Fast Track Couriers: Delivering Cost-effective And Reliable Courier Services

Vision statement

Target Market: The target market of the company includes small to medium sized companies, within Sydney and the company is planning to expand its business within regional NSW, initiating with Newcastle, Wollongong along with NSW based central west region. The customers of the company will come back to use all the company’s services due to a 15 years’ history of dependable and cost effective service.

Marketing Strategy: The plan of the company is to expand the comprehensive marketplace in order to encompass regional areas of NSW. The company has already maintained a consumer base within Sydney. Moreover, the part of the company’s plan is focused on expanding within regional NSW and wants to attract previously lost consumers. This might cater for the time being and this is for attracting lost consumers that could not be catered for that time as the company did not pick up or deliver within regional NSW. The new marketing plan of the company is to contact the consumers those are lost previously. The objective of the paper is to attract new customers; the company will carry out market research in order to reveal new consumers along with informing them of the impending entry within the region. The reputation is cost effective and reliable couriers.

Vision statement: The vision of the fast track couriers is to regularly grow the business through expanding the consumer base along with encompassing NSW regional base for the pick up along with delivery by mid-2018. The company also has a future vision of going national at the end of 2025.

Strategic Plan Goals: The strategic goal of the company is to develop the business along with enhancing business profits for over three years through expanding routes to encompass regional NSW.

Operational Plan Goals:

The Fast Track Courier Company will:

• Initiate delivery within local NSW in 12 months’ duration
• Enhance sales by 40% over the future three years

Annual sales
Current sales 2017	Estimated sales 2018
$17 million	$22 million
Annual net profit
Current net profit (2017)	Estimated net profit (2018)
$1.9 million or 11.16% of sales	$3.2 million or 14.54% of sales
Increased costs in 2018
Loan repayments	Operating costs (fuel, servicing, etc.)
+$200,000 per annum paid back to the bank for the $700,000 Business loan.	+$2.2 million for the 10 new trucks
Administrative costs	Labour costs
+$100,000 Licensing/Registration/Insurances	Nil

Products/ service: Delivery and pick-up of medium to large sized packages all through the Sydney and all in the future years including regional NSW. Demand for the service is enhancing through 15% per year.

Permits and Licenses: Licensed for attaining the business operation within NSW “with Light Rigid Trucks that is not beyond 8 tones in weight”. Drivers need to attain at least an “LR” License.

Location of Business: The location serves as an office space along with distribution center that a 3000 sq mt area. The location can be revealed at 6 Hill Road, Sydney Olympic Park.

Lease/ Buy: The company is recently leasing the business location and the business future plans encompass the likely purchase of the location of an identical size.

Milestone or Achievable Target	Date of expected completion	Person responsible
Increase the reach of the business within regional NSW to increase sales by 12% each year for overall 3 consecutive years for an overall increase of 40%	Feb 2021	Marketing/Sales Manager

Product/Service	Description	Price
Delivery and pick up service	The company will pick-up and deliver small to bigger sized packages/parcels that has till maximum 120 kgs weight. This weight limit is 120kgs is applicable to lifting capability of the installed lift gate on the rear of the trucks for each package or parcel (Finch, 2016).	Price is different based on weight and size of all the parcels along with kilometers travelled from the pick-up to delivery location

Strategic Plan Goals

Workers Compensation: Workers compensation insurance such as “Certificate of Currency” is accessible for viewing.

Public and Business Liability Insurance: Public and business liability insurance including “currency certificates” are available in order to view.

Sales manager’s reports explained that the contracts are lost due to the reason that the consumers wish to get involved in a courier that can deliver to their regional offices, the marking plan is to contract the previously lost consumers. This has facilitated in informing them of our entry into the regional areas of NSW. In order to attract new consumers, the company will carry out market research for conducting market research in order to reveal market research along with small and medium size businesses within regional situations. The company might contact the likely new consumers along with informing them of the company’s impending entry within the area.

The company’s target market includes small to medium sized businesses along with residential consumers within the region of Sydney. The company is planning to expand its businesses within the regional NSW that initiates with Newcastle, Wollongong along with Central West Region within NSW. Fast Track Couriers attains an admirable 87% retention rate for the present consumers. The consumers continue coming back to employ the company’s services for the reason that 15-year history of cost along with reliable effective service.

The company’s recent consumers include Sydney based and the potential new consumers will be attained from regional NSW. As a fraction of our expansion plans of the business, the company is going to enter the local NSW marketplace. Through expanding each of the company’s businesses, it will be accessing a gradual increase of 25% to the company’s base of consumers.

Consumer Demographics: The company’s existing consumers are 80% small to medium sized businesses, it does not have some continuous residential consumers and this equates to around 20% of the present consumer base.

Consumers Management: Due to the program of the telephone follow-up to make sure consumers ongoing satisfaction with the company, Fast Track Couriers attains an admirable 87% rate of retention for the existing consumers.

Strengths	Weaknesses
High traffic volume of Sydney due several parcels along with the rate of retention equivalent to 87% of the customers	Limited to the region of Sydney only and not available to the regional NSW areas
Opportunities	Threats
Possibility of quick expansion into regions like Wollongong, Newcastle and Central West of NSW	Presence of various national and regional competitors

At present, the organisation holds 18% market share of Sydney. In addition, it provides the right value to the customers in the region of Sydney. After embracing the regional NSW, the organisation diversifies the client base at the expenditure of the rivals. Furthermore, the proven value or reliability to the existing clients would embrace few old clients and new clients in returning to services.

Operational Plan Goals

Details of the competitors:

Competitors	Date of establishment	Size	Market share (in %)	Value to consumers	Strengths	Weaknesses
DHL Express	1990	350,000 internationally	11% of NSW	Price and reliability	The goodwill and the international aspect of its slogan “We Deliver anywhere/ everywhere”.	Too large, to care about the marketplace of NSW
Fastway Couriers	2003	800 across Australia	12% of NSW	Price and reliability	National organisation	The greater costs of overhead in maintaining a national presence

Advertising and promotional strategy:

Planned promotion/ advertising type	Expected business improvement	Cost (in $)	Target date
Giveaway, mail-out, social media campaign and media release	Increase in customer base by 10% and rise in profit margin by 12% within a year	7,000	31/12/2018

Channel type	Products/ services	Percentage of sales (in %)	Advantages	Disadvantages
Communication	Delivery service	15%	Smooth flow of formal communication from managers to subordinates ensuring smooth delivery	Possibility of miscommunication between managers and staffs
Distribution	Pick-up trucks	25%	The specialised members of the distributional channel help in saving cost	Reseller might involve in personal selling and it might lead to loss of communication control

Job Title	Quantity	Expected staff turnover	Skills/Qualification necessary	Date required
CEO	1	10 years	Bachelor of Business	Completed 2004
Operations Manager	1	5 years	Diploma of Leadership and Management	Completed 2017
Sales Manager	1	5 years	Experienced in Sales and Management	12 years experience
Administration Team Leader	1	2-3 years	Certificate IV in Business Administration	Completed 2015
Administration office assistants	6	2-3 years	Certificate III in Business Administration	Current
Drivers	20	2-3 years	Light Rigid Drivers Licence	Current

The existing staffs need to be reviewed based on their performance skills, as such review would help in signifying if the existing level of skills of the current staffs needs update or refreshment. The pay scales or staff remuneration would be depictive on outcomes of individual performance. Depending on the employment contracts, all employees are judged on performance, which could be either quantitative or qualitative.

Risk	Likelihood	Impact	Strategy
Failure of trucks and delivery, which is causing reliability of deliveries in order to decrease	Unlikely	Medium	Contingency plans available for the contractor- trucks and relief drivers for delivery and pick-up

Registered organisation/business/company within the transportation sector

Service process:

The organisation provides pick-up and delivery services to the customers. The drivers of the company would attend the locations of the customers to pick-up, delivering the item to the centre of distribution, in which the item would be shifted to the pertinent location of the delivery driver.

Plant and equipment:

Equipment	Purchase date	Purchase price	Running cost
10x trucks	20/03/2010	$400000	$35000/mth
4x computers for administrators	20/03/2015	$12000	$1000/mth
Telephone system 10x dedicated lines	20/03/2010	$15000	$2000/mth

MYOB is employed as a business tool related to database management. The database of the organisation constitutes of a list of existing and old clients and the database could be used for generating reports on business performance that constitute of the number of deliveries each day per driver/day/client and the financial position of the business presently and estimated forward.

Trading hours:

The shop is open from 10 a.m. in the morning to 10 p.m. in the night and the demand for the services of the organisation is expected to remain identical over the year. The new staffs would be appointed from time to time to deal with the rising sales of services.

The main channels of communication constitute of telephone (mobile or landline), e-mail, internet blog, fax and social media content. These channels would enable in increasing the sales and profit levels of the organisation.

Payment types accepted:

In order to make payments for the services provided on the part of the organisation, the customers are able to pay in cash, credit and Paypal.

Credit policy:

For those customers seeking the services from the organisation, credit period is allowed based on the existing credit records. The credit period mainly varies from 60 days to 90 days and it has special persons to collect the amount from the debtors.

Quality control:

In order to maintain the quality of services and products, the organisation has followed the pertinent ISO standards and Six Sigma process that would help in providing maximum customer satisfaction.

Memberships and affiliations:

The organisation belongs to the courier industry.

Major objectives and financial review:

Financial objectives:

• Raising the client base by 25%, which would raise sales by 40% in both Regional and Sydney NSW
• Increase in net income by 28.5%

• Requirement of $700,000 for the purchase of 10 new trucks and installing 20 lift gates to the existing and new trucks
• Obtaining a business loan for the overall amount required