INTRODUCTION TO

BUSINESS

[COMPANY NAME]
[Company address]
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Table of Contents
1 Introduction...................................................................................................................................2

1.1 Outline of the Business Venture............................................................................................2

1.2 Research.................................................................................................................................2

1.3 Business Type........................................................................................................................3

2 Business Plan................................................................................................................................3

2.1 Marketing Mix Analysis........................................................................................................3

2.1.1 The Product and Services................................................................................................3

2.1.2 Pricing Strategy...............................................................................................................4

2.1.3 Place................................................................................................................................5

2.1.4 Promotion........................................................................................................................5

2.2 Employees/Staff.....................................................................................................................6

2.3 Customers/Clients..................................................................................................................7

Future Plan.......................................................................................................................................9

3.1 Business Expansion Plan.......................................................................................................9

References......................................................................................................................................10
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1 Business Plan:
Every business initiative needs a proper roadmap to plan its journey. For this reason, every
business is stand on the foundational base of business plan. In this report, the business plan of
“Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” has been presented that works as the planning and
management company providing all sorts of wedding related services.

1.1 Outline of the Business Venture

The name of wedding planner start-up is the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner”. It is the full
service organization providing all sorts of event management and consultancy services for
wedding, honeymoon and anniversaries. The vision of this organization is to making customers’
dream come true. To achieve the vision, this company has the mission to provide the customers
with incredible and unrealistic experiences to make their special day memorable forever.

1.2 Research
The key service of the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is dealing with all the aspects of
organizing a wedding. Before starting the business, the owner has researched the entire
marketplace and analysed the details about its competitors. Since it’s new in the marketplace, it
had to find out its competitors and their competitive positioning. At present, the major
competitors for “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” in the industry are:

 Better Together Weddings

 Niemerko Wedding Planners
 Pure Elegance Weddings
 The Bijou Bride
 Snapdragon Parties

The market research also revealed some useful information regarding the market needs that
encouraged the owner to carry out the business further. Every couple wants to make their
wedding day special. Over the years, impact of social media and other external factors have
created a good demand for the wedding planners. Around $35 billion are spent every year
worldwide for planning the wedding programs and over £10 billion are spent alone in UK for the
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same purpose. It clearly indicates the tremendous growth of the industry and the huge demand of
the wedding planners by the couples to pan their special day (Deen, 2017). According to the
report of CASCAID, around 26% of the coupes are approaching to the wedding planners to pan
for their big event day. Thus, considering this aspect, the start-up has planned to grab the market
opportunity and thereby come up with the business plan model for “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner”.

1.3 Business Type

The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is usually a home based wedding planner start-up founded
by its four owners. Thereby it is a simple proprietorship organization formed by its founders.
Although the owner intended to start the start-up as a proprietorship business, with the growth of
operation the owner has the plan to expand its activities as well as change its ownership and
management from proprietorship to partnership or limited company that best meets the future
needs of the organization.

2 Business Plan
The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is an event management organization in nature. The
business involves the selling of both products and services. As it is a wedding planner
organization, the key business product involves the package system service. The major target
customers are the couple and their families as the wedding day is the big day for the entire
family. For this reason, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” targets its customer base and to
reach the target market, firstly focuses on critically analysing the marketing mix detail. To
determine the market potentials for the product or service offering, the “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner” utilizes the McCarthy’s 4P so that efficient plan can be drawn for successful product
offering. The marketing mix analysis for the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is portrayed
below.

2.1 Marketing Mix Analysis

2.1.1 The Product and Services
The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” offers both product and service in a package format. The
organization provides full services to deal with every aspect of panning an entire wedding
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program. To plan the wedding event, the key products provided by the “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner” are described in the following.

Party Kit:

The party kit is the package of party products for organizing the wedding event (Coke, 2002).
Usually this package is used for the parties or wedding program organized in small sphere. This
package includes all sorts of decorative products, banners, balloons, lighting items, catering
items, invitation cards and music arrangements.

Step-by-Step Guides:

This is the guide to plan the entire wedding event in a grand manner. This package ranges from
initial counselling, setting the budget pan, scheduling event, handling invitations, vendor
confirmation, catering arrangements, rehearsal attendance, venue selection, planning the
honeymoon trip etc. All of these are included in the step by step guide with different package and
offers (Young, 2007). Besides, the customers can customize their own and thereby choose any of
the packages to experience the best wedding of their life. The packages are figured below.

Silver Package Gold Package Diamond Package Custom Package

7 Hours Photography 10 Hours Photography Wedding Consultation Custom designed
Bridal Preparation Bridal Preparation Destination Wedding package including
Music Arrangements Wedding Ceremony Unlimited Photography the desired
Caterings Music Arrangements Music Arrangements services
Shopping Caterings Buffet Arrangements
Invitations Shopping & Travel Shopping & Travel
Invitations Invitations
Cinematography Live Projections
Photo Booths Cinematography
Photo Booths
2.1.2 Pricing Strategy
Price is the most critical factor for any kind of business organization (Step-by-step business plan,
2007). Specifically, a wedding is a big day for every couple and they do not want to make any
sort of mere adjustments with this issue on this day. The motive is to experience the best day at
affordable price range (Weiss, 2011). Since it is a sensitive issue and the “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner” do not want to compromise with the customers’ feelings, it will be providing different
package services at reasonable prices. Being a new start-up, the organization will be using the
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“Price Penetration Strategy” so that it can grab the attention of the target market easily by
providing quality services at low cost.

$600 $750 $1300 $

2.1.3 Place
The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is a home based wedding planner. Therefore, it will have
its office at the home of the owner. All sorts of business operations will be conducted mainly
from the owners’ house. Since, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” has four owners and all of
them live in the same house, it will be helpful for them to operate from one location. Besides, the
organization also has its presence online. It implies that the organization has both bricks and
clicks. However, online the organization has its website and also a Facebook page through which
the customers can communicate with them and therefore put orders for their desired service.

2.1.4 Promotion
Promotion is the marketing tool of “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” for raising awareness
among the customers about its service and to persuade them to use the service. In order to
promote, the organization will initially use advertising, sales promotion strategy, direct
marketing and word-of-mouth strategy. As part of direct marketing, the organization will use
customized email for the target customers. For sales promotion, it has different promo pack
offers, discounts and free photo shoots. For example, with Christmas the wedding season starts,
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therefore, the couple going to be married on the same date will have 25% discount if they choose
the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” to plan their wedding. Besides, at promo pack they will
have a good package at promotional price. Moreover, customers will have free photo shoots and
bachelorette party arrangements on their regular booking with the “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner”. Through these strategies, the entity expects to have sales growth as following.

2.2 Employees/Staff
The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” is initially a small organization with three founders. The
organizational structure therefore has to be adopted efficiently to direct the organizational
activities that best ensures the communication flow (Ford et al., 2010). Since, the “Bride-Groom
Wedding Planner” is the organization founded by the owners, the management power will
remain the same for each of them. To support this, the entity follows the flat organizational
structure. The Flat Structure is the organizational structure that reduces the level differences
between the management and the employees. For the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner”, the
owners will be working as the employees in different aspects who will budget, schedule and plan
the event, communicate with the decorators, caterers and bands to organize the event.

Primarily, the three owners are the employees of the organization. With the growth and
expansion of the organization, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” expect to hire more people
to perform tasks in future. At present, one of the owners will be working as the budget planner.
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For budget panning, one of the owners will be working as the budget planner, drawing all the
information with the help of other employees. The other one will work as the consultant for
providing advice regarding how to plan the program at budget friendly way. The rest two will be
involved in planning the entire event including scheduling, communicating with the suppliers
and decorators, and inviting guests and arranging the program. The job roles assigned to the
business’s employees are presented below.

Personnel Plan
Employees Job Role
Owner 1 Consultant
Owner 2 Event Planner
Owner 3 Event Planner
Owner 4 Budget Planner

Although two of the owners will be the head of planning the event management, it is indeed a
team work and involves interrelated tasks. Therefore, the owner group has decided to employ
these two owners to work as the management team. As a result, the management team will be
managing the event related aspects of the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner”. However, since it
follows the flat structure with four owners, all can participate in the management decision and
thereby the decision making power will remain in the hands of the owners equally.

2.3 Customers/Clients
In the event management industry, marketing and sales are the most critical tasks as like other
industries, getting customers is not an easy task (Kim, 2010). The major target customers of a
wedding planner industry are the people of all ages who want to celebrate the wedding of their
loved ones in a grand manner (Stutely, 2012). As wedding involves not only couples but also
friends, family and relatives, people from all ages are the target customers for the industry.
Considering this aspect, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” has segmented their target market
as the following.

Demographic Behavioural
Age: The customers from all ages specifically User Status: The Customers who are the first
ranging from 16 and above. time users of the service as they lack
knowledge regarding planning an event or the
regular users as they lack time or other
expertise to plan the event.
Family: The customers belonging to both Occasions: The customers who look forward
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nuclear and joint families. to arrange programs in occasions to grab the

offers and discounts.
Income: The customers from upper to middle Benefits: The customers who prefer to attain
class income are the major target markets. the benefit of getting the arrangements done at
reasonable cost.

However, grabbing the attention of the customers is necessary so that they can access to the
service provided by the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner”. For this reason, the organization has
to take necessary steps to make them aware of the service available. As part of this, the “Bride-
Groom Wedding Planner” will distribute their product or service information to the customers
using the following strategies.

Asking Customers Referrals

Referrals can be a good source of engaging customers as well as help them to acquire their
desired services. Although the organization can have the client for the short term wedding
arrangement, their friends and families can also have their wedding arrangements done using the
service. For this reason, referrals are the source through which the customers can access to the
service.

Identifying Customer Touch Points

The customer touch points are the connection points through which customers can be interacted.
Using customers touch points, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” can make the potential
customers aware of the service so that they can access to the service.

Interacting with Prospects Online

Another tool through which customers can access to the service of the “Bride-Groom Wedding
Planner” is the website or Facebook page. The clients can communicate with the owners directly
online via the text messages and ask for details regarding the services.

Using the above approaches, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” can easily distribute their
services so that the customers can acquire their services.
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3. Future Plan

3.1 Business Expansion Plan

The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” have the plan to expand in near future. Basically, it will
have its functions the same for the first two years. After the successful completion of the first
two years, the expansion will be done. For expansion, there are several strategies. However, the
“Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” will be utilizing the market expansion strategy. It implies that
the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” will design their service into a new market segment,
specifically in new geographic segment. For example, at present, the organization will be serving
only in UK, with the expansion strategy implication, it will go global and offering their services
worldwide. It will help to increase the customer base and grab the higher amount of sales.

Moreover, with the successful reach of the expansion goals, the organization structure will also
be changed. The “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” will shift its proprietorship business to a
limited liability company and thereby hire more people to work in different departments. As a
result, there will be different positioning for different employees causing a change in the
management structure. With the expansion, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” will be
utilizing the pyramid hierarchical structure.

Thus, the “Bride-Groom Wedding Planner” will have the expansion goal and thereby work hard
to achieve the goal successfully.
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References
Coke, A. (2002). Seven steps to a successful business plan. New York: AMACOM.

Deen, K. (2017). Wedding Planners Guild UK helps the rise of ‘budding wedding professionals’.
[Online] Entirelynorthwest.co.uk. Available at:
https://www.entirelynorthwest.co.uk/news/recruitment/liverpool/wedding-planners-guild-
uk-helps-the-rise-of-budding-wedding-professionals9480 [Accessed 21 Sep. 2017].

Ford, B., Bornstein, J., Pruitt, P. and Young, E. (2010). The Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide.
Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Kim, K. (2010). The Wedding Photographer's Planner. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons.

Step-by-step business plan. (2007). Perth: Small Business Development Corporation.

Stutely, R. (2012). The definitive business plan. [New York]: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

Weiss, M. (2011). The wedding planner & organizer. New York: Workman Pub.

Young, P. (2007). Business plan. Chandni Chowk, Delhi: Global Media.