• Posted on July 17, 2023
• Unique Submission Team

7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

INTRODUCTION

Strategic business planning is a technique used to ensure and enable business growth and development through developing a realistic vision of the organization’s future. In simple terms, it can be said that it is a basic of success of a company in the future.

Strategic business planning can be defined as creative steps and logical series to ascertain the long-term business goals ranked by their significance (Grover et al. 2018). http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment SampleIt is a complicated procedure of gathering information, evaluating the input data, and directing the external and internal assessment of the available resources of the company.

PART 1: STRATEGIC TECHNIQUES IDEAS AND TOOLS AND REVIEW OF MAIN TOOLS

 

As stated by Pulleyn, (2019), strategic planning models or tools are designed in such a way that it helps the organizations to formulate their action plan in such a way that it will help in achieving business goals.  To run the business effectively, there is a need to set up strong strategic planning.

Thus, the business can take maximum benefit of strategic planning by increasing the productivity of employees, helps in ascertaining the strengths and weaknesses of the company, and set directions for the business and nurturing a proactive business (Berisha Qehaja et al. 2017).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

There are several different tools given by marketing experts on strategic business planning including SWOT analysis, balanced scorecard, GAP planning, Porter’s five forces, Blue Ocean strategy, VRIO framework, Hoshin Planning, and many more. But only some of these models are mentioned in this report and these are

SWOT analysis

As stated by Wilkinson, G., & Monkhouse, E. (2014), SWOT analysis is used to assess the possible strength and weaknesses of the company.  This tool is useful to assess where the company stands strong and where there is a need to work upon the possible weakness encountered in the process. (Paroutis et al. 2015).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

The SWOT analysis is mostly used in the strategic planning method by the company which is useful to assess where the company would face the issue and where it needs to improve to mitigate the possible issues in the process.

The major assessment tools used in strategic business planning including SWOT analysis, Porter’s generic strategies, and others so which will help in identifying the internal competencies in terms of the external environment. Strategic business planning plays a significant role in ensuring the social and financial development of the company (Cascio, 2015).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

As stated by Taghavifard, et al. (2018).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample As per the views of Maccoby, M., 2015, by using the SWOT analysis tool it becomes easy for the organization to implement a certain strategy.

The Strength of the SWOT reflects the details of the main imperative strategy and how a well certain company is gaining momentum in the market.  The Weakness of the SWOT tool denotes the key imperative factor of drawback which needs to be overcome.

The opportunity section reveals where the company needs to focus to expand its business for the distant future. it assists in identifying whether the objective is achieved or not, where taking the increase in the number of sales of transportation services shows that the objective is achieved.

The final part of the SWOT analysis tool is its Threat which shows the rival’s offering which needs to be undertaken by the company to sustain its business in the long run.

Therefore, it is inferred that using different strategic planning tools along with the SWOT analysis tool to assess the internal weakness and strengths is the imperative part of the business success.

Porter’s Five forces

It is revealed that Porter’s generic strategies are also a useful tool to access the external environmental factor. This model is given by Michael Porter in 1980 and describes how companies can get a competitive advantage in the industry by selecting the right strategies.

This model gives three different strategies that help in gaining a competitive advantage in the industry.  The first part of this model is cost leadership. As stated by Kazemie, et al.  (2018), it is evaluated that the meaning of cost leadership is to gain a competitive advantage by lowering the cost of the services or products.

As per this model, it is evaluated that the main suitable strategy to target those customers where the competition is very high is porter model cost leadership. The organization can target small clients who give more importance to the pricing factor and this is the best strategy to cater to their needs.

The main concentration of this strategy is easy accessibility and affordability of its services that result in sales growth, brand awareness and even provides a strong competitive advantage to the company. However, as mentioned by Islami et al. (2020), this strategy can be implemented by reducing its service cost and maximizing the efficiency of the supply chain. Sales coupons, offers, and discounts work well to achieve the target of sales and managing the competitive pressure by its rivals.

Another strategy is product differentiation strategy whereby using this method, the company could easily differentiate its product in the market as compared to other clients.  As per the views of Alzoubi and Emeagwali, (2016), in the product differentiation strategy, the organization achieves the differentiation strategy by combining it with cost leadership.

The meaning of this strategy is to provide unique services or products to the customers. The strategic objective of applying this strategy is to differentiate its services by including innovation in its services. For instance, it has been identified that there is a change in the perception of its clients that they will prefer green transportation thus, by catering to the needs of these customers it can expand its current clientele base.

Further, the differentiation strategy can also be built by including aspects in its strategy like making use of the brand logo to create a different image of the company, celebrity endorsement, advertisement and marketing will also help in achieving the objective through differentiation strategy.

The third strategy of this model is the focus strategy which concentrates on using the resources in the particular niche or narrowly targeted segment. As per the views of Omsa et al. (2017).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample Organizations can adopt this strategy in terms of both offering the best value and low cost. It is based on catering to the needs of the particular niche through its lowest price of services.

However, the best value can be achieved by delivering quality services to its customers and meeting the tailored needs. Thus, it requires immediate changes in the service delivering services to make the psychological expectations of the customers satisfied and then they can maximize the money value.

Balance scorecard approach

Another strategy in the model is called the balances scorecard strategy. As stated by Abdel-Basset, M., Mohamed, M., & Smarandache, F. (2018), A balanced scorecard (BSC) is a management system and strategic planning tool where it is mainly used to communicate what an organization trying to attain, prioritizing services, products, projects, aligning the routine task with strategy, measuring and controlling the progress towards attaining strategic targets (Nørreklit et al. 2018).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample However, in balance score card strategy, the following points are considered.

Objective: The core objective of company is to deliver excellent services to its customers

Measures: It assists in identifying whether the objective is achieved or not, where taking the increase in the number of sales of transportation services shows that the objective is achieved.

Initiatives: This section will describe the required action programs that helped in achieving the objectives where the company’s Transportation decided to provide more customized and tailored services to its clients (Madsen and Stenheim, 2015).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

The balanced scorecard of any company is developed by using the table and this table covers all important aspects which must be accomplished. However, below is the example of the Balance scorecard approach

Categories	Objective	Measures	Initiatives
Financial	Increase in the revenue of a company	Increase in net profit	Providing tailored services to customers
		Decrease in expenses
		Increase in overall revenue
Customers	Low transportation prices	Cutting expenditure	Customer experience survey
	Targeting particular niche	Understanding the requirement of a particular niche
	Comparable to other travel	Providing discounts and offers
Internal processes	Increasing cliental base so that routes will be decreased and can reduce the operating expenses (Keyes, 2016)	Differential services	Employees experience survey
	Providing training to the workforce	Arranging training sessions for them
Organizational capacity	Optimally utilizing the organizational capacity to achieve the strategic objectives	Using different strategic planning tools to assess the internal weakness and strengths	Evaluating the performance of the organization in the content of meeting the requirement of customers
	Taking optimum utilization of technology, human capital, and infrastructure	The employees, infrastructure, and technology must be kept updated	Providing training to employees and all essential tools in terms of equipment, technology, or infrastructure to them

 

The above table shows only some “views” on the balanced scorecard. But when the balanced scorecard is applied systematically in a company then it will give high-level details to the company on selecting the measures and initiatives and further allowed them to implement those strategies in the business operations.

Even at a single glance, it gives the reader a idea on the company’s objectives, its associated initiatives, and measures to check whether the objective is attained or not. As stated by Kniazieva, T., Kolbushkin, Y., & Smerichevskiy, S. (2017), The BSC model suggests that an organization must give emphasis mainly on these four different aspects to help formulate objectives, targets, measures (KPIs), and initiatives associated with those views.

Financial resources provide a view on the current financial performance and how the company is making use of financial resources. Customers view the performance of the organization from the customer’s perspective. Internal process views efficiency and quality of company’s performance in terms of services. And organizational capacity views technology, infrastructure, and human capital as essential for maintaining performance.

 

 

Part 2: PREPARING WIKI CONTRIBUTION

Definition of business planning

According to the dictionary of business, it is said that the determining process of any commercial objective, aims, strategies, and project actions are called the business planning process.

At last, it can be said that the definition of business planning refers to the plans, growth, project risk, sell mitigation, and so on. There are four basic steps of the business planning process. Deciding on the next step, this step refers to identifying the aim and the purpose which must be achieved.

According to Schlegel et al. (2020), it is a common strategy to hit a goal it needed to be planning from before. After making sure what the goal is, it is easy

to create an effective and successful plan because a plan which has no goal acts like charting a course for nothing. Determining the procedure is a step that has helped as a strategy to acquire targets.

Tactics and game plans have been set with a proper working process that directly influences business. The proper process of business has smoothened the path of the workers to achieve the target of the company.

The employees have experienced first-hand knowledge that is helpful for the customer of the business as the employees are capable of solving any critical problem.

Recommendation

• The business planning process helps in keeping the company on the right track so that the company can set priorities according to its necessity, applying methods that can appoint more time and effort for success (Shanin, 2020).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample
• The tool for regular monitoring of what is happening and if it is expected or not is a part of a good business planning process. It sets anticipation and monitors results. According to Yakovleva, (2017) this theory shows both sides of a company like it shows the good work and the faults also. It helps in developing accountability.
• Every business keeps planning about the liquidity of cash but sometimes it is enough to calculate profit. But in the time of sale, purchasing some assets, paying off debts, are increasing the task of cash flow. In the case of this flow, it is very important to plan and manage the cash of any company.

 

Reference

iedunote.com. 2021. Iedunote. Available at: https://www.iedunote.com/strategic-planning-process [Accessed on: 1.06.2021]

pinterest.com, 2021. Pinterest. Available at: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/391109548875103682/ [Accessed on: 1.06.2021]

Schlegel, A., Birkel, H.S. and Hartmann, E., 2020. Enabling integrated business planning through big data analytics: a case study on sales and operations planning. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management.

Shanin, I.I., 2020. Approach to improving business planning methodology using furniture company example. European Journal of Natural History, (1), pp.5-8.

slideshare.net, 2021. SlideShare. Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/ialwaysthinkprettythings/business-planning-process-13536112 [Accessed on: 1.06.2021]

Yakovleva, Y., 2017. Effective Business Planning: Case Study: Company X

PART 3: ROBUST CHECKLIST

The robust checklist for Pulleyn Transportation is to check the quality of services delivered to the customers. Thus, this checklist will be completed by inspecting the performance of the employees and the suppliers if any before delivering the services to customers.

An effective quality control checklist fulfils this purpose. This checklist helps in ensuring that the services delivered by Pulleyn Transportation are meeting the needs of the customers, meeting the quality standards, following the guidelines given by the state government, and so on (Wicherts et al. 2016).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

Apart from checking the quality of services delivered by Pulleyn Transportation, it is essential to identify the issues of the business plan so that the purpose of Pulleyn Transportation will be achieved through its business plan and these are discussed below:

Company Overview

This section will give a short overview of the history of the company i.e., how and when the company is formed. Further, includes the past accomplishment which can be used as the best indicator for future success. This section must include all the important milestones the company achieved to date.

Industry analysis

The transportation industry of the UK is not highly volatile, but it is important to know about the characteristics and trends found in the industry so that it will help in changing the business strategies and actions.

Further, the relevant market size hold by Pulleyn Transportation is very less due to a lack of resources to attract maximum customers and targeting other markets. The focus of Pulleyn Transportation is on targeting those clients who are price conscious and prefer tailored services.

Customer analysis

The issues in terms of meeting the needs of the customers will be done through two ways i.e., accessing the target customers and identifying their needs. The Pulleyn Transportation is much sure about its target market that there will be business clients who deals in transporting goods from business to business, further they must belong to two geographical locations i.e., Europe and UK.

Apart from this, the needs of each customer are tailored where they need to understand the specific needs of the customers and provide their services accordingly (Köhler et al. 2020).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample However, collecting and recording the tailored and customized needs of the customers manually is a very complicated task for Pulleyn Transportation, due to lack of financial resources to invest in technological up-gradation make the company lacks in meeting the needs of the customers.

Competitive analysis

The competition in the transport industry of the UK is received directly as well as indirectly from the companies. There are certain companies where the company is getting direct competition includes Alplas Ltd, Tara Road Air Ltd. and also others. Direct competitors become a more challenging threat to the company because they are selling similar products to customers.

Whereas indirect competitors fulfil the needs of the customers in different ways. However, the strategies taken by these companies must be evaluated so that they can further be used by Pulleyn Transportation Ltd. to gain a competitive advantage in the industry.

Marketing plan

Pulleyn Transportation Ltd. is providing transport services to its customers at competitive pricing but still, it was not able to maximize its profitability. Hence, to gain a competitive advantage in the industry, it is suggested to the company that it must work on reducing the expenses that occurred in business operations and lower the prices of services so that it can take advantage of cost leadership (Alizadeh et al. 2016).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

Further, there is no such promotional or advertising strategy adopted by Pulleyn Transportation, hence, the customer base can be expanded by giving appropriate discounts and offers to customers. Further, the distribution plan of the company relates to delivering timely services to the customers which can also become an important tool for gaining a competitive advantage in the transport industry.

Operational plan

The operational plan is the routine operation performed by Pulleyn Transportation to achieve its objectives. The core value of the company is to deliver quality, efficient and flexible services to the customers. W0hich require a talented and competent workforce.

Hence the competencies of employees are ensured by arranging training and learning programs for them so that it will improve their capabilities in terms of the requirement and expectation of the employer.

The second section of identifying the issues in the operational plan is to set a milestone of the activities which includes different activities and how these activities will be achieved (Haaker et al. 2017).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

 

Management team

As mentioned above that Pulleyn Transportation is a small family business, hence the team members of management include family members. However, it cannot be said that all these management team members possess the required management skills, hence it is recommended that the management team must work on increasing their knowledge on managing the business activities.

Financial plan

As mentioned above that the current performance of Pulleyn Transportation is affected due to a lack of financial resources. The company must implement a revenue model where it described the sources of revenue and better utilization of the revenue.

Further, it must prepare different financial statements including balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, etc. to gain knowledge on the revenue. Further, there is no description on arranging the source of income, hence, it must be included in the business planning that how they will meet the requirement of finance.

Supporting documentation

The analysis of the company’s current position and the issues faced by them in achieving the business plan must be supported with proper supporting documentation so that it will help the reader or associated stakeholders like, customers, employees, or other stakeholders to know the issues faced by the company and the associated strategies to overcome these issues or challenges (Cao et al. 2016).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

The robust checklist suggested for Pulleyn Transportation helped to organize thoughts and helped in getting answers to the questions that assist in expanding the business and ensure the growth of the company successfully.

PART 4: BUSINESS PLAN ASSOCIATED WITH ITS STRENGTHS AND LIMITATION

 

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. Business Plan

(https://www.bplans.com/general-motor-freight-trucking-business-plan/)

 

COVER PAGE

 

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. currently does not develop any cover page for its business plan. It begins with a general overview through an executive summary and this plan is of the transportation company.

However, it is known that a cover page provides general detail of the business plan to the reader, but there is no detail given to contact the company.

TABLE OF CONTENT

The business plan of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. includes a table of content that shows the list of items mentioned in the business plan. This is only a checklist and did not include any detailed information about the topic.

The page number of each section is mentioned in front of it so that it looks professional and helps the reader to understand the content.

Start-up summary

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. delivers transportation services. The offering of the company includes temperature-controlled storage and transport, events, orchestral tours, installations, exhibitions, as well as machinery relocation services. All these vehicles are fitted with superior quality security devices and a satellite tracking system to make sure that all its consignments are always secured (Pulleyn, 2018).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

With the initial investment, the company’s sales, gross margin, and profit from the first three years have been shown below. After operating in the European market, the business seeks to grow its additional bases of operations to the whole UK and further added other services in its current service portfolio.

Company ownership

The company was started in 1976 and this is founded by Adrian Pulleyn. As mentioned above that Pulleyn Transport Ltd. is a family business where it is operated by Adrian and his sons i.e. Ryan & Scott who involved in the business and hold the position of Directors in the company.

They had the responsibility to manage their respective teams, the company believes in employing experienced and dedicated staff and drivers and having a 55-strong fleet of vehicles that are tailored to prove the ambient transportation

 

Figure 1: sales, gross margin, and net profit

[Source: BPlans, 2018]

COMPANY OVERVIEW

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. is specialized in controlling the transportation temperature, pharmaceutical, chilled, and frozen, and other unusual loads or products in Europe and the UK.

The company’s new warehousing facilities provide independently measured temperature zones to different ranges of goods and products including medical, pharmaceutical, frozen food, antiques, fine arts, musical instruments, hazardous materials, veterinary supplies and many more.

Security is the first important pillar of Pulleyn transport Ltd. where it linked the security to ADT alarms in case of emergency callouts and is directly associated with Thames Valley Police.

The requirement of cash will be used to add funds in its business operations before the breaking down of cash flow and helps the company to make sure that there are sufficient cash reserves to minimize the risk of running down on cash if the goals are not met. The chart of the company is attached in appendix 1 which shows the initial asset and expenditure of the company.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. was started in 1976 and this is founded by Adrian Pulleyn. It provides transportation services. It aimed to cater to the needs of Europe and the UK with its transportation services. After the first three years of business operations, Pulleyn Transport Ltd. will seek to achieve the following objectives:

• Fulfil the tailored needs of the customers of Europe and the UK
• Purchasing 8 18-wheeler trucks
• Hiring 15 full-time truck divers
• Achieving the sales target of 1 million miles of haulage in the third year

Key to success

Following are certain points that ensure the key to the success of the transport business and these are:

• Conducting regular industrial analysis to know more about the industrial trends and modifying the business activities accordingly
• In the context of business operations, the company established a strong communication system between clients, bases, and drivers (Podsakoff and Podsakoff, 2019).
• Providing tailored services to the clients and make them satisfied.
• Hiring as well as retaining reliable, experienced, competent and safe drivers
• Understanding the needs of the clients and their expectations from the company and then further aiding them to find the best distribution solution to build and maintain a long-term relationship with them.
• Making changes in the current marketing plan as per the market trend and catering to the needs of the targeted audience.

THE PRODUCT

The company’s novel warehousing amenities deliver independently measured temperature zones to diverse ranges of things and products counting pharmaceutical, medical, antiques, frozen food, musical instruments, fine arts, veterinary supplies, hazardous materials and many more. It mainly provides transportation services as per the requirement of the product.

STRATEGY AND IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. will concentrate on its strategy which is developed in the following areas:

• Increasing and maintaining the company’s reputation to meet the industrial trends and average revenue of the transport industry.
• Targeting manufacturers and clients of the UK and Europe through its attractive marketing strategies.

Strengths and weaknesses

The formulation of strategy and its implementation is done after considering the industrial trends hence the company gets the advantage of developing its reputation and position in the market.

However, considering its other side it has been found that while developing the strategy the company did not consider the internal capacity of the company in terms of resources and human capital which can be proved as a major disadvantage to the company (Capello and Kroll, 2016).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

MARKETING ANALYSIS AND STRATEGY

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. tries to create awareness about the company in the target market in the first year of starting the business. However, in the initial years, the company seeks to develop its position in the market not only an as inexpensive carrier but to establish its image as the best-on-time record services along with providing the most customized and tailored services to customers to help them in managing their logistics better. The marketing strategy of the Pulleyn transport Ltd. includes certain strategies and these are:

• Advertising about its services in the trade publications
• Providing most customized and tailored services to its targeted audience.
• Adopting competitive pricing as per industry and achieve cost leadership by reducing its operating expenses
• The distribution plan includes safe, secure, and timely delivery of services to its customers.

Strengths and limitations

When the current marketing strategy of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. is compared with its competitor’s marketing strategy then there are various shortcomings found in the strategy. The company’s marketing strategy is not viewed as an appealing one, it is because it does not spend much on promotional activities.

There is a requirement of increasing the budget on promotional activities like public relations, participating in conferences, direct mail to raise awareness about the services (Clauss, 2017). http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample
On the contrary to this, the strength of the marketing plan of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. is that through its pricing strategy it will become capable of targeting more target audiences. The cost leadership strategy not only facilitates in cutting the cost and increasing the profitability of the company but also assists in making a distinct position in the industry.

SALES STRATEGY, SALES FORECAST AND MARKETING PLANS

Ryan & Scott manages the business operations and sales of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. where they are working at the position of directors and are responsible for making appointments and converting leads into potential customers and even, they travel across Europe and the UK to make a relationship with clients and understanding their expectations and needs for transportation (Terho et al. 2015).http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment Sample

Further, the cost of sales is mentioned here, and it is for per-mile shipping which is about 25% for the fuel based on the projected 10mpg for trucks and another 25% for the labour hours of a truck driver. Hence, the cost of sales is expected to be very less as it includes only maintenance and set-up labour for the hourly operators (appendix 2).

Achievement of the needs of the targeted audience

The sales figure of the three subsequent years directed that the company is able to fulfil the needs of the targeted audience. However, the table also shows that the unit sales and prices of the services are also increased accordingly but in terms of company’s expenses it did not increase at the same rate or it can be said that it is increasing at the lower rate.

Thus, it is a sign that the company is ablZe to increase its profitability and if this amount is invested in the business operations, then it means that it becomes more capable to meet the needs of the customers in a better way. This will result in an increase in the current customer base of Pulleyn Transport Ltd.

OPERATIONS

It has been mentioned in the operational plan of the company that it spends hugely on providing training and learning to its employees so that they will ensure the quality services delivered by them. They are arranging different training sessions and learning programs for their employees.

Apart from this, in the personnel plan, the salary given by Pulleyn Transport Ltd. to truck drivers and other staff not only includes the wages which are not computed by the contribution done by them in completing the client’s job. The salary of all employees is computed after considering repair work, training, return from deliveries as well as all other requirements associated with empty trucks (Tarhini et al. 2015).

MANAGEMENT AND TEAM  

As identified from the above discussion that the company is founded by Adrian and is further managed and operated by his two sons i.e., Ryan & Scott. They both are the directors of the company and they manage the strategic directions as well as the marketing and sales strategy of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. they both have sufficient experience in all important areas of management, logistics, and warehousing.

The company is a small family business where they believed in providing safe, secure, and better-quality services to its clients (Syam and Sharma, 2018). http://7BE001 Strategic Business Planning Assignment SampleHowever, it must be brought to the notice that the company’s administrators and marketing/ sales associated are hired casually when the company felt their requirement. The personnel plan of the company’s employees is attached in appendix 3.

Strengths and limitations

When identified from the previous section that it cannot be surely said that these management team members will have all necessary qualities and capabilities of managing the operations of the company and this is considered as the biggest disadvantage to the company.

Thus, it is recommended to them that they must learn on developing their management and operational skills so that they will perform better in the market. Further, the strength of operating a small family business is that the decision-making process becomes quick, further, any change in the company’s strategy or policy will be immediately implemented by the employees, staff, and truck drivers.

FINANCIAL PLAN

Pulleyn Transport Ltd. started its business operations with only three trucks and funded all business activities with the owner’s capital. The company begins its operations a debt-free which left the company with no or minimum cash for other operating activities. Profits of the company will swing positive in the next year of starting a business after incurring a loss in the initial year.

But after operating for three years, the company started to sustain the growth of a minimum of three extra trucks each year. However, the company needed cash for managing its routine activities and purchasing similar other equipment for better operations.

Assumption of this financial plan

It has been assumed that the cost of fuel is taken as an average of the last two years which is usually more than the current fuel prices. It has been considered that a conservative evaluation as it is possible that fuel will be at the lower level to this number mainly when the company is at the start-up stage. hence, when the price of the fuel will increase it will lower the gross margin of the company.

Strengths and limitation

As identified in the previous section of this report that the insufficient financial resources affect the operations of the company. Also, through the analysis of the financial plan, it has been found that the company did not take any borrowings and all its business operations are carried out with the owner’s financial resources which are not sufficient.

However, the company takes a small borrowing of $ 5,000, but this small amount is not sufficient to carry out other operations. The financial plan is lacking important financial statements like balance sheet, cash flow statement, etc. which make it less effective.

On the contrary to this, concentrating on the strength of the financial plan, it has been identified that the company’ did not borrow a loan or other liabilities which means that the whole profitability of the company will be used by the company and owner only.

FUNDING

The majority of funds for this business are arranged through savings of the owner and selling their previous business. Additional investment comes from his two sons who involve in the management team of the company. The start-up funding of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. is shown in appendix 4.

PROJECTED PROFIT AND LOSS

Most of the expenses of the company comprise of:

Payroll: this includes the wages of the truck drivers, staff, and management

Promotion/marketing: in the starting three years, the company decided to spend more on the marketing activities so that it will create awareness among the targeted audience.

Depreciation: it is reflected through growing investment in equipment and trucks over the year. The method used to depreciate the trucks is a straight-line method and it is calculated on 10 years.

Repair or maintenance of truck and equipment: the expenses of the company will increase from the first year to the third year where it is estimated to be $ 200 per month in the first year while, $ 225 in the third year.

CONCLUSION

This business plan included the appendices at the end of the business plan that Supports the information given above. This whole business plan gives a general view to investors and business stakeholders that how the company will operate. It included all essential information for the business plan along with the strategies suited as per the market conditions and demands.

APPENDICES

The business plan also includes appendices at the end of the document that supports the information provided above. The supporting documents include a sales forecast, personnel plan, profit and loss statement, and general assumptions made to ensure the success of the business plan.

SUMMARY

The report of strategic business planning can be summarized by explaining this concept that it is a technique that is used to measure the growth and development of the company over a particular time. However, there are several tools given by the marketing experts to evaluate the strategic position of the business in the industry.

But this report only covers three tools i.e., SWOT analysis, balanced scorecard, and porter’s generic strategies for assessing the capabilities and position of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. In the transport industry of the UK.

In addition to this, it also included the WIKI contribution of the company that will assist the employees of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. to understand the values, policies, evaluation methods, and other important aspects that affect them.

The third section of this report included a robust checklist to assess the issues while making the business plan and the last section of the report included a critical analysis of the components of a business plan of Pulleyn Transport Ltd. along with their strengths, limitations and identifying whether it is effective enough to meet the needs of the targeted audience.

REFERENCES

Alizadeh, R., Lund, P.D., Beynaghi, A., Abolghasemi, M. and Maknoon, R., 2016. An integrated scenario-based robust planning approach for foresight and strategic management with application to the energy industry. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 104, pp.162-171.

Alzoubi, A.M. and Emeagwali, O.L., 2016. Do generic strategies impact performance in higher educational institutions? An SEM-based investigation. Business and Economic Horizons (BEH), 12(1232-2017-2388), pp.42-52.

Berisha Qehaja, A., Kutllovci, E. and Shiroka Pula, J., 2017. Strategic management tools and techniques usage: A qualitative review. Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 65(2).

BPlans, 2018. General Motor Freight Trucking Business Plan online available at https://www.bplans.com/general-motor-freight-trucking-business-plan/ last accessed on 12^th March 2021.

Cao, K.K., Cebulla, F., Vilchez, J.J.G., Mousavi, B. and Prehofer, S., 2016. Raising awareness in model-based energy scenario studies—a transparency checklist. Energy, Sustainability and Society, 6(1), pp.1-20.

Capello, R. and Kroll, H., 2016. From theory to practice in smart specialization strategy: emerging limits and possible future trajectories. European Planning Studies, 24(8), pp.1393-1406.

Cascio, W.F., 2015. Strategic HRM: Too important for an insular approach. Human Resource Management, 54(3), pp.423-426.

Clauss, T., 2017. Measuring business model innovation: conceptualization, scale development, and proof of performance. R&D Management, 47(3), pp.385-403.

Grover, V., Chiang, R.H., Liang, T.P. and Zhang, D., 2018. Creating strategic business value from big data analytics: A research framework. Journal of Management Information Systems, 35(2), pp.388-423.

Haaker, T., Bouwman, H., Janssen, W. and de Reuver, M., 2017. Business model stress testing: A practical approach to test the robustness of a business model. Futures, 89, pp.14-25.

Heimbuch, S. and Bodemer, D., 2019. Effects of the Need for Cognitive Closure and guidance on contribution quality in wiki-based learning.

Islami, X., Mustafa, N. and Latkovikj, M.T., 2020. Linking Porter’s generic strategies to firm performance. Future Business Journal, 6(1), pp.1-15.

Keyes, J., 2016. Implementing the IT balanced scorecard: Aligning IT with corporate strategy. CRC Press.

Köhler, T., González-Morales, M.G., Banks, G.C., O’Boyle, E.H., Allen, J.A., Sinha, R., Woo, S.E. and Gulick, L.M., 2020. Supporting robust, rigorous, and reliable reviewing as the cornerstone of our profession: Introducing a competency framework for peer review. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 13(1), pp.1-27.

Maccoby, M., 2015. Strategic intelligence: Conceptual tools for leading change. Oxford University Press, USA.

Madsen, D.Ø. and Stenheim, T., 2015. The Balanced Scorecard: A review of five research areas. American Journal of Management, 15(2), pp.24-41.

Nørreklit, H., Kure, N. and Trenca, M., 2018. Balanced scorecard. The international encyclopedia of strategic communication, pp.1-6.

Omsa, S., Abdullah, I.H. and Jamali, H., 2017. Five competitive forces model and the implementation of Porter’s generic strategies to gain firm performances.

Paroutis, S., Franco, L.A. and Papadopoulos, T., 2015. Visual interactions with strategy tools: Producing strategic knowledge in workshops. British Journal of Management, 26, pp.S48-S66.

Pifarré, M. and Li, L., 2018. Characterizing and unpacking learning to learn together skills in a wiki project in primary education. Thinking skills and creativity, 29, pp.45-58.

Podsakoff, P.M. and Podsakoff, N.P., 2019. Experimental designs in management and leadership research: Strengths, limitations, and recommendations for improving publishability. The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), pp.11-33.

Pulaj, E., Kume, V. and Cipi, A., 2015. The impact of generic competitive strategies on organizational performance. The evidence from Albanian context. European Scientific Journal, 11(28).

Pulleyn, 2018. About us online available at https://pulleyn.co.uk/about-us/ last accessed on 12^th March 2021.

Pulleyn, 2019. Specialist Transportation online available at https://pulleyn.co.uk/specialist-temperature-controlled-transportation-logistics/pulleyn-specialist-transportation/ last accessed on 12^th March 2021.

Syam, N. and Sharma, A., 2018. Waiting for a sales renaissance in the fourth industrial revolution: Machine learning and artificial intelligence in sales research and practice. Industrial Marketing Management, 69, pp.135-146.

Tarhini, A., Ammar, H., Tarhini, T. and Masa’deh, R.E., 2015. Analysis of the critical success factors for enterprise resource planning implementation from stakeholders’ perspective: A systematic review. International Business Research, 8(4), pp.25-40.

Terho, H., Eggert, A., Haas, A. and Ulaga, W., 2015. How sales strategy translates into performance: The role of salesperson customer orientation and value-based selling. Industrial Marketing Management, 45, pp.12-21.

Wicherts, J.M., Veldkamp, C.L., Augusteijn, H.E., Bakker, M., Van Aert, R. and Van Assen, M.A., 2016. Degrees of freedom in planning, running, analyzing, and reporting psychological studies: A checklist to avoid p-hacking. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, p.1832.