Æ *

Assistance Everywhere Concierge Service Ltd.

Business Plan

70 Lavender Hill, London Borough of Wandsworth, SW11, UK

* Marcel Hanke, Florian Furkes, Holger Dieske

Office number: +44/ 123456789
Mobile number: +44/ 987654321
Email: info@assistance-everywhere.co.uk
Visit us on: www.assistance-everywhere.co.uk
Table of Contents

1. Business Overview 1
2. Market Overview 1
2.1. Customer Information 2
2.2. Market Information 3
2.3. Product/Service Information 4
3. Objectives 5
4. Strategy 5
4.1. Product 6
4.2. Pricing 7
4.3. Distribution 8
4.4. Marketing 8
4.5. Operational Plan 10
5. Budgets 14
6. Action Plan 15
7. Supporting Documentation 16

Business Overview

Introduction
Welcome to Æ Concierge Service Ltd. (Æ). In the busy lifestyle of today’s world, we offer a professional and affordable service on which you can rely for any requirement. Our experienced and well-trained team is devoted to quickly understand and fulfill your demands 24/7 in London, UK, freeing you time to focus on what you like in life. Let us save your time.
The Company
Æ is a dynamic start-up business based in London. The staff will consist of fresh minded students on one hand and experienced concierges on the other, creating a bridge between flexibility and professionalism. Continuous training of our employees and a growing network of hotels, restaurant, events and lifestyle service contacts, enables us to understand and elaborate your wishes thoroughly and react fast and personalized.
Vision
Æ is aiming to become market leading concierge service company in London. We want to provide the most complete range of services on the market and provide the best quality at affordable prices.
Mission
The mission of Æ is to provide the customers with whatever type of legitimate service they wish. We place the customers in the center of our attention and provide them assistance with the aim of exceeding their expectations each time they use our service. Our employees share this values and find the ideal conditions to transform them into their profession at Æ. The workplace we provide is giving the employees pride and responsibility in their contributions, which empowers them to do their best.

Ownership
The company will be co-owned in three equal parts by the founders Marcel Hanke, Holger Dieske and Florian Furkes. Holger Dieske (Chief Executive Officer)H. Dieske has experience in the service and gastronomical sector, having been Chef de cuisine at well-known Brasserie am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin. At his current position as a student trainee at Daimler AG in Berlin he is gaining further experience in customer orientation and the corresponding business processes. H. Dieske will reach his BA in Business Administration 4/2014 at HWR. | Marcel Hanke (Chief Financial Officer)Working as an accountant at Messe Berlin GmbH, M. Hanke brings the necessary knowledge make a company profitable and control the results. He also gained experience in logisticst during his military service at the German navy. H. Dieske will graduate in Business Administration BA in 9/2012 from the Berlin School of Economics and Law. | Florian Furkes (Chief Marketing Officer) F. Furkes is currently working as a Key Account Manager at Imoinvest International Ltd. where learned to know the London market and to focus on customers. During his previous traineeship at Siemens Spain sales dept. he gained experience in client acquisition and marketing. F. Furkes will achieve his BA in Business Administration in 9/2012 at HWR. |

Financial Considerations
Assistance Everywhere Concierge Service's start-up costs will include all the equipment needed for the London-based office, legal fees, website creation, and start-up advertising. The projected growth rate for Æ is over 100% per year, with strong operating margins. Æ expects to generate profit of 1,2 Mio by year 3. The equity provided by the owners of AE will amount 90,000. Additional 500,000 will be needed through a loan.
Market Overview

Professionals today have less free time than they used to, so they started to use concierge services to do necessary tasks for them. These tasks can be unpopular as e.g. public office appointments, time consuming as e.g. housekeeping or just too time consuming to fit in a workday as e.g. pet-sitting. While some companies already offer parts of the full range of concierge services, they typically specialize in a part of it only, e.g. house cleaning and do not offer the entire range of services that the customers need. In the eyes of the customers it is complicated and time consuming to have to hire several different companies for their services. Furthermore many of these companies have complicated pricing models. Æ can provide a complete range of concierge services at a transparent and reasonable rate.

Customer Information

Æ targets people who need service during the day but do not have the time to perform necessary tasks. We will service individuals as well as companies who recognize the value in having someone else do tasks that they do not have the time for or, after a cost/benefit analysis, decide it is not worth their time to complete the task.
We are focusing on professional individuals economically situated in the upper middle-class and upper-class. Our customers are occupied most of their day on their jobs and intend to maximize their daily hours of performance and self-fulfillment. Therefore they prefer hiring and paying a concierge service than using their performance or leisure time to do these tasks.
We will also be targeting companies because they have a large number of employees who would find a concierge service attractive as a part of their compensation package, and the employer would prefer to pay our service to perform the employee's task, allowing the employee to stay at work and remain productive. Even though we will offer the companies a discount over our standard hourly rate, our revenue will continue to increase because we will see an increase in usage without the normal costs of attracting the individual customers. We would bill the corporation monthly, decreasing the labor costs for processing the invoices. The target customers will be found in the south west of London, as this is the area with the highest average incomes.
London Income Map

Source: http://www.londonprofiler.org/
Market Information

The concierge industry in London is a traditional sector and very established. There are currently ca. 30 companies in London which offer various concierge services combined, primarily to individual households. Apart from that there are numerous companies, self-employed persons or individuals that offer one or two services as e.g. house cleaning or baby-sitting. The concierge services target foremost upper-class customers and have high prices. The self-employed or companies that only offer one kind of service target upper middle-class clients. The first kind of companies as well as the house cleaning companies have rather high prices and often complicated price models. The individuals and self-employed have reasonable prices, but cannot provide the quality and professionalism of a company. These services are listed under "errands & miscellaneous service" in the yellow pages.

Product/Service Information

The center of Æs offer is a complete and comfortable to use concierge service with an easy-to-understand pricing model. This is linked to local knowledge, a professional approach, and a fast response time to customers demands.
Æ will provide a wide range of services for our customers; they will wonder how they lived without us.
• Housekeeping and interior decorating
• Dinner, hotel and event reservations
• Pet-sitting, maid services and baby sitting
• Locating hard-to-find items and collectibles
• Public office tasks and appointment scheduling
• Gift and Grocery Shopping
• Car and home-PC repair

Objectives

The company goals are to become the number one assistance/concierge service in London on the mid-term. This goal is derived from our vision/ mission statement and implicates the target to provide premium service for our customers, to provide 24 / 7 availability and to have simple pricing with subscriptions and just two different prices for on demand calls. The objectives for the first, three business years in which we still are depending on borrowed venture capital are concretised below.
The key objectives for Æ for the first three business years are: (1) To gain a market share of 30% in the concierge service sector within the next six months, by marketing the high quality and the completeness of the services in a way that has big appeal to the target customers. This market share will be increased to 50% during of the first year. At this level of market share the business will provide substantial income and return on investment. (2) To expand and optimize the range of provided services by using economy of scale effects and developing supplier contacts. During the first year to have a minimum of thirty subscribed clients as well as 20 clients, using one time services repeatedly. The business will generate a minimum of 500,000 £ over the first year from subscriptions and one time services. (3) Within three years to be recognized by customers as well as non-customers as a reliable concierge service in London. To have gained funded reputation by being nominated service awards for the sector and the region. To deliver an income of 1,200,000 £ per year after three years of operation.

Strategy
SWOT analysis
Strenghts
* unique combination of services * high flexibility * customer orientation * price model
Weaknesses
* unskilled / part time labour * strategic planning & coordination of staff * start up
Threads
* high costs in london * similar single services available * no acceptance / confidence
Opportunities
* growing market for luxury products * individualism * demographic situation

As obvious in the matrix above there are different factors inside and outside the company that have influences on the business. The most positive factor of Æ company itself is the unique combination of single services to a range of services, that is not available in London by now. Another strength is the simple pricing model. Compared to the existing and kind of confusing pricing of our market competitors, we have a transparent model of just three different prices for all of our services.
We also figured out a few factors that can be seen as possible weaknesses of the company. Being a start up company with a new product or service is a weakness every company has to face in its beginning. A staff intensive service provider as Æ always bears certain risks in strategic planning of working hours and personnel planning. We reduce these risks to a minimum by planning with a buffer that let gives us the possibility to react on the requirements of our market very fast and at optimalized costs.
The environment of Æ gives it a lot of opportunities to succeed with our business. The most important fact for a first class service is that the market for luury products has been growing for years and still does. Our target market group of wealthy people with jobs that require a lot of time at work enlarges every year. A demand for individual services is growing as well. People want a value and expect to be treated as kings and queens not as a one in a mass.
There are a few possible threats that may harm the company from the outside. First of all you have to get into the market, which means you need acceptance of your possible customers. Æ also has to face the high costs in london compared to other cities or countries in the world. As we know, some of Æ’s services are provided as single services by other companies. This creates the task to convince our customers that it is better to have all these things done by one reliable company that they know and can trust.

TOWS matrix
After having found out, what inside and outside influences Æ has to deal with, we are able to derive some strategies from that to strengthen the company. We can improve our work with these strategies not only by combining strengths or opportunities, but even through weaknesses and threats. You can have a detailed view on these possible strategies in the TOWS-matrix below.

S
T
O
W
combine existing services to one luxury service which is efficient, transparent, reliable for the customer create acceptance and confidence in Ǽ by living the company’s commitment to first class service and have a transparent price model as well communicating the advantages of an overall service from a single company like Ǽ and the more simple price system compared to the competitors using the demographic situation by giving jobs to skilled and experienced elderly people (e.g. in the housecleaning department)

Product

The main products of the company are the services mentioned under 2.3. Besides that, Æ will set up a stock for the 10 most frequently required goods, which will be determined empirically during the 6 first months of business. Until then the stock will be equipped with white shirts in different sizes, different wines, champagnes, flowers, jewellery, ready-made cakes, cat and dog food, candles and baby toys.
Pricing

Prices for have been set in the middle of the market. The client base is seen as in the mid to higher socioeconomic sector. Pricing scheme is based on a weekly or monthly subscription, which includes services calculated per hour or on a one time service. As there is not a high level of seasonality, prices are set the same year round except for special events (Easter, Christmas / New Year) when a 10% surcharge is applied. The company plans to bill its clients on a monthly rate for subscriptions and an hourly rate for one-time-usage. For subscriptions, the monthly rate is reduced by 10% if the duration of the contract is one year.
1 subscription = 599 £ / month
1 subscription 12 months = 539 £ / month
1 corporate subscription for 10 persons = 4,990 £ / month
1 delivery service (one-time) = 22.95 £
1 general service (one-time) = 59.95 £
The pricing schedules are targeted to encourage monthly and weekly subscriptions as well as maximize the income from customers who don’t want to be bound in a contract. The discounts given for one year subscriptions and gift vouchers worth 50 £ for recommending Æ to new customers should drive our business.
Distribution

The products and services will be delivered to the customer by the company’s employees. They will move by public transport as well as by car and scooters. During the first year of business the service will be limited to the west and central of London, however the area will be extended to entire inner city of London during the second year and to entire London in the third year.
The clients are contacting Æ by calling our service number, with a mobile app on their smartphone or through our website.
Marketing

Website:
The use of the internet is essential in providing information and access to www.assistance-everywehere.co.uk A fully functioning site will be developed that will enable potential clients to explore the offered services and prices online. The site will have a form to subscribe online.
Search Engines Optimisation:
To maximise the discoverability of the website www.assistance-everywhere.co.uk will arrange for links with the key internet search engine sites.
These will include:
Social Networks: www.facebook.com/assistance.everywhere
Yellow Pages: www.yell.com/assistance-everywhere www.yellowpages.com/assistance-everywhere www.thephonebookoftheworld.com/ae London.opendi.co.uk/assistance-everywhere

Advertising:
Following the opening of head offices in London, advertisements will be placed in the local press presenting the company and offering special deals for local customers wishing to take the services.
Advertisement will also be placed in the Christie’s International Real Estate magazine with an offer of a 10% discount for members showing their voucher code. Paid advertorial will also be placed in this magazine highlighting the company as a reliable and high quality concierge service in London.
Public Relations:
Two weeks prior to starting business, the major lifestyle (Great British Magazine, Cocorose, Life & Style) and real estate magazines (Christie’s International Real Estate, London Property, The London Experts) will be invited to use unlimited services of the company. This is done on a free of charge basis.
On the 1st of August the head offices will open to the public with a Vernissage in the office rooms, where champagne, wine and beer is served. Two Berlin artists will display their works.
Promotions:
A high quality multi-folded brochure will be promoted and distributed to all offices and sporting clubs within 5 km of the head office. In addition, 10.000 one side printed flyers will be placed in the mailboxes of residential buildings within the area.
Branding:
All documents and information placed into public hands will have a uniform look and express the superior kind of services offered and the good quality the company stands for. The branding should leave the impression of elegancy and sophistication.
This branding will be reflected also in monogrammed uniforms for the staff, consisting of a black blouson, black shoes, black pants, white shirt and a black tie.

Operational Plan

A successful concierge service business depends not only on location and quality of service but on how it is delivered. The tactics for this, require a very professional and direct approach to the target customers. However, this should not be pushy or forced, but constructive and sympathetic to the clients needs to “relax from his daily problems”. The customers will be approached with simple clear information and polite and friendly staff. The use of electronic answering machines will be kept to a minimum and all direct interactions should be at a one-on-one level where possible. Response time to enquiries will be measured in minutes not hours and the use of “we will get back to you” will be avoided.
Budgets

Financial Plan | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | | start up capital | | | | | | | | | | owner's group capital | 90,000 £ | | | | venture capital | 500,000 £ | | | | company capital | 0 £ | 365,402 £ | 411,936 £ | | total start up capital | 590,000 £ | 365,402 £ | 411,396 £ | | | | | | | | | | | | costs | | | | | general costs | | | | | office rent | 25,000 £ | 25,000 £ | 49,000 £ | | office interieur | 13,000 £ | 1,500 £ | 6,800 £ | | cellphones | 4,900 £ | 3,600 £ | 3,600 £ | | | | | | | cars (5 Mini Clubman) | 105,000 £ | 42,000 £ | 24,000 £ | | scooter (10 Piaggio nrg) | 20,000 £ | 4,500 £ | 5,200 £ | | | | | | | fuel | | | | | diesel (@ 1,40/litre) | 3,375 £ | 10,300 £ | 11,400 £ | | unleaded (@ 1,35 £/litre) | 109 £ | 293 £ | 342 £ | | | | | | | cleaning utensils | 9,800 £ | 11,200 £ | 12,700 £ | | suits | 12,000 £ | 3,000 £ | 3,000 £ | | | | | | | advertising, PR & homepage | 25,000 £ | 18,000 £ | 12,000 £ | | | | | | | staff | | | | | management | 90,000 £ | 216,000 £ | 252,000 £ | | employees | 117,450 £ | 365,780 £ | 432,050 £ | | students | 50,625 £ | 145,250 £ | 171,630 £ | | call center India | 32,000 £ | 76,800 £ | 76,800 £ | | | | | | | taxes & insurances | | | | | vehicles | 27,000 £ | 32,000 £ | 34,500 £ | | staff | 22,735 £ | 29,550 £ | 39,790 £ | | | | | | | total costs | 557,994 £ | 984,773 £ | 1,122,812 £ | | | | | | | | | | | | income | | | | | subscriptions | 30 subscriptions = | 40 subscriptions = | 60 subscriptions= | | 1=599 £ / month | 89,850 £ | 287,520 £ | 431,280 £ | | on demand calls | 945 hours /month each | 1200 hours / month each | 1600 ours / month each | | 59,95 £ for general services | 283,263 £ | 863,280 £ | 1,151,040 £ | | 22,95 £ for delivery services | 108,438 £ | 330,480 £ | 440,640 £ | | | | | | | income per year | 481,551 £ | 1,481,280 £ | 2,022,960 £ | | | | | | | receivables paid in current year 90% | 433,396 £ | 1,333,152 £ | 1,820,664 £ | | 10% of previous year are paid | 0 £ | 48,155 £ | 148,128 £ | | | | | | | Total | 465,402 £ | 761,936 £ | 1,209,761 £ | | | | | | | returned venture capital (in December) | 100,000 £ | 350,000 £ | 150,000 £ | 600,000 £ in 29 months = | interest rate | | | | 8.275% p.a. | company savings | 365,402 £ | 411,936 £ | 1,059,761 £ | |

Marketing Budget Item | Completion Date | Cost | Measure of Success | Website build | 1st July | $ 6,000 | Number of hits at 2,000 per month | Paid search engine advertisement to increase exposure | 18th July | $ 1,000 | All sites listed carrying web link | Cost to pressure test operations | 5th July | $ 500 | Smooth performance of Æ | Five color brochure printed and distributed throughout the region | 18st July | $ 6,000 | All sites carrying information in prominent location | Advertisement in magazines | 18st July | $ 4,500 | Monthly slot secured for five months. Advertorial accepted | Newspaper advertisement for local paper | 25th June | $ 1,000 | Featured on page 3 | Site hosting and maintenance costs | 1st July | $ 4,000 | Secured and feature on first page of Google search | Grand Opening | 1st August | $ 2,000 | 200 people in attendance | TOTAL | | $ 25,000 | |

Action Plan Action | May | June | July | August | September | Who | Development of website | 21st | | | | | M.Hanke | Prepare logo and brand – order stationary | | 1st | | | | F.Furkes | Link website to SEO sites | | 15th | | | | M.Hanke | Open website to public | | 15th | | | | M.Hanke | Pressure test operation with family and friends | | 16th | | | | H.Dieske, F.Furkes, M.Hanke | Visit all local magazines | | 15th – 21st | | | | H.Dieske | Place advert in magazines | | 21st | 21st | 21st | 21st | H.Dieske | Introduce business to local groups and other businesses. Distribute brochure and special offers. | | 21st – 30th | | | | F.FurkesM.Hanke | Prepare newspaper advert and place in local paper | | 23rd | | | | H.Dieske | Web specials to be released on sites | | 25th | | | | M.Hanke | Invited writers and publishers week | | 25th -30th | | | | H.Dieske | Grand Opening of Æ | | | 1st | | | H.Dieske, M.Hanke. F.Furkes | Republish brochure | | | | 15th | | F.Furkes |

Supporting Documentation

Attachment 1: Opening Balance Sheet

Attachment 2: Profit and Loss Projected Profit and Loss Account of Assistance Everywhere Concierge Service Ltd. | | as at 31st December 2012 | | | | | Revenues | | 481,551 £ | Expenses | | | Office rent | 25,000 £ | | Fuel | 3,484 £ | | Cleaning utensils | 9,800 £ | | Suits | 12,000 £ | | Advertising | 25,000 £ | | Salaries/Wages | 290,075 £ | | Taxes/Insurances | 49,735 £ | | Depreciation | 13,971 £ | 429,065 £ | | | | Net Income | | 52,486 £ | Income Tax Expense (20%) | | 10,497 £ | Profit for the year | | 41,989 £ |

Attachement 3: website screenshot