Executive Summary
This business plan is about DramaProx Productions, which is a startup company dealing in the production of drama programs for the UK entertainment industry. Research studies show a significant market share and penetration capabilities with innovative political episode programs in demand in the UK entertainment market that present with an exploitable business opportunity. Analysis of secondary and primary research data revealed a strong positive trend among different age groups for drama episodes programs. In a market with perfect competition, the results show a high penetration rate, market capitalization, and profit margins could be attained within three years.
General Company Description
DramaProx Productions aims to produce drama episodes for the UK entertainment industry. The company will focus on the provision of unique drama programs consisting of different episodes in the UK entertainment market. The aim is to generate revenue from entertainment while increasing the market share across the entire local and global markets to generate more revenue and give the company global status.
Mission Statement
To be the leading producer of world-class political drama programs for the UK entertainment industry.
Goals and objectives
DramaProx Productions to become the source of entertainment offering unique drama entertainment programs for the local UK and global markets.
- To create a 20% market penetration rate in the first six months of production
- Attain a break-even point with 100 units in the first six months of production
Figure 1 reports the total number of sales for profits to reach the margin of safety to cover variable and fixed costs to make the total revenue greater than the total expenses resulting in excess revenues that can sustain the business (Alasadi & Al Sabbagh 2015).
The Concept
The idea is to invest in the UK entertainment industry by providing high-quality world-class drama programs.
Feasibility Report
The UK film industry provides a market opportunity for drama programs because of the strong 9% positive growth in the number of cinema tickets sold between 2014 and 2015 locally. This amounts to net positive profits of £171.9 million (Film forever, n.d). Driven by the concept of figures, Gruber et al. (2015) agree with Film forever (n.d) that the figures released between 2006 and 2016 show a relatively stable and rapidly growing drama entertainment sector in the UK with an annual turnover of £7.3 billion, making an 11% share of the global box office volume of tickets sold per annum, indicating a niche market.
Business description
This is a business that specializes in the production of world-class drama programs for the UK and the global entertainment industry (Verzuh 2015). The basis is Zhu (2013) who views the UK entertainment market to be relatively mature, dynamically changing, and increasing demand for high quality scripted content. Such a situation unfolds into strong market forces and demand for locally produced content that outstrips the imported series (Stutely 2012). The argument by Ryan (2016) is reinforced by ITV’s acquisition of the Mammoth Screen and Twofour Group.
Figure 2 reports the status of the GDP per person and disposable income per household in the UK, which is a strong indicator of the consumption readiness of drama programs in the UK (Chibnall & McFarlane 2009). Each year shows an increase in disposable income which fell slightly in the 2014/2015 report but remains robust. According to Kroenke and Boyle (2015) and Luostarinen and Gabrielsson (2006), this responds well with the behavior of high-income groups.
Secondary Research
An insight into the level of satisfaction based on the UK Customer Satisfaction Index shows a strong level of satisfaction with foreign drama programs other than local drama programs (Christopherson 2013). An example includes the West wing, which was rated at 8.3 out of 10 indicating an attractive tendency towards foreign drama compared with local programs. The emerging gap can be filled by providing local high-quality political programs. Primary research conducted between 2016 and 2017 reveals the need to fill the gap as reported in figure 3.
Macro Analysis
A significant number, consisting of 8,205 productions are scheduled to be released in the 2017 season alone. These include 376 productions that are in development, 120 in pre-production, and 196 in production. A critical analysis shows an industry that consists of drama programs that go through different stages of production and viewing.
Competitors
Global media companies have cut a significant market share by offering different drama programs for entertainment such as the west wing television series by Warner Bros. Television. According to market research extrapolation views by Jarzabkowski and Kaplan (2015), Hair (2015), and Evans (2015), in the UK alone, the number of competitors has grown by 32% from 2009 to 2016. By Alasadi and Al Sabbagh (2015), performance categorizations of companies in the field of drama include Red Production Company, Hartswood Films / BBC Wales, and Kudos Film & Television as among the best. As of now, the number of companies producing film and drama programs has grown to 6,000 with 405 distribution channels as well as 215 film exhibitions. Distinctly, the small companies have a turnover which is under £250,000
Primary Market Research Segments
Based on the concept of market ratios by Ferraro and Brody (2015), the proportion of adults who attend entertainment and specifically drama events constitute 25% with 21% claim that they regularly attend the theatre. According to Fayolle and Liñán (2014), an increase in demand for drama programs among all age groups is uniform.
Table 1: In-venue and online survey results.
Table 1 reports on the tendency of consumer behavior of people aged between 18 and 34 interested in drama entertainment programs. The highest has 36% followed by the 45-54 cohort with 24% for the online survey and 23% and 23% respectively for the in-venue survey for site. A similar trend was observed in site B with 27% for the 18-34 cohort and 23% for the 45-54 cohort in the online survey having a positive stance with 17% of the 18-34 cohort showing a 17% positive stance and 45-54 cohort showing a 22% positive stance. Analytically, the responses from both sites, A and B for the different age groups show strong demand and market for the programs.
Porter’s Five Forces
Figure 4 shows Porter’s five forces model providing a summary of the nature of competition and the nature to marketing environment the company is to operate.
Supplier power
The supplier in the drama industry will include the company that produces the drama programs.
Buyer Power
UK buyers have a strong and entrenched desire for drama. The UK market attained £1.1 billion in sales despite the temporary dip in 2013. A £1.6 billion increase occurred in 2016.
Competitive Rivalry
Competition from the US drama products was equivalent to 26% while that from UK films was 10% with the UK market share being 16% of the global drama entertainment industry.
Threat of Substitution
The substitutes include the British drama television series, which include the British comedy-drama television programs (2 C, 70 P), British drama television series by decade (7 C), ITV television dramas (6 C, 477 P), and the British teen dramas (19 P) among other programs.
Threat of New Entry
Due to the barriers of high capital, marketing, and production challenges as well as training costs, the number of new entrants could be small.
The Marketing Plan
Primary research conducted between January 2016 and February 2017 reveals a decline in the level of satisfaction among customers from 80% for international drama programs to 76% in the same period.
Mission
To create new political drama programs that attract new and old customers.
Business goals
- Provide innovative world-class drama programs for the entertainment industry in the UK.
- Build credible demand for drama programs as a new product line to achieve a 25% market penetration in the UK.
- Create a new market frontier for the DramaProx Productions drama programs
Marketing Objectives
- To achieve 20% of sustainable profits by the first year of production
- To penetrate the new market and achieve a 20% market share by the first year
- Create a strong brand with a customer loyalty rating of 50%
Table 2: Marketing Strategy.
Table 2 is about the marketing strategy. The core business will be to create serial political drama programs similar to the American version of West Wing.
Revenue Model
DramaProx Productions will adopt both the low cost and Recurring Revenue models as the most appropriate frameworks for growth and profitability (Wahab, Al-Momani & Noor 2015). According to Bodea et al. (2015), the low-cost model reflects the value proposition of drama programs to driving up sales.
SWOT Analysis
Table 3: SWOT analysis.
Positioning strategy
Product positioning in the drama programs production market that is characterized by perfect competition difficulty task (Alasadi & Al Sabbagh 2015). However, creating political drama programs will provide the platform for product positioning.
Distribution channels
A website will be created to host the programs based on the pay and download model to access the programs (Baker 2014). A customer will be required to make online payments using the visa card and other viable payment modes.
Promotion
This will be achieved by advertising the episodes on different media platforms such as TV channels and social media platforms such as Amazon and Facebook among others (Salamzadeh & Kawamorita Kesim 2015). According to Ravindran (2016), discounting some episodes and sending messages via mobile phones will be another promotion platform.
Pricing
Studies show pricing to be a strong indicator of the quality of a product. Low prices create the perception of a poor quality product while high prices create the perception of a high-quality product (Nicolò 2015). Studies by Narayanan and Fahey (2005) and Hopewell (2016) on consumer behavior show that highly-priced entertainment programs in the UK attract a higher volume of customers than low priced programs.
Customer relationship management
- Address customer complaints immediately as they arise
- Communicate via emails ‘
- Provide a common on-line platform for collecting data about customer satisfaction
Operational Plan
Launching plan
An appropriate venue and office will be located and hired for rolling out the entertainment programs (Fleisher & Bensoussan 2015). According to Wild, Wild, and Han (2014) and Kasabov (2015), an initial roll out incentive will be provided as the first episode at discounted prices while successive programs will be fully priced (Armstrong, Adam, Denize & Kotler 2014). Bryman and Bell (2015), Brinckmann and Kim (2015), and
Davila, Foster, and Jia (2015) note that strategies should be in place to increase the size of the audience in the first 3 weeks.
legal Issues
The company will invoke the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Companies Act 2006 as a way of compliance with the policies and laws for establishing a limited company. Under the company act, the company will define the directors’ duties and other officers working for the company (Finch 2016). The discourse is in appendix II.
Management Team and Organization
The company will start with a lean management staff which will increase as the capital and market share increases as shown in figure 4. Appropriate recruitment practices and policies as well as disciplined procedures and motivation will be used in the recruitment and selection of employees, which underpins the company’s key growth strategy.
Customer value proposition
The drama programs are designed with packaged political entertainment episodes for different age groups ranging between 18 years to 65 years.
Financial Analysis
This is based on the following assumptions:
- Employees will work permanently
- Salaries will depend on company profits.
Discourse in appendix I.
Reference List
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Appendix I
Table 5: Financial analysis.
Table 5 reports the Accounts Payable (Outstanding Bills) of £610 with the total liabilities being £710. The Loss at Start-up (Start-up Expenses) amounts to £4,750 while the planned investment is equivalent to £115,110. The report shows that the total capital and liabilities amount to £110, 960 while the total capital is £110,460, which amounts to £115,890.
Financial ratios
Table 6: Financial ratios.
Table 6 reports the financial ratios of the expected performance of the business.
Start-up Costs
Table 7: Start-up Costs.
Table 7 is a detailed account of the non-cash assets with a start-up of £3,200 and cash requirements with start-up totaling £108,950 as well as the cash balance on starting date of £108,950. The value of the total assets is £110,950 with start-up expenses to fund being £112,250 and the total funding required being £118,700.
Funds Breakdown
The startup capital sums up employee salaries that are projected to be £ 50,000 with the office rent being £2000. Hardware devices such as computers and other data collection devices are projected to cost £8000 and the software will cost £10,800. The balance from the £115,700 of the total funding required could go to maintenance and other accruing expenses. Besides, additional funds will be required for the advertisement and marketing that is estimated to be £7500.
Working Capital Requirements
Based on 45 credit terms, it is possible for the working capital to be as follows:
- Accounts receivable = 45 x 282,500 / 365
- Accounts receivable = 34, 828
- Accounts receivable % = (34,828 / 282,500) ×100% = 12.328%
The results imply that the working capital requirements when credit has been offered for to 45 days become £ 282,500.
The Net Working Capital Requirement was arrived at by using accounts payable, inventory working capital requirements, and accounts receivable. This can be expressed as: Net working capital requirement = Accounts receivable+ Inventory – Accounts payable, which is equal to 13.9% networking capital. Improving the terms of service for 45 days more could increase by 41.1%.
Sales Forecast
The sales are forecasted to increase rapidly because of the increasing demand drama programmes as shown in table 8.
Table 8: Sales forecast.
Table 9: Three year cash flow projections.
Appendix II
Company Ownership
The DramaProx Productions is majority-owned company by Dusman Gonzaga and James sherfield. Mr. Gonzaga owns a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics with the accounting option from the University of Essex. He has seven years of working experience as a business consultant besides previously owning the ABC drama production company for four years. Mr. Sherfield has extensive experience in sales and marketing activities besides owning a significant number of contacts in the entertainment industry that he will use to leverage the new venture to make it a profound success. He has a five years working experience as manager of the Battlestar Galactica entertainment company that specializes in political drama.
DramaProx Productions will hire a full time manager who will be directly responsible for the day to day company operations. The candidate has four years working experience as a manager of a drama production company who oversaw the production of the Game of Thrones, which is a well-known and top rated American fantasy drama. The core responsibilities include the management of staff, developing a marketing strategy for the drama programmes, ordering inventory, and dealing with day to day operations in drama productions.