Employee-Centered Work Environment

Corporate Culture

Our clients are our priority

We adopt a person-centered approach to serving our clients. We do so by being close and listening to them as well as collaborating with them in providing laundry solutions. Closeness and listening helps us to get a clear view of what our clients need so that we can gear our services and products towards fulfilling their needs.

We support, invest and respect our employees

For excellence in our work, we provide a work environment where respect, openness, fairness and trust is embraced among all members of staff. We take care of our employees, support them and listen to their concerns as they work in our organization. We value diversity and respect regional and cultural differences of our employees because we believe it makes us part of the community.

We seek excellence in our operations

We are up to date with the dynamics in our operating environment so that we can seek to continuously improve and optimize our laundry business divisions. Thus, we ensure that our employees apply ethics in their scopes of duty and in decision-making. We embrace new, state-of-the-art technology in offering employees and customers the best support they need. By improving our laundry business divisions, we are able to rise progressively to new solutions. Our services and products as well as our staff continue to reflect on our good performance.

Business Objectives

Short-term revenue: £115,128

Medium term revenue: £193,449

Business Strategy

Competitive Advantage

As the economy of the United Kingdom grows and the life quality increases, more people spend money and time in leisure activities instead of doing house work. They develop a preference of having someone do the work of cleaning for them. There are approximately 5000 laundry enterprises in the UK (IBISWorld, n.d.). Every day, these enterprises wait for clients to bring in their laundry and come back later to pick them. Clients drive their cars to town, look for parking spaces, carry their laundry and large items like blankets, duvets and curtains, to the enterprises and queue for services. Then, despite how boring it can get, they repeat the procedure when they return in the evening to pick up their items. The enterprises open six days every week and their working hours are between 9am and 6pm. They close on Sundays, similar to the office working routine for customers with full-time jobs, which may be of inconvenience.

By comprehending and addressing this niche Clean Clads Laundry and Dry Cleaning Services will expand to provide door to door services to our clients free of charge. We will enhance customer sanitation and allow them to live happier lives by saving their time and doing away with time spent waiting in queues, looking for parking spaces, having busy schedules which causes them to forget to pick up clothes, miss meals and getting to their homes late.

Industry Analysis

The laundry Industry in the UK has a total value of $2.144 million and the annual rate of growth is estimated at 1.7%. The opportunities in the external business environment outweigh the threats and this gives the industry a considerable potential for growth. Some of the critical factors of success which impact the growth of independent laundry entities include:

Affordable prices to allow for financial stability

Effectiveness and efficiency

The move towards using eco-friendly processes and technology.

Laundry business capacity.

Focusing on particular niche in markets, such as pick up services and home delivery.

Environmental Analysis

More than half of the established laundry enterprises in the UK have a turnover size of 250,000 British Pounds and above. The laundry industry has a large number of Laundromats which offer self-service and they are located in shopping districts. These Laundromats operate using coins and clients are required to have their own fabric softeners and washing powder. The industry features players of different sizes ranging from small, medium to large laundry and dry cleaning service enterprises. However, there are fewer large enterprises than the total number of medium and small sized laundry enterprises. The large laundry enterprises serve the large institutions which are in need of progressive flow of clean uniforms, linen and other kinds of garment. Clients to large enterprises include hotels, hospitals and some departments of the government. Most medium-sized enterprises provide laundry and dry cleaning services set up in exclusive shopping malls. The small enterprises are set up in local neighborhoods providing laundry and dry cleaning services.

Proof of Market

The laundry enterprise is expected to attract customers who consist mainly of full time and part time employees in Guildford. Surveys show that, outside London, Guildford has the best financial prospects. The Clean Clads Laundry and Dry Cleaning services enterprise will most likely prosper in Guildford because there is a strong will to support existing firms by helping them address problems which hinder them from achieving their growth potential. The proportion of employees in the labor market in Guildford who make up the customers for the business consists; over 90% males employed in full-time jobs, 7% males employed in part-time jobs, 61% females employed in full-time jobs and 38% females employed in part-time jobs.

The growth opportunity is shown in the table below.

Therefore, with regard to growth in the labour population, the laundry enterprise is likely to have a growth rate of 6.12%.

Target Market Segments

Clean Clads will target clients in Guildford, Surrey County. The enterprise will begin by providing services to residents in Guildford before extending services to nearby towns such as Woking, Mitcham, and Farnham. In particular, the enterprise will target part-time and full-time employed clients who will find convenience in using our service. The total population in Guildford is estimated at 147,800 (Durham University, 2010). Approximately 80% of the population is economically active and roughly 3% remain unemployed (Durham University, 2010). The percentage of men and women working in full-time jobs is more than those working in part-time jobs. With high number of people being economically active, the standards of living in the town is increased and this leaves people with little time to perform house duties such as laundry work. Moreover, with increased income, demand for clothes increase for the working population. When they buy new clothes, particularly the expensive ones, more attention is given to the cleaning and caring of the clothes. Careful research leads the enterprise to resort to the professional and working class clients as the target market segment.

Competitive Analysis

Some of the direct competitors of the home-delivery extension of Clean Clads services include same day laundry services and Laundromat laundry and dry cleaning services. The same day laundry is advantageous such that it will have; a) relatively good customer service, b) the ability to complete workloads for customers in a day, which is convenient, and, c) it is a well-established and known business. The Laundromat will be advantageous such that it; a) has good customer service, b) is usually located in a single prime region, and, c) has ample parking space for customers. They are disadvantageous in the sense that in certain occasions, they are swamped with clients queuing as they wait for their garments to be given back, clients can report having lost some of their clothing, and some of them may lack the capacity for dry cleaning and washing equipment (Baum, et al., n.d).

Marketing Strategy and Plan

Four P’s Model

Product

Clean Clads will be providing an intangible service which fulfils the customers’ needs of laundry work. The clients in Guildford area will be provided with the following free home deliver and pick-up services.

Alteration service

Dry cleaning

Laundry work for small personal and large items. Large items include duvets, blankets and curtains among others.

Price

There are two options for clients to access the service and this will determine billing. One way is by having the clients to sign contracts with the enterprise to acquire services schedules regularly. Second, they can make orders over email or telephone to the Clean Clads. Payment can be made at the time of every delivery or using monthly bills on credit cards. Contract customers shall receive statements from the enterprise as well as other service charges which will be made for monthly credit card payment.

Place

As a way of minimizing operational costs, the business will have no rented retail outlet. Instead, an operations facility will be needed for the installation of equipment and machines, storing the cleaned and uncleansed garments and performing the cleaning and washing activities. An area of nearly 200 square meters will be required for the operations facility, and it will have four sections divided for the following purposes:

Cleaning activities and installing machines

Storing and sorting the dirty garments

Storing the cleaned garments before delivery

A workroom from garment alteration.

Promotion

In order to increase awareness of Clean Clads, several online platforms will be used. Service promotion will be done through advertisements, social media marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing, video marketing, and public relations among others.

Marketing Plan

At the start of the business, advertisements will be done on billboards, local radio and television stations so as to increase popularity of the enterprise. Primary contact details for first-time clients can be used to engage in email and social media marketing as a way of retaining clients (Chi, 2019).

Management and Operations

Management Team and Employees

The owner of Clean Clads will be the manager of the enterprise. He/she will supervise the well-being of the business through accounting and directorship. A laundry expert will have full charge of the operation together with the quality of cleaning garments. There will be workers who will be reporting to the laundry expert who, in turn, reports to the owner. One laundry expert will be working full-time along with two workers who will work on a part-time basis. Two drivers shall also be employed to work on a part-time basis, to facilitate pick-ups and deliveries from Monday up to Saturday.

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The service procedure will be as follows.

Financial Analysis and Projections

This section presents a balance sheet, profit and loss account and a balance sheet which are created from forecast information which is as realistic and accurate as possible.

Assumptions

Some of the assumptions are:

Clean Clads gains market share steadily

Cost of sales increases gently over a 12 month period, a positive trend in sales.

Net and Gross profit increase proportionately to sales value

The return on capital employed increases over a 12 month period