Business Development: Competitor and SWOT Analysis
In the business, the size would not be too large, so there might be 10 employees at the beginning stage. Four or five of them will do research and experiments about new types of perfume and make new and different smells from the other brands. The rest of the team will do some market research to discover who the customer is and what kind of smells can make them feel fresh and new. Besides, the sectors of the company would be primary, secondary and tertiary. If it is possible, the company would buy a garden to plant its own ingredients, such as flowers and fruits. When the ingredients have blossomed, they will deliver to the laboratory to be extracted and purified to make fragrances. After the completion of the product, it will be sold through the actual shop.
The biggest competitors of the business would be Creed Fragrance and Jo Malone, because these two companies just produce perfumes, scented candles and others. Although Chanel and Dior will produce and sell clothes and makeups, which means they do not just focus on perfumes, it can be competitors to the business as well. However, substitute would another kind of competitors to the company. Take shampoo and lotion as examples, some of their smells can last quite long time and their prices are much cheaper than buying perfume. Thus, these kinds of substitutes would affect the sales of the products as well.
The type of ownership in the business would be sole trader. Although there are limitations to access to capital and unlimited liabilities if the business is failed, the owner can set up the business, high degree to control the company and keep all the profit, also the owner has ability to offer personal service. Moreover, the resources that need to be included in the production will be some raw materials, such as flowers and alcohol. In order to do research and experiments, a laboratory is also needed in the business. A factory is needed to design and make the bottles, and to make packaging.
The last part in SCORE is external environment. PEST Analysis, a framework, can be used to analyse or monitor the business’s external environment.
PEST Analysis
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PEST Analysis |
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Political/Legal |
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Economic |
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Social/ Environmental |
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Technological |
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First of all, P stands for political or politico-legal. It can know the business may be affected by different policies or regulations which would influence the business in different degrees. The business’s owner should obey and not to commit crimes, otherwise the result of this would not be only fined, also be sentenced if it is serious situation. Trade from countries to countries will also impact on the business. Some developed countries will build up a union, so that they can reduce some unexpected expenditures. For example, when customers in Germany and do shopping on a French website, they do not need to pay custom tax. If the business can open in these countries, there might attract more customers. However, another situation is that, customers need to pay loads of tax if they purchase overseas which means the countries are not in the union. For instance, when parcels are sent from the United States or Canada, customers have to pay the duties more or less in different degrees.
Also, the difference of working hours in different countries might be influence the business as well. Take China and the UK as example, in China, shopping malls and supermarkets will open from nine or ten in the morning till ten in the evening, while the British shopping malls’ opening hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., except for some big cities, such as London and Manchester. Less opening hours may affect the sales of the product.
The second part of the PEST Analysis is E which stands for economic. This part of the analysis is to clarify the economic situations all over the world. Starting a new business in a country can help that country to reduce its unemployment rates as the company expands its size and more and more employees would be needed. By contrast, some activities or trends in the current economy might make a huge positive or negative impacts on each business. For example, in 2008, there is a famous event happened around the world – Financial Crisis. This event has affected almost all the businesses and companies around the world. The Financial Crisis has brought many negative impacts to the business, for example, businesses went bankrupt or became impoverished. But some companies have survived from this. Take Netflix as an example, Netflix has gained around 3 million members in 2009 because of the change of its downloading methods. Changing strategies or having Plan B in an unknown situation could probably survive in the situation.
Furthermore, societies and cultural differences might also affect the business. Age groups, regions, lifestyles and expenditure patterns are parts of the cultural differences. Customers in different regions might have different lifestyles and cultural background, it would result in different preferences. In perfume industry, consumers from eastern countries, such as China, Japan and Korea, might prefer the taste is not quite strong and spicy, like
SWOT Analysis
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SWOT Analysis |
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Strengths |
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Opportunities |
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