Read the scenario and then address the requirements for Part 1 of your strategic business plan. Scenario: The group of angel investors funding the development of your virtual business is looking forward to reviewing the strategic business plan your virtual team is busy constructing. Because you are a virtual business, your strategic business plan needs to highlight the competitive advantages and disadvantages of operating entirely online. Your virtual sam must complete and submit the strategic business plan on time. Along with the strategic business plan, your virtual team will record an oral presentation of your strategic business plan for the angel investors. Due to the importance of this strategic business planning project, it will be essential that each member of your virtual team demonstrate exemplary leadership, strategic thinking, creativity, research, communication, professionalism, and time-management abilities to ensure. success. Complete the following requirements for Part 1 of this strategic business planning process for your virtual business:
Assignment Requirements:
Find a professional strategic business plan template to develop a startup strategy for your virtual business.
Identify and recommend two additional professionals to represent your virtual team on the board of directors for your virtual business.
Propose the U.S. state and local structure of the business (sole proprietor, partnership, LLC, etc.) to register your virtual business.
Explain why your team chose such a legal structure and the tax and operational implications of your chosen state and the Internal Revenue Service.
Unit 3 Assignment
In the current corporate realm, all business executives know the importance of strategic planning. Therefore, most of them find it scary because the strategic planning process may introduce the organization to its future. Hence, if the strategic planning at this level goes wrong, then the organizational future may face a downfall. It may also destroy or ends up the executive’s career and the company’s future (Martin, 2014). Business strategic planning is crucial because it develops the business and provides desirable growth. That’s the reason, why businesses and organizations across the world utilize the adequate strategic plan template. Whether the business will run virtually or through walk-in stores, the strategic business plan templates need to be created by all (Scott, 2022). Furthermore, for my virtual business, I also developed a strategic plan which is stated below
Strategic Plan for
M&I Clothing Ltd.
The strategic plan for M&I Clothing Ltd consists of the following high-level objectives and action steps:
Objectives: The objective of my virtual clothing business is to reach the targetted goal by the end of this year. Meanwhile, I have set the target to provide designer and affordable men’s and women’s clothing wear for all occasions (Business Gateway, 2022). Strategic planning will help me in accomplishing my target easily and within due time.
Action Steps: The action steps for the strategic planning process involves determining the strategic position of the virtual business, considering and making the goals the priority, developing the plan, managing the plan, and revising the plan before starts achieving the business goals (Lucidchart, 2022).
Vision: The strategic plan of my clothing virtual business is to make the virtual business more accessible, organized, streamlined, and efficient to serve the consumers with the best products.
Mission: The mission of my virtual business is to become the top clothing brand and one consumer-friendly in the coming years not only in the US but instead across the globe.
Business and team summary: The primary business of my clothing consists of all the designer men’s and women’s clothing including wedding collections, party wear, and formal wear as well.
|The core members of my virtual business will include the Angel investors (the investor or funder), shareholders, and the board of directors.
Furthermore, when it comes to representing the virtual business in front of the board of directors, from the virtual team the person who will be responsible for managing and operating the day-to-day work along with the inside directors will be responsible for carrying out the task in an adequate manner. It is so because the board of directors may comprise 3 members from the Angel investors and the first impression of the business strategic plan will strengthen the budget resource.
My proposed virtual business will be based on a partnership because 40% of the business will be held or owned by Angel investors. Therefore it is a kind of partnership. However, after researching I found that running a partnership business whether virtually or physically may not require any kind of government permission (Winheller, 2022). However, the organizations are only required to make the proper contracts, agreements, and other paper works between the two partners for future consent. If requires the partners may also ask for creating a separate bank account, and different tax ID numbers. Therefore, no external factor will affect my virtual business growth and operations.
The virtual business may choose the partnership business structure because if I want my virtual business to grow soon then this is one of the most sought-after ways or business structures for doing so. Therefore, I can beat my competitors easily and may rule the US textile industry. Moreover, when it comes to taxes and other pertaining liabilities of the business, my business and Angel investors both will be responsible to submit the information on Form 1065 with the tax returns (Mehta, 2022). On the other hand, depending upon the company’s profit, the partners may pay their self-employment taxes.
To run a virtual business on a partnership structure in the US is easy, still, it requires having a DBA. The firm name can be based on the partner’s last name and the DBA or the Fictitious Name statement can be obtained from the US government. Under the DBA, my virtual business can run based on the partner’s last name which will be different from the business’s legal registered name (Miranda, Watts & Haskins, 2022). Depending upon the business’s operational activity location, the DBA can be acquired from the state, local, or federal government.
All the partnership businesses running in the US require to submit 2 forms. Likewise, I on behalf of my virtual business will also be required to submit these forms. These forms belong to the federal government and are K-1 forms and Forms 1065 (Haskins, 2022). It needs to be filled by 15th March 2023 to start the virtual business by the new financial year i.e. from 1st April 2023. These forms can either be filled out through online websites or via mail.
Now, it’s time for determining the name and other things of my virtual business. After discussing with the Angel investors and other crucial members, I decided to name my virtual clothing business Mcneal investors trading Ltd. Meanwhile, the tagline for the virtual business will be dedicated to your wonderful wardrobe. Afterward, the logo of my virtual business will depict the initials of M (Mcneal) and I (investors) with the tagline below the initials.
As I am running a clothing business, the industry where my business belongs is textiles, hence various external factors include the political stability index of the US, ease of operating the business in the country, total country’s revenue, CAGR of the country, GDP rate, number of employees, demand, production cost, corporate tax rate, and carbon footprint released by the country. On the other hand, when it comes to analyzing the market, the factors which might affect my business can range from employee retention rate, adopted technology, the capability of production, fragmentation of the industry, and others.
My virtual clothing business aims to solve the problem of affordability. It aims to make all the designer wear of men and women so affordable that it can be easily afforded by all the middle-class people of the US without diminishing the quality of the clothes. This problem exists everywhere across the world. High-quality designer clothes are so expensive that only rich and high-class people can be able to afford them. When it comes to the middle class, they can only afford simple clothes. However, on occasion, they can able to afford low or medium-quality designer dresses. My virtual business may solve this problem by offering premium quality dresses for men and women at an affordable rate ranging between $200-$300. Hence the class may not come in between desires and rates.
As already stated in the strategic plan of my virtual business, the vision of my business is to become more organized, accessible, and efficient so that the business may not only be able to serve people in the US but outside the US too. Therefore, the middle class from across the globe can be able to adopt the effective pricing of designer clothing from our brand. On the other hand, the mission of my virtual business is to become the top clothing and consumer-friendly brand across the world for all the middle-class people of the globe. This mission and vision statement will work altogether and in alignment to achieve the desired targets within the stipulated time.
My virtual business will drive the company’s value through management and leadership decision-making skills by following or implementing decision-making techniques in the business. The team members and the managers can make leadership decision skills through the task-oriented approach, involving all the senior and junior team members in the process, bringing or hiring a collaborative mindset, developing psychological safety, and reiterating the purpose of the decision (Gavin, 2020).
The philosophical statement for my virtual business which will reflect my business identity and culture should be to develop an inclusive culture and welcome everyone to fulfill their wishes. This philosophical statement developed will help me in conquering the competitors and overcoming the issues that customers are facing today to get affordable designer clothes. Through the philosophical statement, it’s clear and transparent that even middle-class and sometimes during offers and sales low-class people can also afford to wear designer clothing. Hence we promote designer clothing for all.
The goals or targets which I had defined for my virtual business are to maximize the business year by year and establish M&I Clothing Ltd as a wonderful designer clothing brand. To focus o quality over quantity so that customers may not get disappointed with our brand in any manner. To be able to serve as many peoples as we can through our specifically designed clothes inspired by top celebrities’ designer clothes.
The objective of every virtual team member is to accomplish the goals set by the business and strive hard to achieve them. Another objective can be accomplishing their daily-based targets or sale target so that the company may not suffer losses and keeps progressing year by year. The next objective is that the team members along with working for the company’s goal should work towards achieving their interpersonal goals too. For the development of the virtual business website, I am selecting Goji Labs as my web developer or partner. However, they will deliver the ready website soon.
References
Business Gateway (2022). Strategic planning: the basics. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.bgateway.com/resources/strategic-planning-the-basics#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20strategic%20planning%20is%20to%20set%20overall%20goals,what%20its%20priorities%20should%20be
Gavin, M. (2020). 5 KEY DECISION-MAKING TECHNIQUES FOR MANAGERS. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/decision-making-techniques
Haskins, J. (2022). 5 Steps to Filing Partnership Taxes. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.legalzoom.com/articles/5-steps-to-filing-partnership-taxes#:~:text=Partnerships%20must%20file%20copies%20of,either%20electronically%20or%20by%20mail.
Lucidchart (2022). 5 steps of the strategic planning process. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.lucidchart.com/blog/5-steps-of-the-strategic-planning-process
Martin, R.L. (2014). “The Big Lie of Strategic Planning”.Harvard Business Review. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://hbr.org/2014/01/the-big-lie-of-strategic-planning
Mehta, Z. (2022). What is Business Structure in the USA? And Types of Business Structure. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://ebizfiling.com/blog/legal-business-structure/
Miranda, D, Watts, R & Haskins, J. (2022). How To Get A Business License In 5 Steps? Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/how-to-get-a-business-license/#:~:text=You%20can%20run%20a%20business,business%20licenses%20from%20government%20agencies
Scott, S. (2022). What is a Strategic Business Plan? Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategic-business-plan-2716.html
Wheeler (2022). U.S. Partnership: Requirements, Advantages, Costs. Retrieved on 25th July 2022, from: https://www.winheller.com/en/business-law/international-business-law/us-desk/us-legal-entities/partnership.html#:~:text=Under%20U.S.%20law%20a%20partnership,specific%20rules%20to%20comply%20with
