Quiz 6 Score 20/20
Question 1
From http://www.bplans.com/sample_business_plans.php, what is the name of the business
plan that you chose to evaluate?
Answer for Question 1
Educational Software K-12 Business Plan
Question 2
What is the URL for your chosen plan? (for example
http://www.bplans.com/software_publisher_business_plan/executive_summary_fc.php#.UR5i
8aVfB8E)
Answer for Question 2
http://www.bplans.com/educational_software_k12_business_plan/executive_summary_fc.php
Question 3
Please evaluate the completeness of the company summary. Your evaluation of the company
summary should discuss the mission and describe the types of products or services offered by
the company. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 3
CCS (Curriculum Companion Suites )’s missions is to offer software curriculum suites
to K-12 schools within the U.S. market along with the accompanying installation and
consultancy based on their strategic partnerships with educational institutions.
However, since these institutions are never exemplified or mentioned, I wonder if they
are only high schools or educational research centers such as universities? They also
mention the number and type of executives and experience in their company summary.
But I feel that this is not the most relevant information here. They also provide a lot of
financial information in this segment.
Question 4
Please evaluate the product description. The features and functions of the product should be
clearly described. A discussion of the differentiating factors from competitors as well as
prices should be included. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 4
They only elaborate on their products and services by saying that it ranges from
kindergarten to 12th grade and that it utilizes a central computer in front of the
classroom, but they never truly explicitly say what their product entails! So the question
remains: how do they plan on providing these services and using their product to satisfy
educational needs? Is it using educational games such as serious games or game-based
learning? Is it using a software that tracks the progress of each student, their homework
and attendance for instance? Furthermore, the only differentiating factors from their
competitors is that they ‘just are different’ from apple and pencil and paper testing,
without any explanation! For the financial aspect, they do provide ample information on
how funding and expected revenue relate to each other. They also provide some legal
information.
Question 5
Please evaluate the market segmentation. Define the target market segments in detail to
include a numeric market size and a discussion of market trends. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 5
They state that their target market is the urban/metropolitan K-12 schools. This makes
sense due to the enlarged number of students and infrastructure, which makes perfect
sense. However, theydo not define K12 schools and they state that there market
segmentation includes schools who either have already purchased their software or
schools who have a different software package that was developed by one of their key
strategic publisher partners. They do not include the willingness to pay by parents and
teachers when it comes to technology enhance learning (which I assume their product
is), or the different attitudes towards TEL amongst these urban K-12 schools. They do
offer a numeric market size based on urban versus rural schools and their research
states that the market trend favors their product due to increase of K-12 schools.
Question 6
Please evaluate the industry analysis. Discuss the current state of the industry and assess the
future of the industry using quantifiable terms. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 6
There is no real industry analysis, without providing any elaboration or evidence they
just say ‘Major competition to CSS comes not from other software developers but from
traditional book publishers.’ How on earth is this possible? What about apps that
provide TEL, Game-based learning, teacher and student planning and tracking apps?
None of this is mentioned. As for the future of the industry the only quantifiable data
they provide is their research that favors their product because of an increase in schools.
So they claim to have a blue ocean strategy whilst actually it is already a red ocean
situation. This is because they misjudged the industry status of it being a completely new
industry, where it is actually a young, but booming industry with low entry barriers so
they are a lot of threats from possible entrants and buyers have a lot of leverage.
Question 7
Please evaluate the marketing strategy. Discuss the distribution strategy and describe the
marketing programs. Include the position statement, if any. Assess if the pricing strategy is
logical. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 7
Like the industry analysis, there is no real marketing strategy other than that they will
focus on urban K-12 schools that will increase in number in the future and that they
have strategic partners and relationships with educational institutions. They say that
they have no real competition and thus they do not say how they will compete or thrive
because of their value innovation or value proposition. ( such as a cheaper price). Their
only strategy is discussed when they claim that schools do not reach out for
enhancement, so they use a ‘push’ strategy and educate the schools themselves in how to
be more efficient. I wonder where all these apps and TEL comes from then?
Question 8
Please evaluate the sales strategy. Assess how the sales strategy aligns with the target market
segments. Include any sales goals and timelines. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 8
They provide ample and clear sales timelines and goals (such as earning 500k on
software sales per month every month over the course of the first year), and they even
provide an extensive sales forecast including costs and expected revenue of all their
different services (consulting, instalation, software itself). However, they completely fail
to mention how these numbers were derived from their target market ( or how these
even align), so it is only a bunch of loose numbers.
Question 9
Please evaluate the management summary. Assess if the management team is well constituted
and if there are any management team gaps. Discuss the personnel plan. (One paragraph
response)
Answer for Question 9
The management is constituted of only 2 people, one who has experience in marketing,
communications and the other who has experience in finance and business planning.
This sounds like a god combination, but when I look at their personal plan, they have
completely failed to include other management functions. They do however anticipate to
have over 80 people who are installers of the software, developers of the software and
marketeers for the software. How can 2 people manage, train and develop 80 people?
Other than this, I see no immediate management team gaps due their complementary
team roles.
Question 10
Please evaluate the financial plan. Discuss the key expenses, expected sources of funding, and
the revenues plans and forecasts. Define the amount of funding needed to launch the
company. (One paragraph response)
Answer for Question 10
In the financial plan, they present key expenses as a number on a graph, and their three
yearly projected profit and loss graph only differs in the first month, but is exactly the
same in the following 11 months. How is this possible? They include marketing and
utilities and personal costs and just say that their cutomers and a loan will be the
expected sources of funding. The amount of funding needed to launch the company
comes down to around $4,444,391, or at least this is their total operating expenses.
Question 11
If you were an investor, would you invest in this plan? Why or why not? Your response
should be logical and clearly express your point of view. (One to two paragraph response)
Answer for Question 11
If I were a potential investor, I would decide not to invest in CCS for multiple reasons.
Althought they clearly elaborate on financial and legal details, they utterly fail at
providing a decent product and service description, industry analysis (they even claim
that their competitive advantage is their new to the market technology in a TEL and
Game-based learning era!).
What’s more is, they never clearify who or what their strategic partners are, only that
these are educational institutions. You can imagine that someone who has partered with
a university department of learning and technology would truly have a strategic
partner, whereas someone who has partnered with a couple of high schools not so much.
In short, due to lack of reality (they think they have no real competitors!) and
elaboration on what it its they are offering and how this differentiates them from
competitors or similar products, this would be a bad business investment.