Business Plan for Tailoring Workshop Company: A Tailor Shop on Wheels This business plan is for the Tailoring Workshop Company (hereinafter alternatively "the company"), a mobile tailor shop for men clothes that will have a Web site and a mobile app available through the Apple Store. The company will focus on tailoring men's suits only. Customers will be able to contact their personal tailor through the company's Web site or via the mobile app, but there will be no physical brick-and-mortar facilities or retail outlet. Customers will be able to create a free online account that enables them to explore all fabric choices and design collections so they can select the combinations that most appeal to them. The mobile app and Web site will facilitate changes so that customers can instantaneously visualize the results of their choices. In addition to using the company's available designs, customers will also be able to create their own custom designs using the Web site's designing tool. Likewise, customers can upload pictures, narrative description of pages from competitors' catalogs and the designs can be created to their satisfaction.

Following the formalization of the final design, customers will schedule appointments for their personal tailor to visit them in their home, office or other place of convenience for measurements. Customers will be able to track the progress of their order using their account with the company's Web site or mobile app and they will receive periodic updates concerning the final delivery date and time. Customers will be able to pay through the company's Web site or during the measurements appointment. All tailoring work will be performed in the homes of the company's principals or in commercial space leased for this purpose. After finishing the order, the company will deliver the finished suits to customers and ensure a proper fitting. Once the company has established a solid reputation for reliability, quality and customer service, the operation can be expanded to cover the rest of the state and eventually the entire nation using the methods and strategies outlined below.

Management

The day-to-day management of the company will be the responsibility of the owner but two private investors will also have a voice in the long-term strategic planning for the company. This approach is highly congruent with the guidance provided by Thomas (2009) who emphasizes that in the tailor sector, "A small, privately owned company in an industry rife with corporate takeovers and IPOs allows [a] firm to maintain close, solid relations with its customers and to remain free to make quick business decisions when needed" (p. 46). Appropriate software such as Tailor Master will be implemented in order to facilitate the management of the tailor shop, including the automated preparation of management reports, inventory, payroll and tax documents. The Tailor Master application will also provide human resource management features as discussed further below.

Human resources

Besides the owner who is an experienced tailor, the envisioned tailor shop will also employ two full-time tailors and two part-time administrative support staff who will be responsible for all social media marketing including responding to online customer feedback. For the tailors, the company will recruit individuals who are skilled at crafting original designs as well as being experienced at making alternations to better fit individual body types (Tailor career information, 2014). Other attributes that will be sought in the company's in tailors include the ability to make accurate measurements, provide recommendations for suit sizes to customers based on those measurements, drawing patterns, operating a sewing machine and working with a needle and thread (Tailor career information, 2014). In addition, the company's tailor force will also be required to interact with customers in a salesperson capacity (Tailor career information, 2014). The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) (www.bls.gov).reports that there are no formal degree requirements to become a professional tailor but candidates with a college degree will be assigned hiring preferences, especially those with education and experience in marketing, as discussed further below.

Marketing

The company will focus on using social media networks as its primary marketing tools. According to the definition provided by Hensel and Deis (2012, p. 87), "Social media is a type of online media that expedites conversation as opposed to traditional media, which delivers content but doesn't allow readers/viewers/listeners to participate in the creation or development of the content" (2012, p. 87). There are a wide range of popular social media networks currently, including the most popular Facebook, as well as YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest, Linkedln, MySpace and many others (Hensel & Deis, 2012).

The results of the most recent (2013) Social Brands 100 rankings survey determined that the best-performing small businesses are those that have a social media...

Indeed, all of the top-performing small retailers maintain a Facebook presence, while almost all (99%) are also on Twitter and 94% have a YouTube presence (Social brands 100, 2013). These core social media networks were followed by Google+ and Pinterest which are used by 60% of small businesses, with Instagram and Foursquare being used by smaller numbers (Social brands 100, 2013).
A brief description of some of the most popular social media networks in provided in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Current popular social media networks

Social Media Network

Description

Facebook

By far the most popular social media network today, this social media network is privately operated and is ranked as the most used social network worldwide. By May 2010, Google announced that more people were visiting Facebook than any other Web site in the world. As of October 31, 2013, about 500 million people were members of this social media network and fully half of these members use their Facebook accounts every day (How many people use Facebook 2014).

YouTube

Founded in 2005, YouTube is the world's most popular online video community, where millions of people discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a major distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers, large and small. YouTube uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos.

Twitter

Twitter gained a lot of popularity because it offered more different options such as micro blogging and because it was used by some celebrities. According to Bulearca and Bulearca, "Of all social media platforms, Twitter stands out, in terms of both characteristics and growth. Launched in 2006, Twitter gained most of its popularity as a micro-blogging tool in 2009, when it reached 58.5million users world-wide, a 949% increase since September 2008" (2012, p. 297).

MySpace

In 2006, MySpace became the most popular social networking website but was overtaken in 2008 by its competitor Facebook which became the most popular social networking site worldwide. Approximately 43.2 million users visit MySpace on a monthly basis. The company employs approximately 1,000 employees. A unique feature of MySpace is the ability for users to customize their profile information to give detailed information about themselves and what they are interested in.

Source: Adapted from Edosomwan, Prakasan, Kouame, Watson & Seymour 2011 unless otherwise indicated

Social media networks provide small business retailers such as men's tailor shops with a forum in which they can communicate their brand value and attributes in a cost-effective fashion (Edosomwan et al., 2011). Men's tailor shops can also benefit from the addition of social media networks to their marketing efforts in a number of ways, including the following:

Promoting open communication between employees and management;

Enabling employees to share project ideas and work in teams effectively, which helps in sharing knowledge and experiences;

Promoting better content, such as Web cast and videos, rather than just simple text;

Helping to communicate collaboratively between current and potential customers, in receiving feedback, product definition, product development, or any forms of customer service and support;

Encouraging company's employees to become members of a well-recognized community; and,

Becoming a good venue for discussions provided companies ensure that the employees are adhering to the rules and etiquettes of social media (Edosomanwan et al., 2011, p. 80).

In fact, consumers' use of social media has become the most popular activity on the World Wide Web in recent years (Prosser 2014). For instance, according to Prosser, "More consumers use social networks each month than use email accounts, and 40 per cent of social media users have purchased an item after sharing, commenting, pinning, tweeting, liking or 'favoriting' it" (2014, p. 3). In addition, the selection of the optimal social media network relates to the nature of the enterprise, with some social media networks provided some advantages over others for the purposes of small business retailers such as men's tailor shops. For instance, to date, Facebook has proven highly effective for small hotels and restaurants while LinkedIn and Twitter have been more effective for sole practitioners such as men's tailors (Prosser, 2014). In many cases, small business retailers use a so-called "shotgun" approach by establishing a presence of multiple social media network platforms (Prosser 2014). In this…