Business Plan
Kids & Child International
Executive Summary
Organizational success is dependent on the efficiency of the people involved. Often, people who are not really in the organization may have huge contributions for its development and success. The proposed business plan shall consist of the analysis for Kids and Child International and the review of related literature.
The study, taken from the journal MIS quarterly, delves into the world of enterprise resource planning and the process of knowledge transfer from consultants to clients. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a form of intricate data systems that exemplify essential organizational portfolio. In systems such as these, corporations often need the aid of external practitioners, or consultants, in order to disseminate complex informations such as this. Corporations, knowing that consultants have a high degree of knowledge in such things, expect them to properly disseminate information to their employees so that they can work on these complex information systems independent of external interference. The study from the journal MIS quarterly, which I used as reference for this paper, clearly observes the “antecedents of knowledge transfer in the context of such an interfirm complex information systems implementation environment.” From the above stated information, a theory may be developed that says, transfer of knowledge and information is clearly prompted by communicational, knowledge and motivational factors.
This paper also reviews the potential benefits of consultancy, possible clients, barriers and strategic management for Kids and Child International.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Business Plan sections
Company Profile
Mission, Vision, Values, Purposes, Key to success
Business Description
Marketing
Competition
SWOT Analysis
Development, production, and location
Management
Financial plans & projections
Risk factors
Harvest or exit
Scheduling and milestones
Conclusion
Introduction
Despite the various challenges in which children’s products face, there is always an opportunity for e-business. It has been known today that even baby products and the Internet have a natural association. Kids and Child has the potential of this partnership and be successful in consumer e-commerce. Kids and Child forged ahead with an ambitious goal to become the world’s leading e-business children’s products company and promptly set up a new cross-functional department staffed by experienced people who have been dealing with the meticulous planning and production of baby products and newly recruited e-business professionals.
Kids and Child International is committed to invest in services that enhance value to their customers while improving productivity and reducing information technology costs. With this, the company has leveraged to e-business.
Kids and Child International, known to be one of the world’s leading kid’s products producer, gives them the opportunity to acquire more customers and generate more revenues. In addition, with Kids and Child International online selling, they give more convenience to their customer giving them the chance to attract more customers especially with people that have no time to go to shops and branches to buy such products.
The company also has an opportunity of technology advancement for easier transaction and operations and for more convenience for customers and employees. Moreover, with its recognition, the airline attracts more opportunities of expansion.
Furthermore, the company has design learning experiences for the employees to deliver consistent good services to customers. The company has encouraged a culture of self responsibility, courage to innovate and openness to collaborate within the organization.
Furthermore, in the year 2000, over 60% of companies and firms based in the United States of America adopted the use of enterprise resource planning. Because of the recent upheaval in the corporate industry, sales of the ERP software has reached to more that 150% increase year after year. Due to the sudden demand for the said software, sales per annum amounted to a total of billion in the year 2004 (2004). According to companies who adopted the use of ERP’s were said to exhibit an increase on overall performance concerning finance related processes (2002).
Still, continued adoption and implementation of complex information systems such as this greatly confronts the corporate industry who chooses to implement it. Researches pointed out different factors that contribute to unsatisfactory results such as deficiency in corporate and ERP know-how (1998), impoverished employee recall (1995), and obstacles concerning constantly forwarding technological advancements (1998).
Due to the above-mentioned obstacles, external practitioners often are recruited to aid firms on the said issues (1998). Because ERp generally focus on giving out a certain level of pragmatic interoperability which is said to pose certain mechanical and financial obstacles which would be difficult to overcome ”with stand-alone custom-built systems” (2002), dependence on external practitioners is very much understandable ( 1998; 1999).With technological advancements and complexity of information being put out, greener pastures are opening up for external practitioners in the context of information systems.
In recruiting the aid of external practitioner, organizations not only have operational success in mind but also goals such as training skills, information dissemination. Acquiring such needs often help and benefit the client organization in the long run (1998; 2000).
Therefore, the research questions for this study are: What are the antecedents of knowledge transfer from a consultant to a client, and to what extent do these antecedents explain knowledge transfer in the context of ERP implementations? The approach taken to address these questions involves the integration of the theory of information systems implementation with findings regarding knowledge transfer in other domains.
Business Plan Sections
Company Profile
Kids and Child International is a company specializing in the production of children’s safety products.
Strategic Planning
Strategic Framework for Client Relationships Development and Management
The definition of public relations in Australia according to (PRIA) is: “the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and its publics.” In public relations, results are often preconceived as intangible by clients who pay good money for the service. At the minimum, clients appear to rationalize the purchasing of service with cliches such as “increasing awareness” and “it helps to underwrite the sales effort.” All the more reason why public relations consultancies have to make every effort to quantify results (1992).
Clients will not appreciate the planning behind a public relations campaign, or the effort spent by the account team, unless they are made to understand how public relations work. Each client has the right to know the sequence of steps taken by the public relations agency to achieve results.
Unfortunately, many public relations practitioners devote the majority of their time to the operational aspects of their services and tend to ignore the need to document and analyze the overall public relations campaign in concrete terms that a vice president of marketing, for instance, could relate to his overall marketing performance.
On the other hand, clients also often think their only responsibility is to hire the agency and then sit back and watch the public relations people “do their thing.” This attitude rears its ugly head in a variety of ways. True, the agency’s responsibility is to do its very best for the client. However, companies have to realize that they have responsibilities as well. These are relatively simple responsibilities such as: Define goals and objectives, and have a marketing plan; Maintain open lines of communications at all times; Respect the agency as a group of professionals who provide specialized service and deserve to be paid for those services; and Make a commitment to the agency (1997).
An Emphasis on Retention of Profitable Clients
Maximizing the lifetime value of a client is a fundamental goal of public relations consultancy. In this context it can be defined that the lifetime value of a customer as the future flow of net profit, discounted back to the present that can be attributed to a specific customer. Adopting the principle of maximizing customer lifetime value forces the organization to recognize that not all customers are equally profitable and that it must devise strategies to enhance the profitability of those customers it seeks to target (2005).
In any organization, not only in the public relations department, loyal clients are an intangible asset that adds value to the balance sheet. They represent the goodwill earned by the company. Loyal and repeat clients not only contribute revenue by returning again and again to avail of services from the same company, but act as advocates, referring new customers and reducing acquisition tools.
Continuous Improvement and Quality Control Model
The continuous improvement and quality control model most commonly used in manufacturing is a helpful analogy for establishing a system of measures to help public relations practitioners deal with his problem. Continuous improvement is a process of setting objectives, then measuring results through documentation that is then analyzed and reported. Final results are then measured against objectives ( 1992).
The public relations reporting tactics described below serve that function. They suggest ways to keep the client in the decision-making loop by establishing mutual objectives, by using meetings to educate and extend the credibility of the public relations consultancy, and by employing simple but effective techniques for regularly measuring and reporting results.
Clients need to participate in the crucial early stages by providing persuasive and substantial back-up data and thinking. Clients will find it worthwhile to participate in a program if the nuts and bolts of the public relations process in general–and their own campaign in particular–are explained in business terms (1997).
Communication is the key to a mutually profitable relationship. Company management has to be willing to tell the agency its specific needs and desires. Without knowing management’s expectations, it’s impossible to meet the goals. To create an effective campaign, the agency has to know everything about the product or service how it works, its benefits and features, its shortcomings, its channels of distribution, as well as products and features offered by the competition. It’s impossible for the agency to learn this information by mind reading or through osmosis (1997).
The client doesn’t bear the sole responsibility for keeping the lines of communications open. The agency has to keep the client abreast of each project. If this is done, management is less likely to demand unreasonable deadlines or misunderstand the steps required to complete a project. On the other hand, clients cannot procrastinate in approving a project. Such delays prevent the agency from meeting deadlines – or worse yet, cause cost overruns.
Respect for the agency’s capabilities is also essential for a good working relationship between the consultancy and the client. An agency can be a valuable consultant – one specializing in communications as well as editorial, channel, analyst and consumer relations. But their job involves more than just release writing and distribution, press kits, trade shows and article and white paper production.
Commitment is the client’s final responsibility. They have to believe in the concept or product the agency is promoting. They must allocate enough money to market, position, and promote the product properly. Ad, promotional, and PR campaigns – even highly effective ones – don’t achieve instant success. If the agency has produced a creative, consistent campaign, the client has to be willing to see it through (Marken, 1997). Commitment also extends to the client-consultancy relationship. Right from the outset, both parties have to want to work together as a team, with the agency functioning as an integral part of the company organization.
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