The following was presented as part of a business plan by Apex Corporation.
"To answer the increased demand for artisan coffee, Apex Corporation is releasing a new line of coffee, "Gourmet Select." Apex Corporation will first introduce the coffee into major supermarkets, where it hopes word-of-mouth advertising will sustain sales. After a few months Apex Corp. will run an advertising campaign aimed at television and radio while simultaneously releasing the brand to several major chain restaurants. Based on this strategy, Apex Corporation hopes to make "Gourmet Select" one of the top sellers in the coffee market."
The business plan set forth by Apex Corp. has major flaws that need to be accounted for if it is to be a success.
The first downfall of the plan is assuming that by selling the coffee in supermarkets this will be enough to sustain sales and increase the profile of the coffee through word-of-mouth. As the coffee is 'artisan' this means that there is less of a demand from the average shopper who just wants regular coffee to get them through the morning. Many who shop in the supermarket may simply go for the cheap staple coffee that they always go for and ignore this new, but expensive, brand. A supermarket is also not the kind of setting that would give the right advertisement vibe of an 'artisan' coffee. To improve this, it would be best to launch the new brand as an exclusive to the trendiest coffee spots. Increasing hype around the coffee and creating a heightened sense of luxury. Only after this should it be released more wide-spread, once its name is known.
Secondly, if there is a known demand for 'artisan' coffee then Apex Corp. will have competitors that will also be looking to move into this space. This does not seem to have been accounted for in the business plan. This would cause demand to be lower than expected and if the competitors move faster with a better campaign they would achieve the coveted top seller status. To improve on this it may be better for Apex Corp. to not waste time with the marketing campaign and push ahead with that straight away.
Finally, there are no concrete numbers or data given in the business plan. This means that the size of the demand is not known. The demand could range from millions of coffee beans being sold a day to simply a few cups of artisan coffee. To be able to be a top seller in the market the current size of the market and the potential growth must be known. Otherwise, it is simply pandering to what they want shareholders to hear. To counter this, Apex Corp. must produce a detailed analysis of the market and the potential demand for the coffee. This would allow for a more accurate conclusion into the potential sales of the coffee. However, this would most likely be costly and complex, potentially even offsetting the profit that could be made from the new sales.
Apex Corp. has produced a business plan that is vague, relies on bold assumptions and is missing key information. There is the potential to improve it through more detailed analysis and changing the strategy, yet this does not guarantee success and will add further cost to the project.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 22 15
No. of Words: 454 350
No. of Characters: 2042 1500
No. of Different Words: 205 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.616 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.498 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.331 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 130 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 86 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 53 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 29 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.636 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 6.168 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.409 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.292 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.491 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.062 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, finally, first, however, if, look, may, second, secondly, so, then, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 28.0 19.6327345309 143% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 18.0 12.9520958084 139% => OK
Conjunction : 14.0 11.1786427146 125% => OK
Relative clauses : 12.0 13.6137724551 88% => OK
Pronoun: 35.0 28.8173652695 121% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 55.0 55.5748502994 99% => OK
Nominalization: 2.0 16.3942115768 12% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2092.0 2260.96107784 93% => OK
No of words: 454.0 441.139720559 103% => OK
Chars per words: 4.60792951542 5.12650576532 90% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.61598047577 4.56307096286 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.40277983357 2.78398813304 86% => OK
Unique words: 207.0 204.123752495 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.455947136564 0.468620217663 97% => OK
syllable_count: 637.2 705.55239521 90% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.4 1.59920159681 88% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 7.0 4.96107784431 141% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 26.0 19.7664670659 132% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.3248590073 57.8364921388 73% => OK
Chars per sentence: 80.4615384615 119.503703932 67% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.4615384615 23.324526521 75% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.30769230769 5.70786347227 58% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 5.25449101796 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.162762083418 0.218282227539 75% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0627075603422 0.0743258471296 84% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0548874088521 0.0701772020484 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.10869473484 0.128457276422 85% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0170044238745 0.0628817314937 27% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 9.0 14.3799401198 63% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 71.14 48.3550499002 147% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 7.6 12.197005988 62% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 9.16 12.5979740519 73% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.23 8.32208582834 87% => OK
difficult_words: 79.0 98.500998004 80% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 12.3882235529 85% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.