective marketing plan will ensure that the company constantly gets good number of customers.

4.1.1 Product

The company will continue with the same product and services lines for the next two years. The current product and service is enough to bring in good amount of profitability for the company if handled well. Moreover, handling these is not easy considering the competitive market scenario and fight prices. Therefore, the goal will be to first get strong on these products and only then think of entering into any other product lines. Two years’ time seems quite less to include more products at present. However, if after two or three years the company realizes that it has become better and comfortable in these areas, then it will think over some other products or services based on the market scenario at that time.

4.1.2 Place

The company will be located in Oman. One of the key benefit in operating this business is that the service can be provided from anywhere in Oman to the client. Therefore, there is no barrier of location of the company. However, there can be situations when a company representative has to meet the customers in peson to convince and convert (Tabuga et al, 2013). When such scenario will arise, then a local individual will be hired as a sales agent who will work remotely on the company’s payrole. The company will sell its products through sales agents and the method will be online and in person. The customers who can be served through telephone and email will be done so, and those who need in person visit will be sent a sales agent to meet. At present, the company will be operating from a small rented office in Oman. The reason is that in this form of business there is no need for an elaborate shiny office areas as customers rarely visit. 

4.1.3 Price

The pricing of the services and products have been decided based on the current market prices. Few online websites providing these services were visited to gain the idea and a suitable price was determined. The table below shows the pricing of each of items and other relevant details:

In the table above, ‘Units’ are the expected number of units of products company is expecting to sell in the first year of its business. 

4.1.4 Promotion

Promotion is vital for any business to survive. If a business is not doing enough promotional activities, then it may be left behind by the competitors. The company will conduct offline and online promotional activities. Under online aspect, the company will use social media, emails, search engine marketing, mobile advertising, and website ad placement to attract interested customers. And under offline aspect, the company will place ads in local newspapers that are read by business owners. Majority of the focus will be on online promotion as there is higher chance of attacting the customers there (Nuseir & Madanat, 2015). Even those business owners who do not have online presence, heavily use websites and online services to get through their day. Moreover, online promotional activities are far more effective and low cost than offline methods. Additionally, it is easier to track effectiveness of online promotion. If a particular online ad placed a day before does not work, then it can be changed in an hour. 

5. Management and Organization

In this section, management and organization of the company has been described who are vital for the success.

5.1 People

The company will begin with 16 people on board, out of which, ten will be full time employees, five will be part-time employees, and one will be the owner of the company. Part time employees will mostly work remotely as sales agents, visiting various customers throughout Oman. Experience sales personnel will be hired who are interested in earning additional income other than their regular job. Out of the ten permanent staffs, few will be developers and designers and few will be search engine optimization expert. All these staffs will directly report to owner, at least for the first year, and only after one year hierarchy will be built.

5.2 Production

The first stage is to secure the orders from the customers. After the sales agents have secured the order from the customers along with the list of things that are to be built, the information will be passed on to the developers. The developers will built a prototype of the required mobile application and website and it will be sent to the customers for approval or feedback. Upon finalizing the prototype, final product will be built and sent to the customer, and th final payment will be taken.

5.3 Premises

There are no major permissions required to operate this business other than getting the business registered as sole proprietorship, which will be done few days before the business will begin.

References

Ashrafi, R., & Murtaza, M. (2008). Use and impact of ICT on SMEs in Oman. Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation, 11(3).

Hussein, M. A., Ahmed, H. M. S., & Alraja, M. N. (2017). The adoption of information and communication technology by small and medium enterprises in Oman: Case of Dhofar region. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 11(3).

Nuseir, M. T., & Madanat, H. (2015). 4Ps: A strategy to secure customers' loyalty via customer satisfaction. International Journal of Marketing Studies, 7(4), 78.

Qu, S. Q., & Dumay, J. (2011). The qualitative research interview. Qualitative research in accounting & management.

Resnick, S. M., Cheng, R., Simpson, M., & Lourenço, F. (2016). Marketing in SMEs: a “4Ps” self-branding model. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research.

Scarborough, N. M., & Cornwall, J. R. (2011). Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management. London: Pearson.

Sharma, S. K., Sarrab, M., & Al-Shihi, H. (2017). Development and validation of Mobile learning acceptance measure. Interactive Learning Environments, 25(7), 847-858.

Tabuga, A. D., Mina, C. D., Reyes, C. M., & Asis, R. D. (2013). Promoting inclusive growth through the 4Ps (No. 2013-09). PIDS Discussion Paper Series.