Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Management Assignment - 4

Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Management - Assignment Example The business planning process consists in following some step by step processes which needs to be documented for an organization to have a clear insight and direction for work. Critical appraisal of the business planning process The business planning process has a lot of loopholes and most traditional business plans are criticized to be overtly formal and rigid. Here we will critically appraise a business planning process. Idea generation The first step of a business plan is the visualization of a new product or service which the enterprise desires to provide. In fact it outlines the key to future growth prospects. However, before taking a decision as to which product or service should be started, a thorough market research including customer’s preferences should be conducted. Most organizations rely on the traditional methods in order to research on the idea generation and come to a decision. The traditional techniques are usually based on the inputs provided by customers and these may be extremely biased. These techniques identify a target market for the product or service and randomly conduct a customer focused survey to come to a conclusion (Lilien et al. 2002). Another key barrier to the idea generation process is that firms may hurriedly decide and document a product or a service idea. In this case thorough research may not have been conducted probably due to lack of skill and knowledge and faulty processes (Flint 2000). Hence; most business ideas may never be implemented. Other constraints faced by firms may be with reference to garnering sufficient funds to start a business. If the firm is not able to procure funds then the business idea is scrapped and the top management has to again come out with a new business idea. Strategic objectives The next step in the business planning process consists in setting short term and long term goals and strategies. It is very necessary to set up goals so that a pre determined path can be chalked out to attain strategic objectives. However, most planners may come up with highly unrealistic and unattainable objectives. This is one of the principal reasons for the failure of the business planning process. This may occur due to the fact that the top management team has a divided opinion or is not wholly involved in the planning process (Mintzberg 1994). Also the planners have to work under uncertain market conditions and hence they need to monitor the goals from time to time. Most firms do not bother to discuss and make changes to the pre determined goals and this may lead to failure of the business plan. Market analysis and research The organization needs to thoroughly research the customer market by conducting a SWOT analysis. A SWOT analysis is a thorough research conducted with reference to identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threat of the product market and the customer market. The main problem encountered in a market research is that the data collected may be outda ted or irrelevant for the purpose. In this case, the results generated on the basis of the research may be biased or flawed. Another problem organizations encounter is with the location

Marketing Cultures Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Marketing Cultures - Essay Example Subway India unlike USA offers various veg and non-veg stations specialized in fast food services. These stations give fast food service ranges from: This is a crunchy, crispy, and delicious Veggie Delite sandwich. It is a tasty combination of tomatoes, garden fresh lettuce, green peppers, olives, onions and pickles sandwiched on freshly baked bread Most vegetarian who loves this subway fast food livened up! It is a light, golden brown patty that combines the flavors of high-quality carrots, beans, bell peppers, and other assorted ingredients. As Indians say, the spice of life is variety! All these varieties emerge from the various veg and non-veg stations in Subway India but one may not necessarily get them in Subway USA due to the fact that there is only one veg and non-veg station in Subway USA. The Subway sandwich chain intended to team up with Softcard in an effort to offer customers a means of buying food via their own mobile phones (Gong, 2013:28). Indeed, Subway lived to its words and kicked off the NFC-based mobile payments using Softcard, a payments venture engineered by T-Mobile USA, AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless. Previously known as Isis Wallet, Softcard provided an app which supported mobile payments in at least 80 mobile devices sold by T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon and was preloaded on at least 30 different devices. Consumers were now able to utilize their NFC-enabled mobile devices to access payment terminal at their regional Subway restaurant in USA when paying for their food. This pilot program was only launched in Subway USA in 2013 and not in Subway India. The intention of payment service from the NFC-enabled mobile device was to reach at least 26,000 Subway locations within the US. The question as to whether iPhone 6 users will tap into Apple Pay to take advantage of these new systems was still valid by late 2013. However, Softcard and