PDP Group - Business Plan

For this project we need to produce a business plan. Each member of the group have been given a section to write, here are the sections I produced.


Business plan (Vienna's Sections)

Contact and Social Media Details

Name: UCM

Strapline: Unlocking Creative Minds

·      Address: Priory Street,

    Coventry

    CV15FB

·      Email: ucm@gmail.com

·      Phone: 024 7777 2727

·      Website: ucm.co.uk

·      Facebook: UCM Enterprise

·      Twitter: @ucmenterprise

·      Instagram: @ucmenterprise

·      Hashtag: #creativeminds

We are a social enterprise design agency based in the UK. We believe in the creative minds of those who do not have access to creative facilities. We aim to help the creative minds in less economically developed countries (LEDC’s) by giving people the opportunity to learn a creative skill which will help them gain a career. Some people are more creative than others, everyone deserves the opportunity express their selves.

We will achieve our goal by using a percentage of the income of every project we undertake to go towards building art classes and internet cafes. These will all be equipped with the full Adobe Suite in order to help the creative minds of the less fortunate and help themselves make a living through creative design. We are committed to setting up this business because we believe in equal opportunity along with making a positive impact in the world. If our business is successful, we will be able to achieve new job opportunities for others and a better knowledge of the creative industry.

To make our business successful, we need to be creating a network of contacts, funding to help start the business up, an understanding of traditional design along with modern-day design, clients to allow for a steady income and an action to plan.

We are Graphic Design students at university looking to help others as well, as gaining experience within the industry. The experience and qualifications we have as a team is versatile. We have qualification’s in Money and Finance, Business and education in the art and design sector.  All these attributes are helpful however, we will also need additional training for the job opportunities that will arise as we being to build classes and internet cafes in the selected countries. Additional training needed will be management, training in Adobe Creative Suite and Teacher training. This is something we will have the finance for as we gain more clientele.

Action Plan

There are multiple steps we need to undertake before we set up during and after. Here is a brief overview of the main steps we need to take.

·       Register our business name (UCM – Unlocking Creative Minds)

·       Set up contact information

·       Produce a marketing strategy plan

·       Allocate roles within the team

·       Government accounts, licenses and insurance (Professional Indemnity Insurance)

·       Marketing: Produce promotional merchandise (posters, business cards, advert ect)

·       Professional support

·       Assign desired start and end date

·       Plan when certain milestones should be achieved

·       Allocate money and time

·       Work space

·        Produce briefing documents for the public domain and people that work for us in LEDC’s

·       Produce website and social media accounts

Estimated Set up cost: £6,000

·       This estimation does not include wages and a location however, it does include computer cost, a printer/scanner and software (Microsoft, Adobe CS ect). There will also be ongoing payments such as; website domain name and hosting, telephone, internet and Professional Indemnity Insurance (I have only estimated a one-off payment rather than the total over a year).

Key risks

With every business start-up, there are risks. These risks need to be assessed beforehand so there is a plan to think the majority of the issues as they arise. The key risks for setting up our business are:

·       Not producing enough profit (High risk): if we are not gaining enough financially as a student design agency, we will start to produce merchandising products such as stationary. The stationary we produce will be environmentally friendly to help promote our aim of making the world a better place.

·       Employees not working abroad (medium risk): the people we employee abroad may not be efficient in their work. Due to this we will need to hire mangers and manger assistants to help make sure everyone does their job efficiently.

·       Dangers abroad (medium risk): if we are sending people aboard, we will have to look into health care and insurance to ensure there will be no risk to anyone’s health.

Funding plan

There are multiple ways that we can get funding. We will need funding for the start-up and when we begin building internet cafes aboard. How we can get our funding is from other companies such as ‘Kickstarter’ (https://www.kickstarter.com/) and ‘Angel Investors’ (https://www.angelinvestmentnetwork.co.uk). Both of these companies are a platform that allows you to pitch your idea to connect with investors. People can see what we aim to do and decide to support us by helping with funding or, offering helpful services. This is something we could do as a design agency to help fund the start-up of our business. Other forms of funding can be a loan or help from friends and family.