The business idea

The company concept to be created is a laundry and ironing service that will target students and low-income earners who are willing to use these facilities. Later projects will include institutions, laundry, cafes and hotels laundry, hairdressing laundry, and other facilities. Pick-up and distribution operations will be carried out using motorcycles and taxi services at first, with plans to provide commercial modes of transportation in operation.

The initial capital is estimated to be low since the majority of the equipment will be purchased locally as used equipment (King and Lakhani 2013, p.41). The estimated initial cost is aimed at $19,000 that is affordable from the currents students savings, borrowing from the bank or input of a few friends. The estimated weekly returns are estimated at $3000 in the month (Mathie et al.2017 p. 23). It is supposed that cheap labor shall be readily available for the student’s services who shall be engaged for part-time works and a few permanent workers lowering the initial expenses.

In addition, customers shall be encouraged to physically drop their washing packages physically at the washing premises as well as the request for the picking of their washing items online via the companies website. Again, the clients shall be offered online payment system adding to their convenience and satisfaction (Mathie et al.2017 p. 14). It is envisaged as the business goes through the developmental stages, it shall tap more opportunities leading to more growth and expansion.

Figure 1: Development stages of a new business idea

The Market and its Needs

STEP and SWOT analysis of the micro and macro environment has been conducted and found out that the current laundry business in London charges the clients a lot of money while for some the quality of services is equally low with poor mitigation to clients complaints and slow measures towards improved services (Ul Haque and Hasan 2016, p.232).

The new business idea is aimed towards lessening the current burden many people face whenever they want to have their clothes ready for wear. Almost all the people from across all the ages have a challenge of having their clothes cleaned and ironed. Most of the people in London are workers meaning that they are ever busy given to the general business as usual in the city. There are several universities too, therefore setting up a laundry business is prospected to pick up immediately.

The public servants and students who earn average wages are targeted ad the major customers ass the business since it shall set out lower laundry rates. In addition, the business sets this as a strategy to attract even the highly paid clients form as it sets the ground for real quality services at lower charges. This group is large and as such, it is expected that the business shall grow quickly through the continuous deployment of the different marketing strategies.

Given that the laundry and ironing services are aimed at benefiting the end user, it shall also be easy to mitigate promotional activities like discounting and the “come with a friend at Blaze for more discounts”. These means that that the business shall grow faster and that within about six months it shall be well known in London and the pick and drop activities shall now be undertaken by means of a vehicle due to the heavy loads of the wash. The social media shall be relied for advertisement opportunities.

The Service

Blaze laundry and iron services shall offer laundry activities ranging from service washes, duvet cleaning, curtain cleaning, Laundry contacts for students and a little segment of residents of London with a strategy for growth. The business shall target the gym laundry, school laundry, college laundry, office laundry, hairdressers laundry, students laundry, café and restaurants and hotel laundry, care home laundry and car-wash laundry at a later date.

Given that it is quite possible to afford second-hand laundry equipment, the laundry machines and accessories shall be purchased at low prices. The students shall be first target market from where the message of Blaze services shall be spread. The campaign shall be centered on lower rates for washing services at equal quality with existing laundry companies (Mathie et al.2017 p. 16). Although the pick and delivery could be done on a bicycle at the beginning of the business later strategies plans have vehicles picks and deliveries in place to increase convenience and area of coverage. The business shall develp a website where the students can request for the picking of their laundry for washing while conveniently making payments online.

Competitors

The current laundry and ironing companies in London are offering very high prices are already enjoying a customer segment that pays a lot of money for the services. These companies have very little mitigation plans to carry even the low earning customers on board. They have made the laundry services only affordable to the only few rich people making the avenue for new entry (Vanhaverbeke and Chesbrough 2014. P.59) Customers in London ever complain of delays in the delivery of their laundry requests.

As such, at Blaze, the strategies are in place to ensure that the online system of requesting for services has a 24/7 chat that is engaging and involving the clients. Once the wash has been done, it shall be delivered with immediate effect with a prompt of the client’s satisfaction and complaints collected immediately upon delivery and through the online system (Watson, S., 2015 p.879).

At the website for Blaxe Laundry and Ironing services, the clients can also be provided with a full list of the process that comes with various laundry services, the many bonuses and the promotional services and periodical communications (Wood and McKelvie 2015, p.258). The regular prompt of the support team to clients to leave their comments shall help the company to offer better and better services.

In order to stand above the other laundry companies, the clients shall be offered free laundry services worthy the service with the complaints about compensation (Mathie et al.2017 p.18). Furthermore, the pick and delivery services shall be made quick and prompt with better carriage services to remove any delays.

References

King, A. and Lakhani, K.R., 2013. Using open innovation to identify the best ideas. MIT Sloan management review, 55(1), p.41.

Mathie, A., Alma, E., Lee, N., Peters, B. and von Lieres, B., 2017. INNOVATIVE. Pp. 1-32.

Ul Haque, E. and Hasan, K., 2016. New Product Development. In Strategic Marketing Management in Asia: Case Studies and Lessons across Industries (pp. 225-260). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Vanhaverbeke, W. and Chesbrough, H., 2014. A classification of open innovation and open business models. New Frontiers in Open Innovation, pp.50-68.

Watson, S., 2015. Mundane objects in the city: Laundry practices and the making and remaking of public/private sociality and space in London and New York. Urban Studies, 52(5), pp.876-890.

Wood, M.S. and McKelvie, A., 2015. Opportunity evaluation as future focused cognition: Identifying conceptual themes and empirical trends. International Journal of Management Reviews, 17(2), pp.256-277.zz