Business Plan

Smooth Drinks Limited is a Non-Alcoholic Beverages or NAB company. This organization includes soft drinks and hot drinks. The soft drinks, commonly known as cold drinks, constitute of several non-carbonated or carbonated water, a sweeter and a distinct flavor (Ashurst, 2016). The classification of soft drinks is dominating the non-alcoholic beverages industry and it involves energy drinks, bottled water, juice, sports drinks and readymade tea and coffee. The soft drinks are known as Liquid Refreshment Beverages or LRBs.

The report outlines a brief description of the business plan of the Smooth Drinks Limited  Company. The business plan comprises of the major components of Smooth Drinks Limited company like the company description, industry analysis and trends, strategic position and risk assessment (Gollenia, 2016). The business plan also covers the competition, target market and the marketing plan and sales strategy of Smooth Drinks Limited Company. The following report also covers an ethics and social responsibility plan of the company.

Company Description

Smooth Drinks Limited is a non-alcoholic beverages company. This organization widely includes hot drinks and soft drinks. Hot beverages include tea and coffee. Soft drinks or commonly known as cold drinks, constitutes of carbonated and non-carbonated water, a sweetener and a distinct flavor (Sharma, 2012). This particular category of soft drinks is leading the market of non-alcoholic beverages industry. Smooth Drinks Limited includes energy drinks, sport drinks, juice, carbonate, and bottled water and readymade tea and coffee. The main mission of this company is to make healthy drinks, which can be consumed before and after exercises (Gollenia, 2016). The product will have low sugar count that will be beneficial for both athletes and patients.

Industry Analysis and Trends

Non-alcoholic beverage drinks is a leading marketing industry in modern world. The leading brands in this industry are Pepsi and Coca Cola. The sales of these companies make billions each day (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014). However, they face challenges and threats in the market. The products contain high sugar and thus they were not good for the patients and athletes. Smooth Drinks Limited made a plan to serve drinks with low sugar content and can even be taken in leisure (Sholtis et al., 2013). There is a major challenge to make position in the current market so, Smooth Drinks Limited opted to venture in the niche market of energy drinks. The company believes that by using the correct program of marketing, they will be able to grow its revenue by 6% every year. Industry analysis is a technique, which makes the position understanding of a company smoother and faster. Smooth Drinks Limited has done their analysis of industry by understanding their position in the market in comparison to other companies making similar products (Wheelen & Hunger, 2017). In this case, the companies are Pepsi and Coca Cola.

Strategic Position and Risk Assessment

The strategy of a particular business is defined by strategic positioning. It shows how well the company is competing and serving the customers in the market. Smooth Drinks Limited has done their strategic positioning by distributing their products to the right market (World Health Organization, 2012). Distribution is the only way out to sell their products to the right customers. They are making sports drinks. Therefore, they will utilize sports events as a distributing channel. The company will at first sponsor the sports events and after wards sell their products to the targeted customers (Hollensen, 2015). The major reason behind this is that once the athletes have known the products, they will be interested in becoming regular customers.

Revision of Main Components

Risk analysis or risk assessment is done on the three significant threats that Smooth Drinks Limited will face in its operations. The three risks are as follows:

i) Technological Hazards: The main challenge that the company may face is due to the insecurity of the technical equipments and data (Ni Mhurchu et al., 2013). They should hire proper experts to advise on this problem.

ii) Regulation: The Company would handle the food items and this poses a great challenge on control. Another important aspect would be the cleanliness of the company.

iii) Competition: Competition is another risk for any company (Sharma, 2012). The industry has many players and it will not be easy to get the market share from these big companies.

Target Market

The target market for Smooth Drinks Limited depends on the customers of the company. To know their target market, the company has to do a market survey. They should access the local market and the people living nearby. The factors that are kept in mind to assess the local market are the gender, income, ethnic groups, educational level and many more (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, 2012). The target of this company is the middle class people as they have the tendency to buy such beverages on a higher note. Income rate plays an important role for these people and this is beneficial for the non-alcoholic beverage industry. The most encouraging information for this industry is the market intelligence (Parrott, 2014). According to Euromonitor International, the total number of middle class people will be on higher position. The educational level of the middle class people is another major feature of the market target. People with lesser income will accept the lower prices of the beverages served by Smooth Drinks Limited (Ni Mhurchu et al., 2013). Age factor is another major factor for target market. The youth generation and the children get more attracted towards these drinks than the older age group. They should do their marketing in such a way that the product should reach all the youth generation.

The comprehensive community of the United States and the people of various countries like Mexico, South or Central America, Cuba and Puerto Rico together constitute the Hispanic groups (McGrath, 2013). According to statistics, these Hispanic will increase their power of buying to at least 1.5 trillion dollars by 2015. It is a huge rise and extremely beneficial for the market of any company especially new companies.

Competition

The market leaders for soft drink industry are the Pepsi and the Coca Cola companies. Market competition is extremely high for any new company like Smooth Drinks Limited. The necessity for perfect marketing will increase the customers in a huge amount (Gollenia, 2016). The big fishes in the industry are the Monster Beverage Corporation and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. These companies have maintained their position with their amazing advertising and marketing strategies (Parrott, 2014). The other competitors of Smooth Drinks Limited will be Nescafe, Fanta, Tropicana, Sprite and Red bull.

Company Description

The strategy that has to be taken by the company is the advertising and branding of their products. The main focus should be given on the qualities of the products and safe packaging. Social networking sites and advertisements in television channels can do advertising (Levy & Slavin, 2013). They will have to compete against their competitors, as it will be difficult to match them. They will have to be dependable on the niche markets and the demographic audience.

Marketing Plan and Sales Strategy

The marketing plan of any company is to sell their products. Smooth Drinks Limited has the strategy to target the middle class people and sell their products to them. The message of the company is to serve healthy drinks to their customers (Kirchmer, 2012). The main strength of this company is their availability of clients, their stable distribution channel and superior quality products than the niche market. As Pepsi and Coca Cola are already ruling the soft drinks industry, Smooth Drinks Limited is focusing on energy drinks. This is their marketing plan. Their sales strategy is to sell their products to the sports persons and the youth generation (McGrath, 2013). This strategy will help them to achieve their objectives.

The ethics and social responsibility plan of any company refers to the work ethics and how the company is giving benefits to the rest of the world. Smooth Drinks Limited is making beverages but with perfect quality (Jo & Harjoto, 2012). The health of their customers are not getting affected for their drinks. They are keeping in mind about the patients and the athletes as well. They are maintaining a perfect ethical and social responsibility.

Smooth Drinks Limited is a non-alcoholic beverage company serving hot drinks and cold drinks. The primary goal of this company is to reach to the middle class customers, who cannot afford to drinks of high prices (Hopkins, 2012). This company also focuses on the quality of the products and the health of their customers. This company has made their strategic plan in such a way that they follow an ethics and social responsibility plan (Kim, Park & Wier, 2012). They have started giving jobs to all individuals even with lower educational qualification. They do not segregate individuals on the basis of gender, caste or religion. This is extremely important for all organization (Hartman, DesJardins & MacDonald, 2014). The people who did not have jobs earlier are getting jobs because of them.

The company is following all the necessary laws and rules of the government regarding sales and marketing. If any kind of mishaps occur with any customer due to their products, they will take complete responsibility (Dhaliwal et al., 2012). These legal steps will stop the company workers to do any illegal task. The marketing department, the finance and the sales departments, all of them have to maintain the rules and at according to the laws. Any kind of misconduct can lead them to prison.

The employees and the staff members are treated with honesty and fair means, so that they do not feel isolated and discriminated (Bardy, Drew & Kennedy, 2012). They get proper salary on time. Smooth Drinks Limited is famous for their treatment towards the employees. This positive treatment is good for the social life on all employees. According to work ethics, it is the responsibility of both employer and the employee to behave properly (Crane, Matten & Spence, 2013). The company always tries to make the staffs happy with good facilities and good hike in salaries. The employees are motivated in this way.

Industry Analysis and Trends

Smooth Drinks Limited is hiring employees from all places. This will reduce the discrimination amongst the employees and they will work with full motivation (Aguinis & Glavas, 2012). They are hiring people irrespective of their caste, creed, religion, age and gender. All the employees are working together and with similar facilities. This is increasing cultural diversity in the company, which is extremely important for all organizations (Cheng, Ioannou & Serafeim, 2014). Another major benefit of this mass recruit is that people are learning how to work in groups and they are getting socially involved with each other.

Conclusion

Therefore, from the above report it can be concluded that, smooth Drinks Limited is making non-alcoholic beverages and they are maintaining proper business plan for it. The business plan comprises of company description, the competition, the target market and the strategic plans of the company. The report also covers the ethics and social responsibility plan of Smooth Drinks Limited.

References

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