University of Dhaka

Department of International Business

Course Code: EIB 527/547

International Entrepreneurship and Investment

Term Paper
Topic: Business Plan for

Prepared By:
Syed Mashhud Quader
ID# 801723007

Supervisor
Professor (Dr) Khondoker Bazlul Hoque

Date of Submission:
22/8/2019
 Letter of Transmittal

20th August, 2019

The course lecturer

International Entrepreneurship and Investment
University of Dhaka
University Campus, Dhaka

Dear Mr. Hoque

Subject: Term paper

I feel immense pleasure in presenting to your good self, the term paper as part of my course

requirement. I found this report to be truly challenging in many aspects, indeed very interesting

in relation to the various interpretational and engrossing exercises. Writing this report itself was

truly comprehensive learning experience. The report mainly revolves the business plan for a new

mobile app development called “BloodPool”

I have tried my level best to complete the report with respect to the desired requirements.

However, if any explaining is required, I would be honored to oblige. Kindly accept this humble

effort of bringing forward my research and findings on the subject matter.

Yours Sincerely,
Syed Mashhud Quader
ID# 801723007

1
 Table of contents

Title Page Number

1. Chapter 1: Introduction
- 1.1) Background of the study 4
- 1.2) Rationale of the study 4
- 1.3) Objectives of the study 5
- 1.4) Scope of the study 5
- 1.5) Methodology of the study 5
- 1.6) Limitations of the study 6

2. Chapter 2: Literature Review 7

3. Chapter 3: Industry Analysis 16

4. Chapter 4: Business Plan

- 4.1) Description of Venture 22
- 4.2) Production Plan 23
- 4.3) Operations Plan 24
- 4.4) Market Plan 26
- 4.5) Organizational Plan 27
- 4.6) Financial Plan 28
- 4.7) Assessment of Risk 29

5. Bibliography 30

2
 Executive Summary

The main aim of this research was to figure out how to tackle the blood availability problem for

patients here in Bangladesh. Whenever there is a medical crisis, there always seems to be a lack

of blood. In order to tackle this problem, I came up with the plan of developing a mobile

application which will be able to ping or locate people nearby for blood donations. Through this

research, I find that this application has a lot of potential as this will help in reducing the time

required for finding blood donors. The problem I found regarding the plan was how to generate

the funds required for running the operation smoothly and whether the people will be willing to

accept it as a means of safe blood donation since we are not that open to new ideas.

3
 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the study:

Collection of blood has always been a hassle for a family when one of their member/members

were admitted at the hospital for medical operations. People always had to source the blood

need from their own family or line of network they had to collect it. People post the need for

blood on different social medias as the rare types of blood are hard to acquire. I saw that even

the blood banks at the hospitals don’t stock on the blood. The amount they have on stock are for

only emergency cases when there is not enough time left for finding donors. The recent outbreak

of dengue also foreshadowed my research as the hospitals and blood banks were not equipped

to meet the demands of the blood transfusions required. A lot of people even passed away cause

of the lack of donors.

1.2 Rationale of the study:

For my research, I figured that it was high time that the process was made smoother and so that

lives could be saved more. Thus, I came with the idea of a mobile application where the process

of blood collection can be made easier.

4
1.3 Objectives of the study:

The main objective of this research was to make a business plan outlining the main idea for my

application. It is to outline how the whole operation will run, how the business will be financed

and the key problems that can be faced while running the operations

1.4 Scope of the study:

This research will be based on the idea I have on how to develop the application and how the

whole process will run taking into effect the infrastructure of the country and the openness of

the people in trusting the application.

1.5 Methodology of the Study

The whole research will be based on the secondary data collected as the need of the primary

data could not be fulfilled as I still could not do an extension research on whether the application

will be viable in the long run. Also the application needs to be developed too which will require

a longer time, so the research was based on secondary data.

5
1.6 Limitations of the study:

This particular study had a number of limitations. To begin with, the main limitation was the fact

that I never developed a business plan for a new venture. Thus, I am not sure now accurately it

was made and whether it answered all the obstacles that could be faced. Also, since I have a very

limited knowledge of how a mobile application works, I am not 100 percent sure of whether it

will do what I intend it to perform. Lastly, time was one of the limitations that I had to face. Due

to time limitation, I was not able to conduct the primary survey that I wanted to do.

6
 Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.1 Introduction:

People are generally taught to believe that in order to build a successful company, they must

start their business ventures with crafting a business plan. Plenty of books and articles discuss

how to create a plan that makes possible to build a prosperous business. In addition to the

published literature, companies advising entrepreneurs how to create successful business plans

have been established, and these days it seems that crafting a plan should evidently be part of

every startup venture. However, many people with new business ideas do not start with a proper

planning, but rather with experiencing. Some experts question the importance of executing

business plans by claiming planning to be a waste of time because of the rapid change of the

business environment. The paradigm in question is based on the idea that instead of spending

time on planning, people should be on the field gathering valuable feedback. This literature

review questions the benefits of creating a business plan by responding to the following

questions:

1. What are the perceived benefits of business planning for a new small business?

2. What are the general problems that business planning confronts?

3. What are the problems that arise from studies conducted?

4. What should future investigations of pre-venture planning take into account?

7
Concentrating on these four questions in this review of the literature is a prerequisite for

addressing whether pre-startup planning should take place when establishing a new venture, and

also to understand the needs and challenges that the studies regarding the issue confront.

2.2 What are the perceived benefits of business planning for a new small business?

A common perception is that a new business should be planned prior establishing a startup

(Castrogiovanni 1996, 801). Writing the plan forces the founders to go through every aspect of

their business and pay attention to its most important priorities and goals. (Barringer & Ireland,

2010) Planning pushes entrepreneurs to gather and analyze information, which enables

entrepreneurs to quickly identify what they do not know, evaluate required tasks that can help

solving problems and attain goals, identify risks and strategy, and projecting financial

developments. (Delmar & Shane, 2003) Crafting a business plan also helps people to

communicate the purposes, objectives, and activities of the business, which are a prerequisite to

achieve a successful venture. (Gartner & Liao, 2009)

According to Delmar and Shane (2003), planning fastens a decision-making process compared to

trial-and-error learning where a rapid discovery must be taken place in order to survive. By

gathering and analyzing information, founders can enhance market understanding and test their

assumptions without implementing time-consuming processes of first taking action and

expending resources. Hence, resource expenditure can also be diminished; by planning first and

then acting afterwards enables entrepreneurs to test assumptions on the paper rather than in

action. Also, according to the principles of organization theory, ”--planning before taking action

8
improves the quality of most human action”. (Delmar & Shane 2003, 1167.) Thus, planning helps

founders to attain the necessary knowledge to guide the company successfully with its future

actions. (Gartner & Liao, 2009)

Regarding environmental uncertainty, planning can be seen to reduce the contingency of new

businesses. (Castrogiovanni, 1996) As noted in the previous chapter, due to pre-startup planning,

founders can possibly make better decisions and consequently take more effective actions when

more knowledge is gained. According to Castrogiovanni (1996), environmental uncertainty

stimulates planning because more learning is desired under uncertain conditions than under

certain ones. The successful outcomes of actions are not assured when the environment is

uncertain, and proactive learning through planning can help the founders to face the challenging

environmental conditions easier than without planning. (Castrogiovanni 1996, 811-812.)

In addition to influencing founders’ decision-making process, resource expenditure, and facing

the uncertain environment, planning helps entrepreneurs to concentrate on the most important

activities. By establishing a plan with specific operational steps to achieve a greater goal, it allows

firm founders to focus on the company’s key activities rather than activities that sidetrack their

efforts. Also, planning is proved to be beneficial in terms of motivating employees to achieve

company’s goals; when employees are involved in business planning, they perceive they have the

opportunity and ability to influence the outcome of their own behavior. Self-set goals have

greater motivational impact on employees than relative performance goals. (Delmar & Shane,

2003)

9
Besides benefiting company founders internally, pre-startup planning generates an external

purpose as well. A written plan presents the knowledge of the founders to others in order to gain

support and resources. (Gartner & Liao 2009, 9.) According to Castrogiovanni (1996, 804),”

planning legitimizes the new venture proposal and improves communication with various

external stakeholders, particularly potential investors or other financiers”. Potential financiers

wish to see specific details to be able to evaluate the change of success of the proposed venture.

Providing funding is unlikely to happen by plainly conveying the business idea to the prospective

investors. (Castrogiovanni 1996, 804.) Consequently, a written plan has the benefit to obtain

financing and other prospective individuals who are interested in to be involved in the venture

such as suppliers, customers and employees. (Gartner & Liao, 2009.)

2.3 What are the general problems that business planning confronts?

Although pre-startup planning has been found to benefit new small businesses in several ways,

there are still differing views on whether the process of pre-venture planning truly influences the

survival of new small businesses. (Gartner & Liao, 2009)

Many researchers argue the value of planning in terms of the time spent on planning, the

usefulness of the information around the uncertain conditions, learning-survival linkage, and the

relationship between planning and financial performance. The disadvantages of pre-startup

planning of this review of the literature concentrate on the challenges that founders may

confront when planning their businesses. The most discussed disadvantage surrounds the

possibility to plan in an unpredictable business environment.

10
The claim presented earlier in the paper that planning fastens a decision-making process rather

than trial-and-error learning can be also viewed from another angle. The claim stated that by

planning founders can expand their knowledge and as follows to make better assumptions. Based

on better assumptions, entrepreneurs can make mistakes on the paper rather than in action.

However, there is a great possibility that the assumptions written in the plan turn out to be

utterly flawed if entrepreneurs have focused solely on forecasting rather than gathering real

feedback from the business environment. Hence, companies that focus on executing complex

business plans may fail to notice vital issues that would have otherwise arisen from acting in the

business environment. When companies in question have committed themselves so completely

to act according to the assumptions made, they might not be able to adapt to the change in time

after realizing the failure. (Ries 2011, 22.)

Also, how planning truly generates learning is an issue that has been questioned by researchers.

Planning enables proactive learning, but cannot lead to enactive learning that only happens when

people create knowledge out of their experiences. (Castrogiovanni 1996, 806.) Hence, in order

to learn from a business planning process internally, planning processes must be well-developed,

properly implemented, and controlled. (Bracker, Keats, & Pearson, 1988.) According to Bracker

et al. (1988), the process of creating the plan is a key component of performance, not the plan

itself. The most argued matter regarding planning in the literature reviewed in this paper is

whether planning is valuable under the uncertain conditions that surround startup ventures.

According to Professor Henry Mintzberg (1990), forecasting the future with a complete

confidence is not possible, and thus managers should not evaluate their organization’s strengths

and weaknesses until they become evident from the trial and error experience. (Ansoff 1991,

11
454.) A professor and US economic strategy academic Robert M. Grant (2003, 493) states that in

the last quarter of twentieth century, macroeconomic disequilibrium, exchange rate volatility,

the microelectronics revolution, and the emergence of newly industrializing countries have

created inability to predict demand, prices, exchange rates and interest rates. Hence, the

challenge in question influences companies’ ability to plan. If established companies are to

flourish and survive in the increased volatility business environment, strategies that are flexible

and creative as well as less concerned with specific actions, and more with establishing clarity of

direction are required. The primary contribution of planning is to establish a process for strategic

thinking and organizational learning. (Grant 2003, 491-493.)

2.4 What are the problems that arise from studies conducted?

Studying the benefits and disadvantages of business planning is a comprehensive and a complex

process that can be examined from various perspectives. According to Liao, Moutray, and Welsch

(2009, 2),” Most of the entrepreneurship literature has focused on successful ventures, so little

is known about why ventures fail.” Generally, a small amount of entrepreneurial discontinuance

may arise for reasons that can be attributable to failure. Hence, little attention has been paid to

the inception of a new venture, and too much to venture growth and venture performance. (Liao

et al. 2009.)

A study conducted by Delmar and Shane (2003, 1180) indicate that”—business planning would

enhance founders’ product development and venture organizing activities and would reduce the

hazard of venture disbanding.” However, the study encompasses a few limitations. First, the

study in question does not determine whether the value of business planning lies in the process

12
of planning or in the quality of the crafted plans. Second, the study did not measure the content

of the information contained in the plan, the quality of implementation efforts, or the time spent

on planning. Third, the study about business planning and new venture development was

conducted in Sweden, thus the results may not be valid universally. According to Castrogiovanni

(1996, 801), studies that have been conducted regarding whether small businesses should be

planned prior their startup have shown mixed results. Several studies have indicated that there

are positive linkages between planning and business performance, but in other studies

relationships either were not found or they vary across industry sectors. Due to the inconsistent

results, various researchers have raised methodological concerns. Castrogiovanni (1996) states

that contextual conditions such as industry structure, uncertainty, and an organizational life cycle

stage should be examined in the studies of pre-startup planning; planning processes and their

effects may differ between small and large businesses. However, it is important to note that” --

measurement of contextual conditions is very problematic because the relevant constructs are

aggregate abstractions of attributes pertaining to specific events, tendencies, and other

phenomena.” (Castrogiovanni 1996, 816.)

2.5 What should future investigations of pre-venture planning take into account?

As noted in the previous chapter, contextual conditions such as industry structure and

organizational life cycle should be examined; longitudinal research designs are encouraged in

order to yield a more complete understanding about pre-startup planning and survival. For

instance, there are supposedly situations where a narrow opportunity window requires fast

actions of firm’s founders, too fast for comprehensive pre-startup planning to occur.

13
Castrogiovanni (1996) also suggests that environmental uncertainty and founder knowledge

should be further examined. In addition, future research could examine the attributes of good

plans; which methods and procedures result in crafting a great plan. (Castrogiovanni, 1996)

Liao et al. (2009) suggests for a longitudinal research design, where individual firms are followed

from birth to death, and then identified the individual, organizational, and context factors that

may contribute to a firm’s failure.” Researchers should make ongoing observations of the

entrepreneurs, the environment, and the firm.” (Liao et al. 2009, 12.) Only through the

longitudinal study with a quasi-experimental design approach would enable uncovering the

factors that differentiate failed group from others. In addition, the moderating effects of a risk

taking propensity should be examined in order to find out more about venture’s competitive

strategies. (Liao et al. 2009.)

Based on the study conducted by Delmar and Shane (2003), they suggest future research on the

relative importance of planning as a process and plans as an outcome. Also, the amount of time

spent on business planning is hoped to be examined since the factor might have a non-monotonic

relationship with disbanding, a firm organizing activity, and product development in new

ventures. Based on the findings of Delmar and Shane (2003), planning reduces the likelihood of

venture disbanding, and increases venture organizing activity as well as product development.

However, the results previously mentioned would require future research on the relationships

between business planning and new venture development. That being said, ”--much more work

on the role of business planning in new venture development remains to be done.” (Delmar &

Shane 2003, 1183.)

14
The barrage of several approaches to examining whether pre-startup planning should take place

when establishing a new venture indicates the complexity of the problem. While various research

has been conducted on pre-startup planning, research has illuminated some underlying factors

that the studies made regarding the issue are still rather scarce, and their content too slight to

answer the question whether pre-startup planning should take place when starting a new

venture. Research has shown the need for a comprehensive approach to the problem that

includes observation in contextual conditions, founders’ knowledge, environmental uncertainty,

firm’s risk taking propensity, planning as a process and planning as an outcome, and also the time

spent on planning.

15
 Chapter 3

Industry Analysis

Primary health care (PHC), including family planning services in the urban area (city corporations

and municipalities), is provided by the Ministry of Local Government; and in the rest of the

country by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW). Provision of secondary and

tertiary cares, in both urban divisional directorates with necessary staff and rural areas, is the

sole responsibility of MoHFW. The primary level hospital care begins with the 418 Upazila health

complexes (153 are 50‐beds and the rest are 31‐beds) with a range of 31 to 50 beds. The 62

district hospitals (59 Sadar district hospitals and two general hospitals) are the secondary level

hospitals which provide health care in several specialties with a range of 50 to 375 beds. The

tertiary level hospitals are multidisciplinary medical colleges and institutes hospitals with a range

of 250 to 1700 beds. At national level there are post‐graduate, specialized hospitals with ranges

of 100 to 600 beds. There are four types of static health facilities at union level. These are Rural

Health Centers (RHC, 10‐bed hospitals), Union Sub‐Centers (USC), Union Health and Family

Welfare Centers (UHFWC) and Community Clinics (CC). There are 18 governmental medical

colleges and 41 private medical colleges.

The private sector (50 centers) is being operated by hospital‐based blood transfusion centers and

also by standalone blood centers regulated by licensing authorities. Each center either in the

public or private sector reports monthly on blood screening for five TTI and blood components

to the reference laboratory of the Safe Blood Transfusion Program.

16
Blood screening facilities developed in 99 blood transfusion centers in the year of 2000 include

all public medical colleges, district hospitals, combined military hospitals, medical institutes, Red

Crescent blood centers and others as well as two non‐governmental medical college hospitals.

From 2008 to 2010 104 new centers were developed in Upazila health complexes and in other

hospitals. Today, there are officially a total of 203 blood screening centers. Over a total of

2,440,096 units of blood screened for TTI between 2000 and 2010, 129 HIV, 21,715 HBV, 3,182

HCV, 2,800, syphilis and 1,149 malaria reactive cases were detected, maintaining TTI prevalence

almost below 1%. Most of TTI screening is done on rapid tests. Only in some centers of the private

sector is blood screening is performed by ELISA.

Approximately 600,000 units of blood are required yearly in Bangladesh. This estimate is based

on year 2010 throughout the country as reported by public and private blood transfusion centers.

There are mainly two types of blood donors in Bangladesh which are relative/replacement blood

donors and voluntary blood donors. The report of SBTP (2010) shows that 70% of blood is

collected from directed or relative blood donors the rest being from voluntary blood donors. The

blood donation system in Bangladesh is not a centralized system as all blood transfusion centers,

mostly hospital based, collect, process and distribute blood. There is no nationally designated

organization for recruitment of voluntary blood donors either in the public or private sectors.

However, there are a few philanthropic organizations who promote voluntary blood donation in

the country; Sandhani, a well-known medical and dental student' organization, Red Crescent

Blood center, Quantum, Badhan, and Medicine Club etc. are the voluntary blood donor

organizations contributing greatly in this area.

17
Rules for management of public and private blood centers have been developed in 2008 as SRO

145. As per rule public blood centers may collect revenue through imposing charges for blood

screening, cross matching and other routine investigations. 50% of the collected funds are kept

for purchasing kits and reagents in case of interrupted supply of consumables from the central

procurement unit. This system has empowered each blood center to perform routine activities

without interruption. Remuneration of staff working in public blood transfusion centers may be

taken from the charges collected as per SRO by this mechanism. However, all blood centers are

authorized to collect fees of 250/‐ BDT for blood screening in general hospital and charge for

350/‐ for others. As mentioned, 50% of the money collected is diverted to hospitals to be used

by blood banks and 50% are distributed as incentives to the blood transfusion center staff.

The above figure shows that 80% of the centers belong to the public sector (ministry of health

and other ministry) including medical colleges, institutes, district hospitals and Upazila health

18
complexes, combined military and paramilitary hospitals. 12% of the centers belong to the

private sector. Only 6% of the surveyed centers were standalone blood centers.

From the assessment it is noted that blood collection in BTS is mainly hospital‐based, fixed site

collection. The data show that 15% of blood is collected from voluntary blood donors and 85%

from relative/family blood donors and that there were no paid donors in any of the surveyed

centers. However, there is lack of coordination between the voluntary blood donor organization

and the public sector for blood collection and utilization. No national blood donation strategy is

yet formulated and no strategic program is yet implemented at national level. The promotion for

voluntary blood donation was found inadequate at the national level. No national blood donor

data base is yet to be developed for recruitment of blood donors. It is also seen that pre‐donation

hemoglobin estimation is not practiced in any of the 109 centers; furthermore, all centers

maintain records of donor deferrals due to zero‐reactive TTI markers but not for other reasons.

Reliance on replacement donors as a source of blood is seen in all centers. Such donors usually

have a higher frequency of infectious disease markers. It is urgent to develop a panel of voluntary

donors whose blood is available for any patient. For the recruitment of voluntary blood donors,

a major effort should be made to develop a national program with an emphasis on training and

motivation of young people regarding their eventual responsibility in this matter. Blood donor

publicity in adults should be targeted towards middle and upper class persons who have better

health standards. This could be done in conjunction with various NGOs. A collaborating blood

collection program based on governmental and NGO should be considered under the frame of

policy development.

19
From the assessment it is seen that in most of the blood centers single type refrigerators are used

and all units (cross matched, uncross matched, screened and unscreened blood) were kept in the

same refrigerator. It is reported that 4% of district hospitals, 7% of public medical colleges, and

100% of NGO blood centers have separate facilities for quarantine, ready for use and discarded

units. This reflects an inadequate storage system for maintaining an appropriate cold chain for

blood and blood products. Furthermore, in the public sector no cold chain system was used

during transportation of blood from blood center to the clinical wards of same hospitals. Only in

two of private hospitals’ cold boxes were used for transportation of blood.

It is to be recalled here that in Bangladesh, blood centers are integrated to each of the hospitals

except for the standalone blood centers of the private sector. Due to shortage of blood, each of

the hospital collects blood from other sources. Except for two NGO blood centers, all centers

reported to receive blood from different sources arranged by patient’s relatives. On average

district hospitals received 93% of blood collected by the centers themselves 3% from NGO

centers and 5% from standalone blood centers. In medical colleges 85% of blood was collected

by the centers and the remaining 10% from NGO blood centers and 5% from standalone blood

centers. Patient’s relatives have been reported responsible for transportation of blood to the

patients. Consequently, not all centers are sufficient to meet the requirements for their own

respective hospitals. The assessment revealed that 100% of blood centers in district hospitals,

public medical colleges, public institutes use slide method for ABO grouping and 18% of district

hospitals, 8% of Upazila health complexes, 21% of public medical colleges, 80% of public

institutes, 83% of private medical colleges, 71% of private hospitals, and 17% of standalone blood

centers reported to carry out reverse grouping along with forward grouping. RhD typing is done

20
using slide method in all centers. Compatibility testing was reported to be carried out in all

surveyed centers. All carry compatibility testing by using donor cells and patient’s serum which

does not meet the standard criteria for compatibility testing. Most of the responders particularly

mentioned that manpower shortage is one of the reasons for not maintaining the standards for

testing. Blood centers are always under pressure to supply blood within a short period of time in

most of the cases. No center reported to perform antibody screening for patient’s blood samples

before any compatibility testing. Centers surveyed reported to perform cross matching at room

temperature. Only one NGO blood center reported to perform cross matching by indirect

Coombs. Apart from that none of the centers carried out cross matching in addition to the two

methods described. Quality standards for blood grouping, serology and compatibility testing

need urgent attention for maintaining SOPs. The assessment revealed that none (except only two

private hospitals) of the centers have ever developed SOPs for core laboratory process which is

one of the challenges for Safe Blood Transfusion Program. The assessment revealed that hospital

transfusion committees have been developed in all districts hospitals, public medical colleges

and public institutes as per rules of Safe Blood ACT. However, these committees need more

orientation about the clinical transfusion process monitoring.

21
 Chapter 4

4.1 Description of the Venture

Name of the Product:

The main aim of the venture would be to develop a mobile application called “BloodPool”. The

application will tackle the difficulties the people face when they are in need for blood donors and

when the hospitals or blood banks can’t provide the blood required at the time of need.

Objective of the product:

Minimize the time required to attain donors for blood donations. Blood transfusions are almost

required for every major to minor medical operations, starting from child birth to open heart

surgeries. Bangladesh is not infrastructurally strong enough to handle the demands for blood

needs for operations. There have been cases where hours were lost as a blood donor couldn’t be

found and the hospital or blood bank didn’t have the blood type required in their stock.

BloodPool is going to be an answer to all those solutions.

In most of the cases, blood donors are family member or donors attained from other sources

such as social medias and all. Sometimes, family members have to be called from far off places

as the blood type needs to be matched. In cases of the rare blood group it becomes really difficult

to attain a donor and crucial time is wasted.

BloodPool will be like the Uber for blood. Uber is a transportation app that was developed for

the ease of transportation. It’s like calling a taxi but the only difference being it won’t be a taxi.

It will be another citizen who is the driver and will take you to your destination. What Uber does

22
is, when a person requests for a ride, it searches the nearby areas for a driver so that the ride can

come sooner. Just like that BloodPool will be implemented. People will be registered to the app

with their blood group. And as most people use smart phones, they will have access to the app.

So when a person is in need for blood, all they need to do is go to the app and type in the request

for the blood group required. The app will then ping another user nearby with the same blood

type and connect the donor to the recipient. This will minimize the time required to search for

donors and save lives.

4.2 Production Plan

The main production plan would be to develop the app. A third party app developer needs to be

hired. The app has to be developed in way that it is easy to use for the people. Even though the

literacy rate is quite poor in our country, but still the amount of people using smart phones are

quite high. So people will have easy access to the app but it has to be designed in layman’s terms

so that it is user friendly and not too complicated. The parameters for the app also has be to be

made accurate so that it does not ping someone from a faraway location unless there are no

donors nearby. For example, if a request for the blood donation is made at or near LabAid

Dhanmondi, the app firstly has to survey any donor available nearby around Dhanmondi and

from the location of the request made. The radius has to be fixed with set kilometers so that it

can be attained faster. If the app sees that there are no donors nearby the area of ping, it will

start widening the search radius unless it finds one. But given the population of the country, I

think going to that length will not be necessary but this is still just an assumption.

23
 4.3 Operations Plan

Once the app is developed, the users will have to go through the registration following process:

Registration Process:

1. The users will firstly have to create a profile with their name, age, etc. They will also have

to upload their photos so that people can recognize them through the picture in the app

when they come for blood donation. During this stage they will not be allowed to enter

their blood group. That info will be collected later on along with the fact on whether they

will be legible for blood donation.

2. After they register, they will be given a unique code which and they will have to go to one

of our registered hospitals for a blood screening test. They have to provide the code they

acquired after they registered and the hospitals will take it from there. The test will detail

out the blood group also declare whether are fit for blood donation. This screening test

will be done after every 3 months in order to maintain integrity in that fact that any unfit

person cannot provide the blood.

3. After they undergo the test, the result will be handed out to them like any other blood

test. There also through our software, the hospitals will be able to generate two kinds of

code. One for the person who is legible for blood donation and one for the person who is

illegible. The codes will be generated through an algorithm process so that it cannot be

guessed and will be unique to each person. After receiving the code, the test center, they

user will have to input it into their profile and that automatically will link it with the

database of the hospital and the test center and will determine whether the person is

24
 legible for donation or not. If someone is not legible, they will be given the chance again

in 3 months.

Request process:

1. The person in need of the blood will have to log in with their own ID and have to go the

request section. There they have to type in the blood group required and the gender too

in cases where the gender of the donor needs to be specific. They also have to put in the

name of the hospital at which it will be required. After they input the data, they have hit

the search button for any nearby donors.

2. Once the request has been made, the app will look for the donors nearby and if they find

one who is registered with the app, they will be sent a message asking them whether they

will be willing to donate. If the person agrees to accept the request they will go down to

the requested hospital and donate. If the person declines the request, the app will search

for another donor till it finds one who will be willing to donate to the cause.

3. Once the donor has donated the blood, they have to hit the complete process button on

the app and they app will automatically send him/her to the list of people who donated

and will switch off his donation capabilities will the next 3 months as the blood donors

are specifically told by doctors not to donate within the next 3 months.

As for the customer feedback, we will have setup customer service section in a part of the city

that will handle any customer problems. The department will be open 24/7.

25
 4.4 Market Plan

1. Pricing:

Registration for the app will be will free. The only time the user will have to pay will be when they

go for the test. But that too will be discounted for the app registered user. We will have liason

with the hospital and the blood test centers and develop an agreement through which we can

provide this discounted service to our users.

The person who requests for the blood will not have to pay anything to the donor other than

his/her gratitude. Since the app will be non-profit app, our aim is to help the people out and not

seek for profit.

2. Distribution:

Since it will be a mobile app, any person who has the access to a smart phone will be able to

acquire our services. So the distribution will be country wide without any specific distribution

channel other than the internet. So our reach to customer will be higher. As for the registered

centers for the test, since it will be a new service, we will try to attain as many as we can at the

starting stage and will keep on increasing the number of centers until all the available centers are

registered.

26
 3. Promotion:

Our product/service will be promoted through advertisements on the internet, television,

hospitals etc. Since ad revenues will be our main source of income, we will heavily invest in the

advertising of our app so that we can reach to customers.

We will provide promotional offers to customers who have donated their blood. Once they have

donated, they will be provided with unique points. Those claimed for rewards on specific stores

with whom we will be affiliated. Rewards could be discounts on clothing stores, restaurants, on

medical charges etc.

4.5 Organizational Plan

This whole venture will be a non-profit venture. We are here to serve the people with a faster

and easier way of attaining blood donations, so profit maximizing isn’t our goal rather making

every individual a reason for saving lives a goal.

The ownership of it will be a partnership with a philanthropist or a joint venture with a renowned

hospital or institute. All the members will have equal ownership and bear the losses accordingly.

The top of the authority will be the CEO who will make sure that the company’s vision is on line.

The operations team will oversee the whole operation process from the start to finish. They will

make sure that the whole process is operating smoothly and whether any correction needs to be

done. The customer service department will be liable for handling customer complaints and

27
addressing to any issues the customer will be having. An IT team will be in place in order to debug

the app whenever the app is facing any problems and always keeping the app updated.

4.6 Financial Plan

This whole venture will be a non-profit venture. We are here to serve the people with a faster

and easier way of attaining blood donations, so profit maximizing isn’t our goal rather making

every individual a reason for saving lives a goal. The only source of income will be through the

advertisements done in our app. Also, from commissions earned for the stores where our users

can claim their reward points from. We will not be able to get any commissions from the hospitals

for the tests the users will be undergoing as the tests will already be provided to them at a

discount.

The initial setup cost will be high as the management team needs to be established first along

with the development of the app. We would require an investor will be will be willing to invest

for this humanitarian reasons.

28
 4.7 Assessment of Risk

The major risks for the whole venture could be as follows:

1. Lack of investors: Since I will be lacking the capital required to run the business on my

own, getting investor on board with the plan will be difficult. Most people would want to

invest in something form which they can get back something in return. But since in their

project, they will not be able to gain anything, getting someone to invest will be tough.

And without any credible investor, running the operations in the initial stage will be quite

difficult.

2. Cooperation from hospitals: Since we will be providing the blood screening test at a

discount, the hospitals may not be willing to be on board with it as they could have easily

earned the full amount from someone else rather than getting a discounted amount by

being affiliated with us. A good amount of networking needs to be done in order to get

the hospitals on board during the initial stage. Once it goes past the initial stage and

becomes a success, getting affiliation will be easier as we will be more well known. The

hospitals need to see this as a CSR opportunity and use this to increase their image as a

caring and concerned institute among the citizens more.

29
 Bibliography

About.com Entrepreneurs. 2012. Quotations from famous entrepreneurs on

entrepreneurship. URL:

http://entrepreneurs.about.com/od/famousentrepreneurs/a/quotations.htm.

Accessed: 24 Apr 2012.

Alakoski, L., Hörkkö, P. & Lappalainen, H. 2006. Hotellin vastaanoton operatiivinen

toiminta [Hotel reception operations]. Restamark Oy. Helsinki.

Amadeus IT Group S.A. Hotels 2020: Beyond Segmentation. Thought leadership

report 2010. November 2010. PDF.

Ansoff, H.I. 1991. Critique of Henry Mintzberg’s ’The design school: Reconsidering

the basic premises of strategic management’. Strategic Management Journal, 12, 6, pp.

449-461.

Axelsson, B. & Wynstra, F. 2002. Buying business services. John Wiley & Sons Ltd.,

England.

Barringer, B.R. & Ireland, R.D. 2010. Entrepreneurship: Successfully lauching new

ventures. 3rd ed. Pearson Education. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

30
Bracker, J.S., Keats, B.W. & Pearson, J.N. 1988. Planning and financial performance

among small firms in a growth industry. Strategic Management Journal, 9, 6, pp. 591-

603.

Castrogiovanni, G. 1996. Pre-Startup planning and the survival of new small

businesses: Theoretical linkages. Journal of Management, 22, 6, pp. 801-822.

Delmar, F. & Scott, S. 2003. Does business plan facilitate the development of new

ventures? Strategic Management Journal, 24, 11, pp. 1165-1185.

DeLollis, B. 2012. Hotels embracing guest reviews, good or bad. URL:

http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/hotel-giants-embracing-guest-reviews-goodbad/

story?id=15444003#.T2j3T82BBLY. Accessed: 20 Mar 2012.

DesignHotels.com. 2011. Marc Skvorc and Mia Cederberg-Skvorc. URL:

http://www.madebyoriginals.com/originals/marc-skvorc-mia-cederberg-skvorc.

Accessed: 10 Apr 2012.

Dictionary.com. 2012. Social network. URL:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social+network. Accessed: 14 Apr 2012.

Finpro. 2011. Lapland’s best opportunities for growth are in tourism. News and Press

Release. 26 Aug 2011. URL: http://www.finpro.fi/web/english-pages/frontpage/-

31
/asset_publisher/f3AE/content/id/143198. Accessed: 14 Apr 2012.

Gartner, W.B. & Liao, J. 2009. Report for Small Business Association, Office of

Advocacy 2009. Are planners doers? Pre-venture planning and the start-up behaviors

of entrepreneurs. URL: http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs339tot.pdf. Accessed:

18 Apr 2012.

Grant, R.M. 2003. Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: Evidence from the

oil majors. Strategic Management Journal, 24, 6, pp. 491-517.

Helsingin Sanomat International Edition. 2010. Spat breaks out over Finnish hotel

classifications: Differences of opinion with european ranking systems. URL:

http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Spat+breaks+out+over+Finnish+hotel+classificatio

ns+/1135257066000. Accessed: 9 Apr 2012.

Hotel Haven. Hotel Haven – Your Home. Your Place. URL:

http://www.hotelhaven.fi/en. Accessed: 10 Apr 2012.

32