Settle Down: Smooth Canada Transition

Company Summary

"Settle Down" is a one-stop solution for every person planning to move to Canada from any part of the world. Settle Down every basic service or informationlto help international students and immigrants settle down in Canada with less difficulty in their first weeks of arrival.

Settle Down will provide services such as accommodation to the people who are new to Canada and help them get permanent housing for the future. Documentation services will also be provided to the customers, and It consists of opening a bank account, SIN registration, and phone sim card. Other services will include transportation according to the customer's requirements. Customers will be welcomed to stay with Settle Down for the first three days depending on the package that they pay for, and they can obtain these services as and when they require.

The cost of the packages are as follows:

Silver - $159 plus taxes

Gold - $239 plus taxes

Platinum - $299 plus taxes

Every package will offer different services and periods.

Settle Down will follow a direct channel distribution of services to the customers. A direct channel of distribution will be possible with the help of social media. Promotion techniques will involve coupons, first-time discounts, advertisements on social media sites, after-sale services, and long-term relationships with the customers.

Elevator Pitch

"We help newcomers from different places around the world settle down in Canada. We understand that it is difficult to start a new life in a new country with no support; we are a one-stop-shop with services spread across to help facilitate settling down and making Canada your new home."

Problems & Solution

Immigrants moving to a new country face challenges for their initial settling down process. It is challenging to move, and the transition is stressful for students or workers who migrate to Canada. We are a company that serves as a one-stop-shop with services spread across to help facilitate settling down and making Canada your new home. Following are the services that Settle Down offers which also serves as a solution to the problems mentioned below:

No Initial Support: Immigrants and students require support initially from the time they decide to move, to landing in Canada, and to settling down once they arrive.

Solution: Offer information and solutions regarding moving and settling down in Winnipeg, Canada, sending them a manual to refer to with necessary information on their travel needs, weather information, medical information, and appropriate clothing information. Day 0- Pick up from the airport and dropping them to the guest house provided by us or accommodation booked by them.

Documentation: Every country has a different style of banking or registering yourself for social security.

Solution: Provide support for sending them a list of documents they need to carry while travelling to Canada. Newcomer faces problems or needs help while selecting a bank and its branch, booking appointments with the bank to open an account, booking the appointment to register SIN, and the documents required for these services to be processed. Day 1- Picking them up and taking them to open a bank account, logging SIN (Social Insurance Number), and getting them a phone sim card.

Accommodation: Finding accommodation which caters to different needs like good locality, facilities, budget and closer to the destination of work or school.

Solution: Day 2- Showing them four options of accommodation according to their criteria and buying a bus pass so that they can travel independently.

Local Transportation: Newcomers face problems in travelling locally due to issues like non-familiarization of the city, buying bus tickets, overspending on cabs, unaware of carrying change while travelling on the bus, etc.

Solution: The taxi which takes them around for all the different purposes is included in their package. This one-day pass can be availed by them when they book an appointment with us, where we help them with local errands, buying necessary furniture like bed, lamp, and table, helping them move into their house.

Information: Newcomer faces issues in availing information on different concerns they have while preparing to move and when they have progressed.

Solution

Settle down will provide them with information that varies from weather, clothing, documents, city, distance, transportation, accommodation, phone sim cards, restrictions, and culture, to name a few.

24/7 Emergency Support: Newcomers are overwhelmed when they move to a new country. They may face issues at odd hours relating to health, being stuck somewhere, transportation, or in need of a point of contact.

Solution: There will include a 24/7 hotline for them so that they can reach out to us at any given point of time for an emergency, problem, concern, or service they need to access.

Familiarization: It takes time for a newcomer to get acquainted with the city and country. They don't know the areas which need to be avoided and where they can run their local errands to move around independently and safely.

Solution: A mini-city tour to get them acquainted with the city.

Competitor

We have one competitor named Arrive Team (Arrive, 2020). This is not a direct competition as they help in building the network and provide information with articles and blogs on various aspects of moving to Canada and settling down here. Our competitive advantage is that we provide services to the newcomers, which helps them settle down. The problems are being solved by taking help from friends or family, or they manage on their own.

Future Plans

According to our research, there is no proof of validating the above assertions. Our future plans are to monitor our progress by analyzing the sales conversion ratio, cart abandonment rate, social media engagement, customer acquisition cost, and customer lifetime values. These metrics will help us to determine our progress and modify our strategies in order to sustain and grow. This is a new and one of its kind business. We need to try various strategies and improve as we move along.

Customer Segments and Unique Value Proposition

Target Customers

We are a company that serves as a one-stop-shop with services spread across to help facilitate settling down and making Canada your new home. 'Settle Down' is going to target international students and immigrants that are coming to Canada for their studies, to settle down and for other personal reasons. The company is targeting international students because the number of international students who come to Canada is increasing every year. In the picture, we can see positive growth in the name of international students. In the years 2016 and 2017, the number of international students was 409,804 and 492,533, respectively (see Appendix 1). That is a good number for the target market (Duffin, Number of international students at year's end in Canada, 2019). Also, we can see that mostly the people who want to come to Canada are international students. From the survey, our company found that the majority of Settle Down's potential customer base will be from India.

Settle Down is also going to target immigrants because the number of are also increasing. In the picture, we can see a rise in the number of immigrants to Canada from 2000 to 2019. The number of immigrants has been growing over the past two decades, with a total of 313,580 immigrants in 2019 (Duffin, Number of immigrants in Canada, 2019) (see Appendix 2).

Unique Value Proposition

We are a company that serves as a one-stop-shop with variety of services to help facilitate settling down and making Canada your new home. We also have some competitions such as relatives, universities, and colleges that provide a ride from the airport and hostel for students. We also have another competitor named Arrive Team (Arrive, 2020). This is not a direct competition as they help in building the network and provide information with articles and blogs on various aspects of moving to Canada and settling down here. Our competitive advantage is that we are the only company that will provide all the necessary services to the newcomers, which helps them settle down, under one roof. We provide support over calls and emails and provide a solution in person, over calls, and emails. We cater solutions to the problems a newcomer faces during the transition to Canada and help them build their new home.

For students, Settle Down offers services such as Finding accommodation, documentation help, local familiarization. From the survey, our company found that the students need some essential services at their arrival.

For immigrants, the services are different from international students because immigrants do not need any kind of help regarding college or study-related documentation. They only need accommodation, health services, and necessary documentation help. So, for both the target group, the value proposition is different.

Market Size

In 2019, the number of international students was about 404,000 students from different countries such as India, China, South Korea, France, Vietnam, Brazil, Japan, and others. They have, come to Canada to live. For the first year, our company decides that we will target 1% of the total number of students that came to Canada in 2019. So, Settle Down will target 4,040 international students from different countries in the near term. If we get success in the first year, then for the long term, Settle Down decides that the company will 1.5% and 2% of the total market size for the second and third year. So that will be 6,060 and 8,080 international students in the second and third year, respectively (El-Assal, Canada welcomed more than 400,000 new international students in 2019, 2020). In terms of immigrants, Settle Down decides to target a particular segment of immigrants based on the age group. In 2019, 65,152 people aged between 25 to 29 years immigrated to Canada, which is the biggest number among other age groups (see Appendix 3). In the second place, immigrants aged between 30 to 34 years with 55,938 people (see Appendix 3). So, our company is going to target people whose age is between 25 and 34 years. For the short term (in the first year), our company will consider 1% of 121,090, total immigrants from 25 to 34 years, that will be 1,210. For the long term, Settle Down decides to target 1.5% and 2% of the total market size for the second and third year. So, our company will consider 1,816 and 2,421 approximately in the second and third year, respectively (Duffin, Number of people immigrating to Canada in 2019, by age, 2019).

Validation for Assertions

We are going to provide a service that will help international students and immigrants to start a new life and settle down in Canada. Our company decides to target international students and immigrants because the number of international students and immigrants, who are willing to come to Canada for different reasons, are increasing year by year (see Appendix 1 and 2). Our company expects that this will be a great decision in terms of the success of this business. Because these two target groups are potential customers for our company. Also, in the survey, our company found that most students are willing to access our service (see Appendix 4 and 5).

Channels to Customer

Our company is currently using the Direct distribution model for driving initial traffic. The company will follow

few steps for best go to market plans such as,

The first company will set goals that we want to achieve in the market.

Secondly, the main focus will be getting to know about the market, competitors in the business, and making business contacts.

Thirdly, after the research on the bases of analysis, key decisions will be made. If the company want any changes in product and services according to need all the things will be modified.

Further, the best way to enter a new market will be selected, and some paperwork, such as insurance of the company, will be figured out.

Last but not least, blueprints will be made, which will contain goal details, research findings, contacts, budget, significant actions and timeline, and the way how the things will be modified. Also, the plans will be reviewed by an accountant, lawyer, and external specialist to prevent any type of mistake.

For customers, interview Internet and e-commerce have popularised channels of distribution, but we find that e-commerce is unique. The significant aspect of direct distribution marketing is Direct Communication with customers because its essential for our company that we are sending the right message and services. Direct distribution channels also allow owners to maintain control of certain aspects of the business. In this strategy, our company creates and direct branding of our service as well as we can establish personal relationships with customers without any brokers. The main target for the interview will be focus groups and early adopters. The reason for selecting these groups is that as Settle Down is a new business in the market and service will be provided to people who are moving with there families, students, youngsters. These groups will enjoy the service provided by the company so these groups will be best for interviews. In the long-term strategy company's primary focus will be providing the best service to customers according to there budget, and the company will tap new markets such as Australia, the USA, Germany. The company will follow a process that will contain six stages. Those stages are developing strategies & plans, identify the target audience, communication or value to customers, delivering services, creating a strategic planning team for a long-term goal, and last building substantial brand equity (Shaw , n.d). If our company can achieve brand equity of more than 70, then the company will go for tradeshows to promote our business. Cold calling with customers who will travel to Canada. Paid advertisement through social media.

The company will use Word of Mouth strategy to scale the business. This campaign will drive through some ways,

User-Generated Content: It is a content created and shared by consumers about brand and product. This content will be created by having unique hashtags to identify customers' content, sharing pictures, and videos on social media.

Share customer Reviews: Sharing customers review will help to build a strong relationship with customers. This will help to create a comfortable zone for customers. Reviews can be written or in video form.

Getting product and service rating: The majority of customers view ratings on websites while selecting any product and service of the company. So, the evaluation will help to create sales of the company.

Set up word of mouth triggers: Through this strategy, customers will be given a chance to share something it might be experiencing, thought, or feeling they can't get anywhere else. Overall, they will share some positive views for our company. The customers can also share any suggestions or complaints if they have any. It will help our company to make changes to provide better services to the customer. This will help to alter our services so that excellent customer service can be the archive (Sukhraj, 2018 ).

The plans to validate the above assertions are that company will make a blueprint or Gantt chart for all the activities. So, all the steps can be achieved on time. It will help to improve our service and product and build brand equity.

Revenue Model

PROJECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE STATEMENT (in CAD)

Cost Structure

What are the minimum (bootstrap) cash requirements for the next few months? Assume a couple of your group members are going to pursue your app while job searching this summer.

Answer: The minimum cash requirement is $35,083.99 for the first month. Out of which $14,550.99 is one-time expenditure and $20,533 is recurring expenditure. (See Appendix 7 for explanation)

Recurring expenditure:

One-time expenditure:

Question 2: What is the estimated customer acquisition cost for each channel to the customer?

Answer: Customer acquisition cost refers to the total cost expended to acquire a new customer. It encompasses advertisement costs and marketing costs, etc. divided by the total number of customers acquired (KOTLYAR, n.d.).

Digital advertisement will be used as one of Settle Down’s customer acquisition channels. It costs around $9,000 per month to advertise on Google’s paid search campaigns (Shewan, 2020). Furthermore, Radio will also be used to promote the services offered by Settle Down. The average weekly cost to advertise on the Radio is about $200 (Aland, 2017). As shown in the Revenue model, Settle Down will acquire about 4,500 customers in the first year of existence. This means that Settle Down will gain approximately 375 customers every month. The customer acquisition cost for each channel is given below:

Online advertisement: $9,000/375 = $24 per month for each customer acquired.

Radio Advertisement: $800/376 = $2.13 per month for each customer acquired.

Question 3: Bonus: Can you project a formula where Cost of Customer Acquisition < Total Customer Lifetime Value.

Answer: As demonstrated by the Revenue Model, Settle Down will have approximately 4,500 customers in the first year. The revenue from these customers comes to be 895,500. The annual cost of acquiring these customers via Online advertisement and Radio is $108,000 and $9,600, respectively. Thus, the cost of acquiring a single customer by using these channels is about $16.133 (117,600/4500), whereas the revenue earned from each customer is $199. Thus, the following formula depicts the cost of customer acquisition to be lesser than the total customer lifetime value:

Cost of customer Acquisition ($16.133) < Total Customer Lifetime Value ($199).

Question 4: This is a research project. What proof of validation confirms the above assertions? If you have no validation yet what are your future plans to validate?

Answer: Refer to Appendix 7 for the validation confirming the assertions given in the cost structure section of the assignment.

Key Metrics and Milestones

There are several milestones that can be crucial for the company in attaining success and making its operations sustainable in the market (Shaw , n.d). By achieving these milestones, the firm will be able to maintain its functioning in a very effective manner. In this regard, one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) that the firm should focus on, at least in the short run, is providing maximum client satisfaction. The market or the sector that the firm is focusing on is a highly competitive marketplace, as it is marked by the presence of numerous already well-established consultants and immigration companies. Due to this reason, the firm should focus on providing maximum satisfaction to the clients and fulfil their needs and demands to the greatest possible extent. The more satisfied the customers are, the better would be the firm’s performance. This metric is also important due to the fact that the level and intensity of competition in this market is very high (Arrive, 2020). It means that if the firm is to maintain competitiveness, then it needs to provide maximum satisfaction to its clients. It could also help the firm in attracting new clients. To test and measure the customer satisfaction rate, the company can rely on using Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). It is considered as a very effective means of measuring and analysing the level of satisfaction of the customers (Duffin, 2019). In this regard, the company can ask questions related to overall experience of clients with its employees and the clients can respond through terms such as ‘satisfactory’, ‘very satisfactory’, ‘unsatisfactory’, ‘very unsatisfactory’. The more positive the replies are the higher the score. Using CSAT can be optimal for the company mainly due to the reason that it can be used for any type of service provided by the firm or its interactions with the customers (Osborne, n.d.). Other key metrics that the company can use is with regards to the number of customers or clients that it contacts and during a specific time period (Arrive, 2020). Using this as the basis for measuring performance will enable the management to get a better a effective understanding about firm’s operations and its ability to satisfy the customers and fulfil their varied needs and demands. The more customers the company is able to contact and interact within a given time period, the better its overall performance will be, because the chances of positively turning a potential client into an actual client (Sukhraj, 2018 ). Furthermore, these metrics can also help in measuring the risks for client dropout. It has been seen on several that clients leave or discontinue services of a consultant company in between, due to which the firm is unable to fulfil the desires of the customers (Arrive, 2020). In this context, the company needs to pay attention to hiring well-trained and qualified employees who can serve customers in the best possible manner. Thus, human resources is another key matrices metric that the company will have to pay attention to. In this regard, the company will need to hire such staff who can perform to the best of their abilities and thus help the company to achieve its targets (Shaw , n.d).

This prioritization will ensure it is drawn nearer with a similar kind of thoroughness. For this reason, at least, measurements and study discoveries ought to be straightforward inside, to assist organizations with the following advancement (Arrive, 2020).. Simply estimating and the following execution is not sufficient,. However;, it must be joined by a framework for reacting to results, and this framework must be predictable and straightforward. Given the present political atmosphere, be mindful about whether to begin or keep gathering or putting away certain information. They could be utilized to victimize the workers (or customers or clients or providers) should state or government against separation laws change. The organization may wish to shape a working gathering with the plan, building, item, and different prompts to examine these worries and choose the best methodology (Shaw , n.d). However, it chooses to gather touchy information, ensure the group and any outsider supplier have security and protection prepared in — including perfect, quick information cancellation when required (Shaw , n.d). Sharing information can help build up benchmarks and guidelines for decent variety measurements, permitting organizations to comprehend relative execution (Arrive, 2020). Distributing information freely likewise gives responsibility to organizations and their D&I activities. Organizations might need to share their information for PR purposes or brand-building. An inappropriate measurement can introduce a deceptive perspective on framework wellbeing and improve against them can deliver misshaped results. Vanity measurements are risky, in light of the fact that they give great optics however need importance. For instance, a few organizations incorporate non-engineers, as clerical specialists, in the meanings of their designing groups, falsely blowing up their assorted variety numbers with bunches that are normally increasingly differing (Arrive, 2020).

In this regard, this training can disintegrate trust with workers who see an absence of assorted variety on their groups and can defer recognizing and tending to issues, while remotely, it can loan an organisation counterfeit load as an industry head. While reviews are priceless for getting a conclusion, they possibly work well when they are insightfully planned and executed, and the investigation is done accurately. Ineffectively structured reviews can create off base outcomes as well as, far and away more terrible, be hostile or harming (Arrive, 2020). Representative doubt of organization managed overviews, especially around delicate inquiries, can slant results because of distortion or absence of reaction. Running studies time and again can make review exhaustion, bringing down support rates and comparably slanting the information. A few organizations may not follow measurements or force overviews at all to leave worry that they are not educational or noteworthy or that they may reflect perfectly (Shaw , n.d). For seed-stage organizations specifically, the numbers might be too little to even consider drawing measurably critical ends, and it may not be conceivable to cut study information by socioeconomics in light of the fact that there basically are not sufficient individuals (Arrive, 2020). The test is for these organizations to perceive the estimation of assorted variety and incorporation early and incorporate estimation of it to survey advance and distinguish territories needing improvement.

Team

Each current member of Settle Down company is putting their best efforts in the completion of their tasks. Besides this, they are cooperating and helping each other in completing their works. Every team member will be considered in moving forward with the actual startup business. We may find someone else from outside the team to join our business or a company that has something to give to our business, which will help our business to grow and to be successful in the future.

Priyanka Bahal Joshi will help and lead every team member working in different domains (Finance, Marketing, and Operations). She is having good knowledge of operations.

Business Acumen: Kajal Sharma will be managing the company's finances. Rahul Gill and Kamalpreet Singh have good accounting knowledge and ethical decision-making skills. So they will make wise planning, investment, and financing decisions for the company (Asthana, 2020).

Domain Knowledge: Jaswinder Kaur, Bavleen Bagga, and Sanampreet Kaur are having good knowledge and experiences in the marketing domain. As they will decide, the decisions need to be taken as per customer satisfaction. Jaswinder Kaur and Bavleen Bagga have clear concepts regarding marketing, so they will be responsible for the production, sales, and marketing strategy facilitation (Merchant, 2018). Sanampreet has excellent analytical abilities, so she will be developing technical solutions to business problems to advance a company's sales. She will collect every information which will make it easy for the company to reach its customers (Roth, 2019).

Operational Experience: As Manpreet Kaur and Sharandeep Kaur have good strategic thinking and are creative, and manage innovation well. So they will be part of the company's operations. They will look after all work related to fulfilling the needs of the customer as per the customer's demand. As they also currently provided ideas and steps to do the operation in the business (Asthana, 2020).

Our company will focus on two things in the future to cover. Firstly, we will search for people who have excellent knowledge and experience in Finance and Marketing as these will boost our company's profit and help to attract stakeholders in new ways. Secondly, A person who has good knowledge and good connections with local accommodation owners. He/she must have vast experience regarding Canadian immigration works. Our company will hold seminars and workshops in different colleges and cities to highlight our business and the career opportunities we have. We will post about recruitment with various benefits and prospects on social media (Emmer, 2019). We will attract Red River College instructors, Timothy Ward Kehler, and Kim Stephens as mentors and Board of Advisors.

Distributed equity shares among the team members in the company. As Priyanka Bahal Joshi, Rahul Gill, Sanampreet Kaur, and Sharandeep Kaur are the founder of the company. So their equity share will be more than other members (given below in percentage).

In the reverse equity shares, We will reduce equity share by 2% from Priyanka's shares and 1% from Rahul, Sanampreet, and Shrandeep Kaur shares to create a new 5% share for 'X Person.' X-person will be hired in the future, who will have knowledge and work experience related to immigration. Immigration consultant will help international students and people who move to Canada regarding immigration work (4 things to know about being the immigration consultant, 2020).

Technology and Discussion

Settle Down will be a website and app-based business where the customers will be book services online. The services will be rendered once the customer arrives in Winnipeg, Canada. Settle down will opt for CRM software, which is a Customer Relationship Management tool that helps the businesses to organize, strategize, and process the customer data. It is a comprehensive tool which will enable the company to manage data across various department like sales, marketing, and customer service. It helps in increasing productivity, analyzing, and reporting. It helps the business to analyze data to help modify their current strategies and improve productivity and sales. It will help our company to generate more leads significantly, increase our sales revenue, increase customer acquisition and retention, and social media integration (Salesforce, 2020). The application of Settle Down will be available on iOS and Android with all the details. The aim of creating a website and apps would be to allow customers to access information at any given point of time and any place. Settle Down will ensure that the website and apps are user friendly and easy to navigate for the convenience of the customers. For the application, we have chosen Freshdesk software, which is a cloud-based customer support software. According to our research, it is a software that suits the business needs and is known for extraordinary customer service. It will help the business to attend to customer's needs. It facilitates phone and social media integration, live chat, omnichannel queue management, and integration with the e-commerce website of the brand.