Describe about the business plan.
When I think of business, what comes to my mind is, to own many good service station sites. Further,With 17.6 Million vehicles registered (year 2014 according to Motor vehicle census)(Dean, 2015) in Australia, fuel station can be seen a good business to start in such a good expanding market. Furthermore, talking more specifically, I like to start with a Caltex site as, it is a very good brand with a marvelous hold in Australia. Although, it has a tough competitions with Shell, 7 Eleven and BP, but not to forget a good hold too.
Any new business plan comes lot many questions to be answered and have to deal with many problems too. So, what came to mind first when I thought of this was:
According to Capar et al (2013), the fuel station is a service station which offers a range of fuel products for motorists including diesel, petrol and liquid Petroleum gas or LPG. The fuel stations comprises of the pumps and hoses with the turnover of petrol varying on the size of the station of the firm. According to Mustafa (2015), the fuel station site should be chosen to be sufficiently spacious in its design such that to minimise the risk involved to any individual which would be likely to be occurring at the fuel station.
Fuel business
The governance of the fuel station is implied by the legal requirements where the owner is required to purchase the liability insurance of the site. This could be the highly individual business to run which requires agencies According to Huijts, Molin and Van Wee (2014), the greatest skill required to maintain and run a successful fuel station is the ability to hire the best and the most conscientious employees. The fuel business cannot run itself on its own. Thus, the maintenance of the station requires enough employees for covering at all the times related to the business process. The fuel station is a business that serves both the passing trade and the locals. The fuel business needs to be providing good customer service. The industry is a high turnover business and thus, it require a good accountant of operation which includes the resources vital for running the business profitable in the long run.
Required Skills
Organisational skills required for maintaining the fuel stations is in understanding the requirements of the customers, working on retail product revenues and stick ordering on a regular basis. According to Huijts, Molin and Van Wee (2014), the placement of the stock order is the primary option for maintaining the supplier relationship. The owners must be considering the delivery methods and processing time of the vendors while preparing the orders. In addition, the actual delivery of the fuel should be checked for accuracy. Besides, the owner of the station is also required to keep up with the capital aside and which should not be phased by dealing with the large amount of deposit cash on a daily basis.
Setting up
According to Weber and Hitaj (2015), the fuel stations are larger than the average small businesses which requires the land and building to be leased and thereby costing an additional expense for establishing the same. Moreover, the gas fuel station is not a cheaaper business to buy while, being the most lucrative business in the market. According to Greene and Duleep (2013), getting the fuel margins would be helping in making all the difference to the financial health status of the fuel station. The most common way to measure the earnings is to evaluate the annual sales revenue. The fuel station is likely to generate more than the asking price annually although, the overhead and taxes including the fluctuating cost of the fuel is to be deducted from this amount. According to Greene and Duleep (2013), the most advantageous thing about the fuel station establishment is that the new investment and smart ideas of the owner would be helping the busianess to increase the profitability in the future.
Research methodologiesprovide an evidence base for decision making.
It consist like the methods used for research. It can be practical research or theoretical research. So here to research about service station we can use more of practical research which further consist
So in our case, we need to do online and practical surveys, interviews, discussions and observations. It is difficult to select one method of research because each method has it’s importance and skipping any step can result in wrong investment.
It begins with collecting appropriate infolike by meeting real estate dealers, Site seeing. Site seeing is important too as it would be the base for the whole project. This can be done nowadays through online websites. For example, as I was going through stuff on this website I came across a site in a small town which doesn’t even has Woolworths or Coles and nearest Mac-d is 3 hours away. So having a service station in that town with a population of 1200, one need to keep groceries and would earn major chunk from food and groceries(Businessforsale.com.au, 2016).Furthermore, on a different, collecting information regarding Caltex franchise, what are the things one needs to know like their requirements and how much time will it take to compete all the requirements, info about borrowing funds, have to search for the lowest interest rates or from government schemes.
Further, have to have a research objectiveand it is believed that, to be successful in any field you have to aim high. Here it means, research has to be intensive about Caltex and other service station sites, like others profit margins and breakeven and comparing it with Caltex fuel stations.
Moreover have to select a research methodology,which best suites the type of business you are starting. Here as mentioned above you need more of surveys, observations and discussions with other franchise owners, manager of other sites and asking real estate experts.
Furthermore, secondary and primary researchconsists of collection and discussions through internet and through observations and interviews.
Use of tables for data analysis and final report would end the research process.
When we talk of survey, it is mainly more of a practical or physical thing to do.
On another hand, Literature review involves paper and pen. Literature review is more of a theoretical stuff. It means to write a review of any research with reference to relevant theory.
Data collection can be done in many different ways. So for any research, data collection can start with simply going online through websites as, Internet has connected whole world, otherwise it was very difficult to go far off places for data collection by surveys. As off now, we can find research outcomes on websites or can post a blog asking questions and you would find couple of relevant answer within few hours.
Online survey for literature review can also be done survey monkey. Other ways to do survey nowadays can be through emails or through social media, posting for comments on Facebook in several groups.
Talking more specific to topic, survey could be conducted in particular suburb, observing the type of vehicles people own ( diesel or petrol or LPG) in that area and which community has majority and their eating habits (processed foods like pies, sandwiches and sausage rolls, donuts, coffee, tea etc.), even though can’t change much if it is franchisee, but in case of free hold station, we can do much more things of our choice and for that intensive surveys need to be done even involving door to door knocking.
Collecting data of competitors in that area and studying their weaknesses and strengths, their customer base etc.
Collected information can be made meaningful with the help of descriptive statistics like, Excel and SPSS.
After studying the collected data, it can be said that, service industry in Australia is still in a childhood phase and pretty many things are still to be discovered. There are highways with no fuel stations, people travelling have to carry big jerry cans, and some of them even stretch more than 1000KMs. If I was given a chance to open fuel station in India, I wouldn’t have done that as there is hardly any highway left without fuel pump and you can’t set fuel prices by yourself, as prices are imposed by government, further people prefer to buy stuff from their regular wholesalers and retailer and they do not change their preference very often. I expect fuel station is a good business to start in Australia than many other countries.
Reference
Businessforsale.com.au. (2016).Business For Sale – BusinessForSale.com.au.
Capar, I., Kuby, M., Leon, V.J. and Tsai, Y.J., 2013. An arc cover–path-cover formulation and strategic analysis of alternative-fuel station locations. European Journal of Operational Research, 227(1), pp.142-151.
Dean, S. (2015). An introduction to buying a gas station.
Difference? L. (2013). Literature Review versus Survey. What is the difference?.
Greene, D.L. and Duleep, G., 2013. Status and prospects of the global automotive fuel cell industry and plans for deployment of fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen refueling infrastructure. Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
Huijts, N.M.A., Molin, E.J.E. and Van Wee, B., 2014. Hydrogen fuel station acceptance: A structural equation model based on the technology acceptance framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, pp.153-166.
Mustafa, A.M.H., 2015. Fire Safety in Petroleum Service Stations, in Wad Medani-Gezira State (Doctoral dissertation, UOFK).
Weber, J. and Hitaj, C., 2015. What can we learn about shale gas development from land values? Opportunities, challenges, and evidence from Texas and Pennsylvania.
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