Mini-Project (Shopping Service For Seniors) Business Plans Example

Description of business

The business plan that has been mentioned in this project is grocery shopping service for seniors. According to census over 40 million seniors are stated over 65 years age and the counting is growing by approximately 10000 per day. Therefore senior service businesses can be chosen as it is growing rapidly. Due to medical condition or health factor many seniors are homebound. Therefore grocery shopping services is the business selected in this project.

List of Services and innovation factor

The business will provide essential and everyday grocery products and medicines to the senior at his doorsteps and on demand. Effectively many other free services for the seniors can be considered. It is important to meet with the consumers to their house and discuss about their choices, preferences of brands and pricing of products to provide better services. Essential commodities and regular feedbacks of timing and quality checking of services can attract more customers (Lynn). In their absence where to put the products is important in providing better service as per requirements.

Customers of business

The senior citizens of the country who are unable to wait in the line of super markets and unable to lift load of grocery can prefer to choose the shopping service for seniors. Basically the business needs very little investment. Just a vehicle to pick and deliver the goods, a computer and internet connection to contact more customers and some small advertisements are needed to initiate the business (Mongkol).

Competition in business and competitive aggressiveness

There are a few competitions in the business regarding to the other firms with the same services. Better competitive aggressiveness by providing timely services to customers, better relationship maintaining with the clients, cheap pricing of services and some free offered services can be vital to create goodwill in the market (Lin). It is important to be ethical as the service is related to senior citizens and the onus of maintaining duty has to be the primary consideration of the business.

Managing the business and creating autonomy

In case of managing the business it is important to make a list of customers and their preferable choices of products and maintaining the perfect timing of delivery is the basic preference of the business (Gilbert). In order to do the business in a better way some employees have to be maintained who can make further contacts and assist the services and monitor the requirement of the clients as well as the feedbacks by creating autonomy.

Growth of business and proactive nature

Better service promises, better efforts, offering new services and maintaining a good quality relationship with the customers can be effective in order to make growth of the shopping business. It is important to note that here the target demographic is senior citizens. Therefore proactive nature in order to judge the necessity of the clients can be highly appreciated (Baum and Henkel).

Competitive inertia and business related risk factors

In business atmosphere the company should not allow competitive inertia to take over the futuristic plans and strategies. It is important to come out with new and exciting features and services in the business (Murashov and Howard). The risk factors of the business are very low as the services are quite limited and can be controlled as per the requirements.

Positioning strategy as the strategic alternative

In order to make further inroads in the business positioning strategies can be made considering a lot of elements regarding to the shopping business as discussed below.

Better services as a positioning strategy.

Affordable as well as some free services as a positioning strategy.
Positioning strategy on basis of customers benefit.
Positioning strategies on basis of making the business popular.
Strategies on basis of commitments and punctuality of provided services.
Positioning strategies in businesses such as shopping services are vital in customer satisfaction as well as service improvement.

Bibliography

Baum, Neil, and Gretchen Henkel. Marketing Your Clinical Practice. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett, 2010. Print.
Gilbert, Natasha. 'Making Growth Sustainable'. Nature (2012): n. pag. Web.
Lin, H.-C. 'BUILDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: THE ROLES OF UPPER ECHELONS AND COMPETITIVE AGGRESSIVENESS.'. Academy of Management Proceedings 2006.1 (2006): Y1-Y6. Web.
Lynn, Jacquelyn. Start Your Own Senior Services Business. [Irvine Calif.]: Entrepreneur Press, 2006. Print.
Mongkol, Kulachet. 'The Critical Review Of New Public Management Model And Its Criticisms'.Research Journal of Business Management 5.1 (2011): 35-43. Web.
Murashov, Vladimir, and John Howard. 'Essential Features For Proactive Risk Management'. Nature Nanotech 4.8 (2009): 467-470. Web.