Write a feasibility study on a gas delivery business using smartphone technology (e-shop). Use the business model canvas, SWOT, and TOWS analysis to evaluate the business idea’s feasibility.
Write a feasibility study on a gas delivery business using smartphone technology (e-shop). Use the business model canvas, SWOT, and TOWS analysis to evaluate the business idea's feasibility.
Product/service description. Gas delivery and E-shop is a business idea that entails availing related goods and services in gas stations to long-distance travelers. Notably, the strategy utilizes smartphone technology to instigate collaboration between service agents and shop owners at the gas station to serve drivers in their cars. This plan aims to minimize the wastage of time and overcrowding for long-distance travelers at the gas station.
Target Market. According to Berger (2015), the target market is the group in which the new business would maintain, implement, and design a marketing mix projected to meet their needs, leading to mutually satisfying exchanges. To this end, the target market for the proposed idea is long-distance travelers who are exacerbated by lines and experience inconvenience at the gas stations.
The benefit of the product/service. The idea to venture into a Gas and E-shop was driven by the aspiration to enhance servicing experience and manage time for long-distance travelers. It was caused by the desire to reduce congestion in gas stations. Overcrowding lowers the experiences of the customers and activities at the petrol station. In this regard, the product/service is beneficial because it reduces congestion and saves more time for long-distance travelers in various gas stations.
Competitors and unique features: Gas and E-shop enable people to save time within a gas station; this is conceivable since it is an easy-to-use smartphone application that enhances access to gasoline and other essential requirements. Arguably, this is a unique product since there are a few competitors in the market. Travelers started to embrace the utilization of gas and e-shop in the late 20th Century; in this period, travelers began to order products while still in the queue or on their way to the terminal. At present, online shopping is used to sell purchasing goods. However, Gas and E-shop is unique in continuing to reinvent itself by introducing new solutions and processes and adopting new technologies. As an illustration, the business has used a mobile app since many individuals prefer to work and find a product/service through their phones.
How the product/service will be sold and distributed: The proposed business will offer users a fully compatible Gas and E-shop app through Google PlayMarket and App Store. After registering, installing, and downloading the app, a purchaser can search for close gas stations and get to them by following the featured Google Maps.
Usability testing will be utilized to determine how easy it is to use the Gas and E-shop. Therefore, users will be asked to complete tasks while a researcher observes them to determine if they experience confusion or encounter problems. Commendations will be made to overcome usability challenges that will be recognized when users come across similar complications. A traveler makes an essential stop at a gas station; rather than alighting from their vehicle to go and physically purchase products, they utilize an online-supported shopping system to order the products. The driver establishes a request which goes with a position and car number. After the order is processed, the customer service agents of the different businesses take them to the drivers in their cars. Moreover, permission would be needed from 20 gas stations for the app’s functionality testing before it is launched. The testing is essential since it affirms the accuracy of the app.
Industry and Market Feasibility
Like numerous industries transformed and disrupted by technology, the iconic gas station will soon undergo a considerable digital makeover linking it to the car and consumers. It is not a single trend pushing the transformation; it is a multitude of disruptions revamping people’s association with autos and how gasoline and other products are sold in the station. In the last two years, gas stations have undergone a step transformation in terms of service, operations, forecourts, formats, and product offerings. The traditional fuel business has experienced a drastic change, and new technologies have led to more delightful, engaged, and personalized shopping and fueling experiences (Choudhury, 2018). Therefore, the market shows a clear potential for Gas and E-shop business and provides the opportunity for innovation of time-saving products as proposed in the business.
Organizational Feasibility
Organization feasibility regards ample company support for the new business to be implemented successfully. Whether or not the proper management is available would determine the organizational feasibility of the Gas and E-shop business. In essence, this is possible because the new venture team consists of members with a strong background in the industry, mainly in the same market and technology (Kliem & Anderson, 2016). The team has complementary skills, and they are also ideologically and philosophically compatible. The entrepreneurs also have highly experienced and committed members with personal honesty and integrity.
Financial Feasibility
The objective of the financial feasibility analysis is to determine whether Gas and E-shop will have positive financial returns within a projected period, which includes the following within a product lifecycle: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. The business will earn revenue by enhancing the experiences of long-distance travelers and trolling time waste and overcrowding.
Project start-up expenses
Gas Delivery Business startup expenses
The project’s economic life is considered a long-term business since it is projected to extend to five years. Each of the team members will contribute 30% of the total capital. Additional funds will be acquired from a bank that can support entrepreneurs and SMEs. In this regard, the team will liaise with a national bank to get a loan of five years with an interest rate of 9%.
Break-even analysis
Gas Delivery Business Breakeven analysis
A compelling value proposition is concise and informs the users of what they would benefit from downloading the app. As such, the value proposition of the Gas and E-shop will be as follows: Enable high-quality services at gas stations by minimizing congestion and enhancing the utilization of time by long-distance drivers.
The proposed business will utilize two main categories of marketing sizing methods: top-down and bottom-up. In the bottom-up approach, the firm will use projections of individual clusters to size the market (Alemany & Andreoli, J2018). The team, in this regard, will first classify the customer segment it expects to reach and then estimate its growth and size. As an illustration, through a combination of primary and secondary research, the proposed business has determined that long-distance travelers are more likely to use the product/service. In this case, Gas and E-shop will analyze the number of users who have purchased apps for their iPhones. If there are 10 million active iPhone users, half of whom purchase at least one app per month, the proposed business can extrapolate from this point. The team can estimate that of the 10 million active iPhone users who purchase apps, at least 1% of them will purchase the Gas and E-shop app.
Conversely, in the top-down approach, the team will begin with an approximation of the overall market and analyze the successive proportions it intends to reach (Alemany & Andreoli, J2018). The firm can start with a population of long-distance travelers and narrow it down. The team can attain this number through competitive intelligence, including annual reports and websites. For example, based on the data, of an estimated one million travelers each day, 30% are likely to be long-distance travelers. Ultimately, the company can arrive at several users who would likely use the app, which in this example are 300,000 people.
The target market for Gas and E-shop is long-distance travelers challenged with long queues. Concerning competition, Gas and E-shop is an innovative and unique product/services, which means that the firm will operate in a shallowly competitive market. Only limited apps warrant travelers to be promptly served inside their vehicles. According to Batra, Seifert, and Brei (2015), the positioning of a brand postulates the outlook utilized by the product of that business to attack a market to raise its market share at the expense of rivalry. For Gas and E-shop, identity will be the basis of its brand positioning. Trademark identity, in this regard, will be a central communication strategy that assists in controlling the reputation and image of the business.
BaseTheCS Association (2018), Ga, states that an E-shop would be under SIC code 7542. In this respect, it further falls under the services category with the numb9. Lastly, it falls under industry group 754, which entails automotive services apart from repair.
Gas and E-shop will progressively grow and develop based on their services. The team will achieve this by adopting up-to-date technologies and applying them to the proposed product/service by continuously identifying the needs of long-distance travelers and making additional plans for coming target consumers and segments. Gas and E-shop will analyze the statistics of all the consumers the firm will serve; this data will be compared to the coming days and the following months, and the company will gain the statistics for an entire year. Notably, this will make it possible to make forecasts for the coming ten years.
Gas and E-shop is an innovative project with numerous opportunities. The lack of rivals or minimal competitiveness is the first opportunity for this project since it is a unique and new venture (Previous, 2018). The second opportunity revolves around new entrants who will be able to enter the market after some time since the business is unique and new. Moreover, once new entrants exist, the venture can use new strategies, including establishing a new target segment, adding new services, and utilizing new technologies. Fourthly, fewer substitutes exist for the proposed venture, which implies that the competitive environment for Gas and E-shop is significant and higher the profit potential. Last but not least, there is the opportunity to establish loyal suppliers and buyers to attain the benefit of their bargaining power. In essence, this will be achieved by presenting offers and being flexible to the requirements of the suppliers and customers.
Business Model Canvas
Gas Delivery Business Business Model Canvas
The exit strategy is the plan to sell Gas and E-shop to investors or another organization. The preferred approach, in this regard, is Merger and Acquisition (M&A). It is an approach that entails integrating with a similar organization or being purchased by a more prominent firm. Complementary skills will be a win-win situation for the organization, meaning there will be a saving of resources.
The venture can be shaped to meet the feasibility screen funnel in various ways based on the exit strategy, projections, and overall analyzed context. Carrying out the feasibility analysis on the proposed venture of Gas and E-shop is feasible. In addition to determining that the project is viable, the team can shape the venture to meet the feasibility screen funnel by understanding the risks better and preparing for them. Moreover, the analysis may reveal that the opportunity needs to be modified to improve its feasibility. The information will enable the team that could prove beneficial. For instance, a survey on buying intention may reveal that beneficiaries or potential consumers prefer certain other services apart from the ones the new venture proposes. The team may integrate such data into refining the opportunity.
SWOT Analysis
TOW Analysis
Gas Delivery Business Business Model Canvas
Political factors. Government policies and political situation in the state impact the perspective of the Gas and E-shop venture. The comprehension of specific government rules of the team will assist the proposed business in standing out in the region (Khan & Alam, 2015). Therefore, Gas and E-shop are to fully comply with legal provisions by paying taxes to the state and observing all domestic legislation.
Economic factors. The economic dynamics consist of the growth level within the country’s economy or the market’s confidence in the economies within which Gas and E-shop would operate. In this respect, the aspect to consider when launching the new venture is that the economic downturn would lead to difficulties in the gas and automotive sector, thus impacting the business (Khan & Alam, 2015). Conversely, a booming economy would promote the growth of this sector.
Social factors. The social dynamics consist of taste and demand issues and how preferences and tastes change over time (Khan & Alam, 2015). To this end, in the Gas and E-shop venture, the team should consider lifestyle changes, social mobility, demographics, and concern for the environment before launch.
Technological factors. In the Gas and E-shop venture, the team needs two categories of technological change: development in technology specific to a market or industry and developments in Information Technology (IT). The developments in IT can instigate a vast range of business influence, often in the range of organizations and across the business and gas and transport domains.
Legal factors. The legal aspects that the Gas and E-shop venture needs to include introducing new regulations and laws or modifying the current ones. Some legal dynamics may arise from the national government (Khan & Alam, 2015). However, others, such as global accounting regulations and EU laws, may function in a broader spectrum.
Environmental factors. In the Gas and E-shop venture, the team should consider various factors, particularly the ones arising from distresses regarding the natural environment (Khan & Alam, 2015). The point is that the proposed business has some issues, such as the increasing concerns regarding the increase of pollution and packaging.
The current feasibility analysis has been well conducted, and the results have provided helpful information and data for the Gas and E-shop entrepreneurs that have allowed them to pursue the proposed venture. The team should decide to go ahead since the proposed venture has passed the feasibility test. Thus, the team can move on to the planning stage by establishing a complete social venture plan. Even though there is no guarantee that the Gas and E-shop business will succeed, at least the feasibility study has offered solid evidence that the idea is worth pursuing.
Alemany, L., & Andreoli, J. J. (2018). Entrepreneurial finance: The art and science of growing ventures. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Berger, A. (2015). Target markets North Korea’s military customers. Florence: Taylor and Francis.
Batra, R., Seifert, C., & Brei, D. (Eds.). (2015). The psychology of design: Creating consumer appeal. New York: Routledge.
Choudhury, S. (2018, November). Technologies for future-ready smart gas stations. Retrieved from https://www.wipro.com/oil-and-gas/dawn-of-digital–new-age-technologies-to-usher-in-an-era-of-smar/.
Khan, U. A., Alam, M. N., & Alam, S. (2015). A critical analysis of the internal and external environment of Apple Inc. International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management, 3(6), 955-961.
Kliem, P. M. P. R. L., & Anderson, H. B. (2016). The organizational engineering approach to project management: The revolution in building and managing effective teams. New York, NY: CRC Press.
NAICS Association, (2018). Search SIC codes by industry. NAICS Association. Retrieved from: https://www.naics.com/sic-codes-industry-drilldown/.
Previous, P. (2018). Customer experience management for water utilities: Marketing urban water supply. London: IWA Publishing.
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Published On: 01-01-1970
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