Running Head: Strategic Plan, Part I: Conceptualizing a Business

Strategic Plan, Part I: Conceptualizing a Business
Name
BUS/475
Teacher Name
March 28, 2011

Introduction Mission, vision, and value statements are critical factors that act as guiding principles for an organization’s strategic initiatives. Organizations build their corporate, business, and tactical strategies and objectives. The given paper is a descriptive analysis of mission and vision of Ace Gym, and how these statements help Ace to differentiate itself from its competitors. In addition to that, the paper also discusses about Ace’s values, which are governed by its mission and vision statements, and how these values inherently guides the company’s strategic directions, which in turn will help the company to satisfy its stakeholders, increase profitability, and differentiate itself from competitors.
Analysis
The business plan is to develop an online Gym, named as Ace Gym. This Internet business will provide value added services to its customers, by charging them one dollar a month to get daily fitness tips tailored to their needs. It will include a trainer who will interact with the customers, gather their health related data, and prepare a health schedule for them. The trainer will also monitor their diet and exercise schedule by using an automatic attendance system.
Mission Statement
· Industry: Online Service Industry --- Specialization: IT and Health
· Product: None
· Service: Health and exercise tips on weight training, diets, and supplements.
· Customers: Health conscious customers who either are too busy to go regularly to an actual gym, and use internet search for finding health related tips.
The mission statement of Ace Gym will guide the overall purpose of the company, in terms of what products and services it will offer, who will be the Gym’s target customers, and how and why Ace Gym will do it. The Gym will continuously update its mission statement so as to track its progress, remain dynamic to serve customer needs, and be proactive to tackle competitor’s moves (SBN, 2008). Following is the Mission Statement of Ace Gym (CARI, 2007):
Mission Statement: To develop digital channels that will make easy for health conscious customers to monitor and manage their health effectively. The online gym will provide interactive, cost-effective, and productive sessions by well-trained professionals.
Vision
Ace Gym’s mission statement will help to motivate the employees to make use of opportunities available in the online and ecommerce markets. The convincing vision statement will help employees to feel proud about the ways in which Ace is bringing out positive change in lives of its customers.
Following is the Vision Statement if Ace Gym:
To provide customers with free, fast, and personalized health services.
Values and Guiding Principles The core value of Ace Gym revolves around the belief that in today’s high pressure working environment where people do not get any time for exercise, everyone needs proper guidance and professional training to formulate and follow an exercise routine. Ace gym looks to satisfy these requirements by providing a virtual environment build around the internet, which is not only safe and sane but also provide interactive world-class professional health related guidance. Ace Gym firmly believes that technology can be collaborated with health consultancy to target a large segment of customers, who are looking for a fast and efficient guidance for workout. The founder of Ace Gym looks to provide these services at a competitive price of $1 per day, which can be born down by a large health-conscious segment of people.
Organization’s Strategic Direction In the future, Ace Gym looks to achieve horizontal and vertical growth expansions. After becoming profitable, Ace Gym wants to take-over other established player in the same industry. The Gym also looks to build partnership with other Gym’s like Gold Gym, to get functional and technical know-how. The name of Ace Gym should be synonymous with speed, accuracy, and professionalism. Anyone can login in the Gym’s website portal, and get instant access to world-class health related assistance.
The Ace Gym aims to:
§ Tie up with popular portals like Yahoo and Hotmail, to communicate and advertise about this new concept.
§ Increase business share in local market by advertising by small-scale acquisition of health websites and recruiting professional health trainers.
§ Using SEO, Search Engine Optimization tools.
§ Advertise on online social media such as YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr.
Satisfying Customer’s needs and Achieving Competitive Advantage The number of customers providing the same service is very less in number. This is still a blue market, where the possibilities for growth are limitless. The company needs to understand the fact that because of low entry barriers and good growth opportunities, the number of competitors will grow in the future, this is where differentiation strategies comes in. Ace Gym will try to differentiate itself by creating a long-term value for both customers and the company. In order to increase brand presence, number of online visitors, and operation profitability ratio, Ace Gym will extensively engage in both offline and online marketing and advertising activities. Customer will be given additional services for registration and buying a bulk package. The website can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere around the globe, customers can work out in privacy, where there will be no waiting time like in other real Gyms. Ace Gym enjoys a distinctive competitive advantage when it comes to very low operational cost, interactive sessions, functional experts, and around the clock accessibility. The services provided by Ace Gym are highly customized, catering to the needs of individual customers. Ace Gym will be managed by a team of managerially and technically qualified individuals. The Gym will need high quality online tools and presence of well qualified health professionals, who can flawlessly interact on web with customers. Initially Ace Gym will lack information and data storage space, costly online tools, and presence of well known professionals from the healthcare industry, but with growing in the number of customers by well directed online advertising, word-of-mouth promotional schemes, and satisfied customers, Ace Gym will soon be a pioneer in the online healthcare/exercise industry (Small Business, 2008). To run the business, Ace Gym will require good relationship with technically qualified individuals, online advertisers, and qualified healthcare professionals. The organizational structure of Ace gym will be largely based on Matrix model, wherein technocrats and health professionals can work on close cohesion. The structure will be flat, with low degree of organizational hierarchy. Ace Gym will also look to provide employee satisfaction, by giving them options of flexi-working hours, wherein employees can work from home/office at their own suitable time.

Conclusion
Mission and vision are primarily governed by company’s personalized values. In order to be successful, it is imperative for a company to develop long-term and robust mission and vision statements, which will not only provide a blueprint for the employees to work, but will also help the company to develop a brand name of its own. A thorough analysis of the given paper is an apt example of the importance of mission and vision statements in business development and growth.

References
Small Business Notes or SBN (2008), “Mission, Vales, and Vision,” Referenced on March 27, 2011 from http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/planning/mission.html
Gym Business (2008), “Gym Business Management,” Referenced on March 27, 2011 from http://www.thegymbusiness.com/gym-business-management/
CARI (2007), The importance of organizational mission and vision,” Referenced on March 27, 2011 from http://www.ecdc-cari.org/docs/Mission_Vision.pdf