The company's product portfolio includes products from high value brands for trucks, buses and commercial vehicles. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the company's business plan and provide development recommendations that the company can use in their future business actions. At the moment the company's business plan is followed on an annual basis with no milestones.
The thesis analyzes the company's business plan, marketing plan, marketing communications mix and distribution channels. The development proposal's recommendation for Raskasvaraos is to focus more on its business plan and reassess its resources. A business plan is a necessary tool for all types of business to grow and also to stay at the achieved level.
The theoretical framework represents the company's business plan, which consists of a marketing plan and a mix of marketing communication and product distribution. The second part of the thesis is an empirical study where the company's business plan and marketing campaigns are explained from the company's point of view.
Background of the company Raskasvaraosa Oy
This thesis discusses opportunities and threats that my case company Raskasvaraosa experienced during its lifetime and future analysis is also made. Thesis is written as a case study while the author is a stakeholder and full-time employee of the case company. Raskasvaraosa has grown in four years and today it employs eight people full-time.
The owners participate closely in the operational work in the day-to-day functions and the company hierarchy is quite low. This thesis discusses the opportunities that the Raskasvaraosa case company has in developing their business plan when planning future business actions. The company's target customers range from individual shipping companies to large nationwide repair shop chains.
Raskasvaraosa plans to develop their current business plan to match the company's current situation and to predict possible future changes within the company. Company itself is quite new and the marketing budget for marketing actions is limited at this stage.
Purpose of the Thesis and research problem
The product range itself is mainly based on quality spare parts, but there are also some products from third countries.
Research approach
Knowledge base
Framework of the Thesis
Business plan
Requirement of a business plan
Purpose of a business plan
Marketing Plan
- Target market
- Market analysis
- Market segment analysis
- SWOT Analysis
- Competitors
Business plan should also include calculations of salaries, rent, marketing expenses, insurances, cost of productions and other miscellaneous expenses as well. Also one very important topic in a business plan is profitability calculation which defines the company's core business idea. The business plan itself does not need to be a hundred pages of text explaining your core business idea.
Each business plan is individual and the purpose and focus areas are designed according to the needs. The need or requirement of a business plan is an essential aspect while running the company, but also when starting the company. A well-prepared business plan gives an understanding of the level of profitability and also of the future outlook.
In Finland, the business plan is also necessary when applying for start-up grants and business support from government agencies. The main purpose of a business plan is to stay on track with cost calculations and also to follow the path of how to develop the business itself. This seven-path spiral model helps to understand the meaning of the business itself, but it also helps to understand the structure of the business plan.
The purpose of the business plan is to provide and explain a written explanation for these seven next tasks within the business. A target market is a specific group of a company's customers to whom the company wants to sell its products or services. The main goal of target marketing is to offer a few products in larger quantities to a certain type of customer.
Market segment analysis is the key to focusing the company's marketing efforts on the most promising groups of the most likely customers. With market segment analysis, the company gets the product or service in front of the customers who may need it. Diagrams at the bottom are for describing external things of organizations and the top half of the diagram is for internal things.
Marketing communications mix
Advertising
Sales Promotion
Public relations
Personal selling
Direct marketing
Objectives of market communications
Distribution of products
Choosing a distribution channel
Business plan
Executive summary
The Managing Director of the company is Juha Mäkelä, who is also an equity shareholder of the company. Both of Juha Mäkelä's children are also part of the company and are participating in the business in essential parts of the day-to-day activities. The company is also part of the nationwide chain of heavy duty spare parts called Raskassarja, which is the largest in the Finnish market.
In this thesis, the company's current situation is analyzed by using marketing plans, market communication mix and also the distribution channels. At the end of the thesis according to research results is the improvement plan for the case company.
Service Description
Marketing plan
- Target market
- Market analysis
- Market segment analysis
- SWOT Analysis
- Competitors
Business idea crystallization, customer and market analysis, identification of the competitors, definition of services and products, choice of sales and marketing efforts, risk analysis and also accounting and financial planning. Resources for this are the analysis of the factors that affect customers, investigation and systematic implementation and also control of the implementation. Adapting to the needs and wants of the customer is the most important part of personal selling.
Usually, the customer is the one seeking the information and is also in control of the situation. First is to distribute the product to the retailer, who then handles the rest of the cycle according to his own methods and capabilities. This second pattern usually helps to keep the price of the product at an acceptable level when there is no middleman on the product flow.
Choosing the right distribution channel is one of the most important tasks when introducing new products to the market. In most cases when starting a business from scratch, the first business plans may not materialize until the future when the actual business starts. Five employees work in sales and procurement, one employee takes care of the company's logistics, and one takes care of financial management and marketing.
Most of the registered commercial utility vehicles are located exactly in this area or they cross this area in their transport. One of the company's core business values is to offer service to every customer equally without focusing on their income or size. All the segments are different from each other and offer different types of values to its customers.
As mentioned above, Raskasvaraosa is part of the nationwide heavy-duty spare parts chain Raskassarja. In this market customers are segmented by their main operating industry and also by company revenue. This segmentation is done on a daily basis and rapid changes are a daily routine when considering the overall situation of the economy.
General economic conditions still determine competition in some areas of sales, but the majority of competition is from direct competitors. The mission of the company's business model is to expertly supply the highest performing high quality heavy duty spare parts.
RVO’s marketing communications mix
Advertising
Sales promotion
Public relations
Personal selling
Direct marketing
Distribution of products
Choosing a distribution channel
Also the author's own experience within the company helped to analyze the current situation of the company in a more detailed point of view. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the company's business plan and provide development recommendations for this, which the company can use in their future business actions. Working for five years already in the case company and as the first employee of the company when it started in 2010, the author has quite a few recommendations for Raskasvaraosa.
The author's recommendations are quite subjective to the case company, primarily due to the author's own position in the company in recent years. Effective tracking of a business plan will also help company managers follow their financial plan. This milestone strategy could be extended to most of the company's processes, not just those that correspond to the business plan.
The current situation in the company is that there are several people performing essentially the same job without any requirement for it. It would be much more efficient for the company to divide the range of responsibilities among employees. This type of structural change is very likely to make employees more and more committed to the company.
With these types of arrangements, the company's staff will be more cost effective for the company. The development and introduction of new brands into the import program will definitely expand the company's product portfolio. Also the company should think about their future actions and therefore the company's staff.
When the company seeks higher revenue in the future, they must also focus on more quality marketing. Other social media should also be covered in the future to increase customer brand awareness of the company and its products. The author's position on this issue is that the company needs guidance and more resources to achieve the goals.
