Core competence

Healthy and Tasty is an innovative food provider company dedicated to changing the health quality of the citizen through testy and healthy diet. The aim of this service is to bring the optimum diet practice in the regular life of citizens. The business will offer various types of food with appropriate nutritious balance as per the health condition of the consumers (Wellalage and Locke 2012). The consumer will be also able to choose several subsets of services of food packages where the company will provide healthy food regularly in appropriate schedule recommended for the consumer’s health condition and targets.

Healthy and Tasty will provide the special food service within the metropolitan market of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The target consumers are the health conscious middle and upper middle class citizens who want to maintain a simple and healthy food consuming schedule while enjoying the pleasure of consuming testy food. As per the demographic segments the target consumers are mainly 30 to 60 years old who needs a regular healthy and nutritious diet. The Unique Selling Point (USP) will be “change your life with nutritious as well as Tasty diet”.  This USP will help to gain the consumer focus while motivating them towards the offered services.

The core competence of the Healthy and Tasty depends on the human resource, information system and financial resources. To invest in the processed food market of Sri Lanka the company will need the effective labour force, which will have enough knowledge to organise and execute profitable marketing and sales strategy while communicating with the consumer base (De Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff 2013). For physical evidence Healthy and Tasty will need more in depth knowledge about the socio-cultural perspective of the Colombo as well as their purchasing and decision making behaviour. Physical evidence initially will depend on the choice of food dishes and the flavour preferences. Throughout the process the aim and the USP of the business should be prioritise by each employee of the organisation (Carraher and Van Auken 2013). The logistics is another major part of the physical components of competence. Effective negotiation strategy can help the organisation to negotiate with best suppliers of the Sri Lankan market. For this Healthy and Tasty can collaborate with various retailer of the local and national level market.

Throughout the process the most essential part is human resource planning and their deployment strategy. At the initial stage, equal distribution of human resource will be the most profitable strategy, where the organisation can recruit new and talented workforce form the local labour market while distributing them equally in several departments namely marketing, sales, logistics and others. For developing the products more acceptable by the consumers local and national level competent and proficient chiefs and cooks will be recruited. Quality of foods and basic inputs will be the main concern (Deegan 2013). The company will also offer fast and scheduled home delivery service for which efficient commercial transportation will be required (Alagathurai 2013).

In this section, the external or macro factors will be analysed with respect to the market and environment of Colombo and overall Sri Lanka. For in depth environmental analysis the PESTLE analysis method has been chosen and for analysing the competitive market the Porter’s 5 force method has been chosen.

P	Political	Sri Lanka is a democratic, socialist republic and a unitary state where the government system follows a semi-president system, a combination of parliamentary and precedential system. The political environment of Sri Lanka is stable where most of the political parties support the international level investment in the national market (Siddique, Selvanathan and Selvanathan 2012). At the same time the restaurant and food market have not faced any obstacle from the political system.
E	Economic	Sri Lanka is a fast growing middle-income country while having a gross domestic output of 64 billion USD. The GDP is 158 billion USD. The per capita income of this country is 2440 USD where the GDP has been increased 16.3% from 2013 to 2016 (Ajanthan 2013)
S	Social	The employment level of Si Lanka is continuously increasing where 92.5% has helped the national labour market to be skilled and educated. The mortality rate is low however, the mortality due to diabetes is constantly increasing. Apart from that the overweight, obesity and physical inactivity of average male is 10% and female is 22% (Verbeke 2013).
T	Technological	In transportation Sri Lanka, has ground, air and water facilities. In ground transportation, the country has 1500 Km railways and 12000km A and B class road network (Goger, 2013). At the same time Sri Lanka has 2 million internet user the cellular subscriber base is increasing by 110% in every year. More than 7 billion SUD has been invested in technological research and development in 2016 (Niresh 2012).
L	Legal	Legal structure, especially trade low of Sri Lanka is complex and mixed. The labour policies and regulation of the nation is strong and highly effective. The commercial investment and taxation legislations are very strongly imposed specially form international trading purposes.
E	Environmental	The Central Environmental Authority is regulated the environmental regulations of the country which also imposed the national carbon emission threshold in 2016. Sri Lanka is surrounded by sea, that makes the atmosphere moist however the potentiality of water pollution is very high.

External Environmental Analysis

Considering the fact that the food industry of the nation is highly congested, there prevails huge competition in the mentioned industry. The fast food restaurant industry posses various firms of varying sizes and compromises about 43.2 percent of the food industry (De Mel, McKenzie and Woodruff 2012). Along with competition, high aggressiveness exists between the food and restaurant companies.

Since, the Healthy and Tasty Company offers consumers with a products and service which is unique, the threat from substitute of the company is low. The concept of the company is to deliver food products to consumers keeping in mind their health weight, diseases if any and their preferences (Hoyle, Schaefer and Doupnik 2015).  Since, this concept is new in the food industry of Colombo, the Healthy and tasty company has no risks from the threat of substitute.

In order to enhance the GDP and globalize the food industry, the government of Colombo has loosened the rules and regulations for new entrance in the mentioned industry. As a result of this, a good number of international fast food chain and restaurant chains have opened their outlet in Colombo (Pratheepan and Yatiwella 2016). However, considering the fact that the investment cost needed for opening an restaurant in the mentioned industry, the threat for new entrance of the healthy and tasty company is moderate. Another factor responsible for that is the uniqueness of its products.

Considering the fact that the food industry of Colombo is highly saturated , there prevails a lots of option for the suppliers to offer their raw materials. Hence, the power of the suppliers in the mentioned industry is high. Suppliers have the potential to highly influence the quality as well as productivity of the mentioned industry.  Moreover, the number of suppliers compared to the demand is low (Bharadwaj et al. 2013). This in turn has enhanced the power of suppliers to a considerable level.

As being mentioned earlier, the concept of the Healthy and Tasty company is completely new for the population of Colombo (Jayawardena et al. 2013). This is because, the mentioned company is the first one to offer the consumer with food, based on their health and diet plans. Since, the Colombian population with the emergence of globalization is getting inclined towards a healthier lifestyle, the demand of the company I assumed t be high. Hence, it can be easily understood that the power of the suppliers will be low.

The strategic formation by analysing the streangth, weakness, opportunities and threat will improve the potentiality of the strategic business improvement for Healthy and Tasty.

Strength	Weakness
Healthy and testy has innovative idea of presenting the foods to the target customers, which is very exceptional and has high potentiality to be admired.	Healthy and Tasty has lack of knowledge about the new market and consumer base of Sri Lanka It is a start-up business, therefore the initial investment cannot be very high Being a start-up company it has no infrastructure (Katila and Wahlbeck 2012)
Opportunity	Threat
The economical growth supports this innovative business to be flourished (Hartmann et al. 2014). The increasing number of diabetic, obese patients can increase the demand of the specific service provided by the company	The political and legal structure of the country is not preferable for starting a food and restaurant industry (Scholes 2015) Being a new comer the company may have to suffer from highly competitive supplier negotiation situation

Conclusion:

Healthy and Tasty will provide the special food service within the metropolitan market of Colombo, Sri Lanka.The core competence of the Healthy and Tasty depends on the human resource, information system and financial resources. Throughout the process, the most essential part is human resource planning and their deployment strategy. Healthy and Tasty will provide the special food service within the metropolitan market of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The strategic formation by analysing the strength, weakness, opportunities and threat will improve the potentiality of the strategic business improvement for Healthy and Tasty. The external or macro factors will be highly essential to regulate the overall market environment in Colombo. Being a new comer the company may have to suffer from highly competitive supplier negotiation situation.

Strategy formulation

References:

Ajanthan, A., 2013. The relationship between dividend payout and firm profitability: A study of listed hotels and restaurant companies in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 3(6), pp.1-6.

Alagathurai, A., 2013. Determinants of capital structure: evidence from hotel and restaurant companies in Sri Lanka.

Bharadwaj, A., El Sawy, O., Pavlou, P. and Venkatraman, N., 2013. Digital business strategy: toward a next generation of insights.

Carraher, S. and Van Auken, H., 2013. The use of financial statements for decision making by small firms. Journal of Small Business & Entrepreneurship, 26(3), pp.323-336.

De Mel, S., McKenzie, D. and Woodruff, C., 2012. One-time transfers of cash or capital have long-lasting effects on microenterprises in Sri Lanka. Science, 335(6071), pp.962-966.

De Mel, S., McKenzie, D. and Woodruff, C., 2013. The demand for, and consequences of, formalization among informal firms in Sri Lanka. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 5(2), pp.122-50.

Deegan, C., 2013. Financial accounting theory. McGraw-Hill Education Australia

Goger, A., 2013. The making of a ‘business case’for environmental upgrading: Sri Lanka’s eco-factories. Geoforum, 47, pp.73-83.

Hartmann, P.M., Zaki, M., Feldmann, N. and Neely, A., 2014. Big data for big business? A taxonomy of data-driven business models used by start-up firms. A taxonomy of data-driven business models used by start-up firms.

Hilal, M., Ismail, M. and Mohamed Mubarak, K., 2012. Market orientation adoption strategies for small restaurants: a study in the Eastern Sri Lanka.

Hoyle, J.B., Schaefer, T. and Doupnik, T., 2015. Advanced accounting. McGraw Hill.

Jayawardena, C., McMillan, D., Pantin, D., Taller, M. and Willie, P., 2013. Trends in the international hotel industry. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 5(2), pp.151-163.

Katila, S. and Wahlbeck, Ö., 2012. The role of (transnational) social capital in the start-up processes of immigrant businesses: The case of Chinese and Turkish restaurant businesses in Finland. International Small Business Journal, 30(3), pp.294-309.

Niresh, J.A., 2012. Trade-off between liquidity & profitability: A study of selected manufacturing firms in Sri Lanka. Researchers World, 3(4), p.34.

Pratheepan, T. and Yatiwella, W., 2016. The Determinants of Capital Structure: Evidence from Selected Listed Companies in Sri Lanka.

Scholes, M.S., 2015. Taxes and business strategy. Prentice Hall.

Siddique, A., Selvanathan, E.A. and Selvanathan, S., 2012. Remittances and economic growth: empirical evidence from Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Journal of development studies, 48(8), pp.1045-1062.

Verbeke, A., 2013. International business strategy. Cambridge University Press.

Wellalage, N.H. and Locke, S., 2012. Ownership Structure and Firm Financial Performance: Evidence from Panel Data in Sri Lanka. Journal of Business Systems, Governance & Ethics, 7(1).

Callen, M., De Mel, S., McIntosh, C. and Woodruff, C., 2014. What are the headwaters of formal savings? Experimental evidence from Sri Lanka (No. w20736). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Chwolka, A. and Raith, M.G., 2012. The value of business planning before start-up—A decision-theoretical perspective. Journal of Business Venturing, 27(3), pp.385-399.

Hart, M.A., 2012. The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Eric Ries. New York: Crown Business, 2011. 320 pages. US $26.00. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(3), pp.508-509.

Jones, C. and Penaluna, A., 2013. Moving beyond the business plan in enterprise education. Education+ Training, 55(8/9), pp.804-814.

Nirajini, A. and Priya, K.B., 2013. Impact of capital structure on financial performance of the listed trading companies in Sri Lanka. International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications, 3(5), pp.1-9.

Shoji, M., Aoyagi, K., Kasahara, R., Sawada, Y. and Ueyama, M., 2012. Social capital formation and credit access: Evidence from Sri Lanka. World Development, 40(12), pp.2522-2536.