X-Quisite: a natural body care company business plan

Profiling X-Quisite, an International Firm

Organization Type

Planning

Market Assessment

Marketing Strategy

Organizational Structure

Organizational Culture

Locations of the Organization

Business Operations

Company's approach to issues such as: environment, political, social, economic, legal and labor forces of the international economy

The present paper aims at creating the profile of an International Firm that the author would like to establish as an entrepreneur. This Firm will be thus analyzed from the perspective of various, such as: organization type, strategy, planning, market assessment, marketing strategy, organizational structure and culture, locations of the organization, and business operations.

The company projected is a "Natural Body Care" company, named "X-Quisite," and that has at its most defining characteristic the sustainable use of natural ingredients in order to deliver well-being to persons it touches - its consumers.

Organization Type

As previously stated, the organization created is a manufacturer of natural body care products, whose products enter in categories such as skin and hair care, make-up, solar protection, among others.

X-Quisite will be launched at first as a private company, with the possibility to have its listing with the Stock Exchange after reaching the necessary size and of course, if at the moment the entrepreneur desires this.

X-Quisite will have its own laboratories that will be using natural ingredients coming from 100% natural sources, one of them being most probably the Amazonian Forrest. For this reason, the sustainability related concerns will be further detailed inside the "Business Operation" chapter.

Strategy

X-Quisite will enter on a world market that desires more and more natural products, (Passariello, 2008) but that needs to obtain them in a matter that takes care of the environment. This makes corporate social responsibility (CSR) a must for the strategic approach of X-Quisite.

Besides its Headquarters and distribution network in the U.S., the company will have its own laboratories and research centers and will work at least at the beginning on the "consultant" system used by other firms in the market, such as Avon and Oriflame, having thus a better penetration power with relatively lower costs.

Depending on a study to be developed previous to its creation, should be decided where to be located. Latin America will be the target for such investments given the abundance of such natural resources. Most probable, taking into account Brazil's natural conditions (contains most of the Amazonian Forrest on its territory) and, with the exception of Chile, has one of the most positive outlooks for economic growth on long-term, it might just become the destination of these first investments. Nevertheless, Chile is also a good target country, especially given the recent Free Trade Agreements with the U.S. entered in force, which thus give support to developing businesses in the region (Barrett, 2008). Also, one must take advantage that Latin America is now a market of more than half a billion people, with less daunting language barriers and cultural differences than other interesting destinations such as Asia... And this is especially valid for most Americans. Latin American combined economies are expected to know a growth of 5.45% in 2008, three times higher than U.S.'s 1.3% (Barrett, 2008)

With the development of business, other future markets for product commercialization can be Eastern Europe and Asia, observing that the economic growth of the last two regions has been forecasted to 7.8% (without Japan - with forecasted growth of 2%) and respectively 6.2% for 2008 (Young, 2007). Additionally, countries in emerging Europe and China, for example, present significantly growth in skin care products. (Passariello, 2008)

Planning

For the beginning of the business, planning will be based largely on the feedback from the market studies to be developed in the U.S. And Latin America. Once the business is functional, a long-term planning meeting should have place every 5 years in order to decide on long-term goals that should be therefore implemented at local level (depending on the units to be created). Local annual planning meetings will be established, in order to keep track of the long-term goals and the way these are being achieved or not and therefore decide strategic actions for the following year.

Marketing Strategy

On the U.S. market, X-Quisite should approach each target market in a dedicated manner. Mainly TV commercial and freely distributed catalogues can be the starting point of the marketing approach, with specific presence in specific ethnical TV or radio station (for Hispanic, Asian or Black population) and materials to be adequately translated into the target costumer's language. Free samples of the products should also be distributed.

Involvement in Sustainable Development practices (which, in any case will be part of the company's day-to-day practices) should be also used as a Marketing Tool.

In the Latin American market, contact with regionally specialized marketing and advertising companies should be started, in order to adapt the approach to the particularities of the consumers.

Very briefly, the image that X-Quisite should transmit about its products and its personality as a personal care company should be based on the idea that the wild nature combines its little miracles in order to bring new energy and the feeling of well-being to its consumer, and that X-Quisite is just the instrument to help in this transfer of energies.

Organizational Structure

The most adequate structure for an organization of X-Quisite's type could be the Matrix structure, which would combine the line of products and geographical divisions. matrix structure that combines geographical with product divisions. In this way, the product line-based structure would allow X-Quisite to take advantage of global economies of scale, while the geographic structure will allow the know-how to be retained close to the needs of individual regions or countries.

Organizational Culture

The employees are essential to the creation of a company's brand, in our case, X-Quisite. They are the ones that give a certain shape to the internal culture and, along with other means, will transmit the values of the company to the outer world. Therefore, special attention should be taken care regarding internal climate and approval index. This could be obtained by insuring open dialogue between the employees and the top management as well as facilitation of regular feedback, and therefore insuring a lower level of power distance (Hofstede, 80).

Technical and personal training should support the preparation of X-Quisite's employees, with a minimum goal of 80 annual training hours in average.

Ideally, the organization should construct a sense of cohesion, with its goals and vision strongly shared by all employees. The inside feeling of the employees regarding the environment should be more "family like" and not that much "business like," being a company where employees would happily come to work. As called by Cameron and Quinn, this is a Clan Culture and it would be the ideal situation to be obtained, with high level of involvement of all employees in the life and future of the company (Cameron, Quinn, 1999; Denison, 1990)..

Locations of the Organization

For the initial phase, laboratories and production should start in the specific Latin American country to be decided (most probably Brazil), and the Headquarters in the U.S.A. should commence the commercial and tactical activity.

The commercial offices should be installed in consumer-high regions, in order to decrease the costs of transportation of products from the pre-established warehouses. The same strategy should be used also for the Latin American operations, where X-Quisite should have its commercial offices close to where potential high sales could be registered.

The target would be that in the first 3 to 5 years, at least 20 regional commercial offices to be starting operations in the U.S., and already 3 to 5 in Latin America (Brazil), controlling the activity of at least 2500 to 3000 sales consultants.

Nevertheless, the exact numbers should be decided upon studies related to costs and viability of such practices.

Business Operations

Company's approach to issues such as: environment, political, social, economic, legal and labor forces of the international economy

X-Quisite will import its products from the production units in Latin America, and distribute it afterwards to the regional warehouses and commercial offices.

The environmental issues are the most important ones for a company such as X-Quisite, which uses as raw-material natural products, and especially from an area (Amazon Forrest) that has been involved in so many sustainability talks.

Therefore, in terms of environment, X-Quisite should mitigate and - where possible - eliminate all harmful impacts its activity could bring to the environment, having as its outmost important goal the one of becoming a "carbon-neutral" company by 2010.

In such a way, X-Quisite can hope to avoid any political issues (environmentally related) that might appear from an incorrect use of the natural resources in a different country, matters that "green" NGOs or political parties would not hesitate to attack. Keeping in mind the usage at a large-scale of the diverse biologic resources, funds and energy should be put to use in a sustainable manner, together with the farming and extracting communities, with which close relations should be kept and supervised.

From a socially related point-of-view, the quality of relations and an efficient distribution of resources to all the stakeholders within the business chain should be of significant importance.

X-Quisite should construct an image (based on reality) of a company that offers well-being to its costumers, that takes care of its employees and motivates them, and therefore insures continuity in its vision and plans at an international level.

Conclusion

X-Quisite will enter on a growing but sensitive market, with high environmental and social pressures that should accommodate within its strategies.

The company has real chances of growth and development, if it will know how to use its strength and adapt to what the clients need, at the right place and the right moment. After the U.S. And Latin American expansion, new markets can be sought in Eastern Europe and Asia, given their strong economic growth.

As mentioned above, X-Quisite is a company that offers well-being to its costumers... It has to do the same with the environment that will provide it with the necessary raw materials and with the employees, which will represent the means by which the company will grow and reach its goals.

With the presented ideas, X-Quisite has real chances to become a socially responsible and continuously growing, loved company, both by its consumers and its employees.