Student Name Percentage %Daniel Bish 50%Ben Haines 50%

Total : 100%

Business Plan“The Friendly Student Bike Rental Service”

Uni BikeTalbot CampusBournemouthDorsetBH2 2YX

Ben Haines and Daniel Bish1/4/2009

ContentsPage

1. Summary............................................................................................3

2. Business overview.................................................................................4-6Introduction 4-5Current position 5Competitive advantage 5Growth plan 6

3. Business strategy..................................................................................7-8Tactics 7-8Strategic issues 8Core values

4. Marketing...........................................................................................9-13SWOT and critical success factors 9-10Market research 11Distribution channels 12Strategic alliances 12-13E-commerce and technology 13Tactical promotion plan 13Marketing budget 13Credibility and risk reduction 14

5. Team and management structure.............................................................14-15Skills, experience, training and retention 14Advisors 14Management systems 14-15

6. Financial budgets and forecasts...............................................................15-20

6. Conclusion..........................................................................................21

7. Appendix............................................................................................22+

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1. SummaryThis is a business plan put together to explain the theory behind Uni Bikes and why the business could be a feasible, successful and profitable business. Uni Bike originally came about due to lack of transport (mainly lack of bus routes, some of which have been cut) in certain areas of the Bournemouth and Poole. This means that a lot of students that attend the local Bournemouth University have to go out of their way to get to university every morning. Noticing this downfall in transport availability within the area prompted us to think about various other ways of allowing students to get to the university easily.

With the bikes we are providing, we intend on giving the students at the Talbot Campus of Bournemouth University (as well as other Bournemouth University students) a chance to not only have available transport whenever they need it, but also a chance to get fit without having to spend money on a gym subscription. Our marketing will be based all around the fact that having a bike will essentially be a cheaper way to get fit and travel.

We already have £2000 ready to be put into the business, we also are getting a £4500 loan from HSBC to help start up the business which we intend to pay off before the end of the second year. We intend on providing 70 bicycles in our first year of business at a low cost of £28 a month (£7 a week) giving us the cost advantage over our main rival the bus company (who charge £6 for 10 trips, 2 or more trips a day) by an average of £2-3 a week when thinking about other travel students make outside of university time.

This will hopefully provide us with enough backing by the students to provide more bicycles each year to keep up with demand. We hope eventually to expand the business to the local tourism industry where we could be renting bikes daily to the many tourists that visit the area. The benefit of the area in terms of cyclists is the fact that the roads and pavements are very cyclist friendly with cycle lanes and wide roads where there aren’t any specified lanes. Also the area is very flat, meaning that it is very easy to get around using a bike never becoming an effort when travelling anywhere locally.

Eventually we plan on expanding nationally to other universities in which it would be feasible to set up a bike rental business, hopefully creating a national interest in the idea to lead on to bigger and better opportunities. We would then be marketing the business aiming it towards students getting fit as well as providing cheap transport that will essentially ease congestion off the roads. With this being the case, we hope that this would attract government funding towards the scheme which would then launch the business into a successful lifecycle.

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2. Business overview IntroductionThe bike rental business is not a new concept to the UK. There are many places where people can go and rent a bike to use for leisure or practical reasons. However, after some research into universities in the UK, I have found no commercial bike rental agencies that provide a bike rental service specifically to university students. We have decided to set up a bike rental service for Bournemouth University as are familiar with the surrounding area having lived there for 19 years. The surrounding area is fairly flat and has cycle lanes provided on most roads/pavements so there is a specific community interest in giving cyclists a clear route to their destination.

The University itself is quite widely spread out throughout Bournemouth and university students tend to be living in accommodation around the Bournemouth area, usually close enough not to justify having a car, but far enough to make it an effort to walk there everyday. The only real opposition the bike rental business would have is the regular bus service called ‘UniLinx’ that are provided for students at a subsidised rate. This bus service serves all students that live in Bournemouth, but also the surrounding areas of Poole and Boscombe.

We plan to work with the university to situate a rental service within Talbot Campus as this is the primary campus for students studying in the university and because it is situated fairly central to the surrounding areas. This will hopefully create interest with the students as they will know about the rental service when it’s right on their doorstep (Talbot campus shown below).

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We will be basing the business in Tolpuddle Annex (located on the map) and shown below:

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Uni BikeBase

The Student Village

Main Learning Facilities

Main Sports Facilities and other learning facilities

This would be a very suitable location to put the business as it is right on the students doorsteps and Is a fairly big space that is secure and under surveillance by the university CCTV.

The service obviously will provide bicycles that are either brand new or that have been well maintained with all parts in excellent working order. We also intend to provide accessories such as helmets, lights, tyre pump and bike lock as a requirement for each bike that is rented. The rental will be fairly cheap with the consideration of any damage the bikes receive when in use. We are looking into working with the university to make sure we have the students name and details in case the bike receives any damage or is lost or stolen (either by the student or other people) during the rental period.

Current positionThe business is currently in the introductory phase of the lifecycle as we are currently planning the business and identifying whether or not it will be financially feasible. We have not achieved a great deal as of yet as we are still in the early planning stages of the introductory period. However we feel that the business can progress to becoming financially feasible and will also provide a much needed service for the students that attend Bournemouth University.

We have however been able to provide a survey to 50 students within the Talbot Campus whom all use various methods of travel to get to the campus for their lectures. We were pleased to find that the results of the survey (A8) showed us that 27 out of the 50 students (37 of which use the buses) were interested in the idea of using a bike to get to the campus. Some made a comment on the fact that it provides them with flexibility in transport as the buses run every 15 minutes, whereas if they had a bike they could go where they wanted, when they wanted.

This shows that there is very much a potential market for the students at Bournemouth university and given the fact that the surrounding area is so bike friendly (cycle lanes, geographical layout of the area) we feel that the university is an ideal area in which to start this business.

Competitive advantageThe competitive advantage of the business is quite simple. The surrounding area contains many bike rental services (as shown below), however, none of these bike rental services are dedicated to students alone and do not provide long term rental services as they are aimed primarily at short term users such as tourists. Therefore we have identified the niche as the competition in the university market is quite literally non-existent in the Bournemouth and Poole area.

In terms of transport competition however there is only one other method that charges, this being the bus service ‘UniLinx’. This is the university bus service provided by Wilts and Dorset buses (the local bus company) which provides cheap and convenient bus travel every 15 minutes. The cost of travel on this service is as follows (also refer to appendix A1):

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£1.80 single trip £2.80 return £6 for 10 trips

The bus routes are cheap (when purchasing the 10 trip ticket), however the buses are not as readily available as a bike is and they do not go to certain areas of Bournemouth and Poole which therefore means there are a lot of students requiring other methods of transport. Having a bike will not only allow them to go about the area for free in their free time, but it will also provide them with an easier and potentially faster form of transport going to and from university.

Growth plan

Tourism is a big part of Poole, Bournemouth and the other surrounding areas local economy, hence why there are so many rental services dotted around the area (shown below).

Tourism is the main industry driving Bournemouth’s ever increasing success. Statistics taken in 2005 state that tourists spend approximately £240 million per year in Bournemouth so you can see why there are so many rental services around the area.

There are obviously on and off-peak times during the year for tourism and travel in Bournemouth; this will in turn create highs and lows in terms of revenue made by the bike rental services. Our bike rental service will not suffer from this as there will be a constant requirement for bikes within the campus with students being there most of the year round (minus holiday times). However the rental service could also profit from the tourists coming into Bournemouth by renting bikes from another source so that we have more available to offer to tourists during the peak visiting times throughout the year.

Providing these bikes at a cheap competitive price compared to the other bike rental companies around the area should attract interest and could lead to our bikes being used to make the most of the surrounding picturesque areas such as the flat 8 mile stretch of coast from Sandbanks to Christchurch Harbour

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(A3) and other surrounding areas such as Sandbanks itself (A4), Poole (A5) and Canford Cliffs (A6). All of these areas are easily accessible to bike users with bicycle friendly roads and pavements (with bike paths) (A7).

This could hopefully give us the best of both worlds and provide us with a dramatic increase in revenue which in the long run will help the business grow. During 2004-05 over 15,000 students were attending full and part-time courses at Bournemouth University. This shows that there is a large population of students within the area and if we received 27 out of 50 replies from students saying that they would be interested in using a bike to commute to university then the market is most definitely there.

In terms of near future plans for the business we feel that this could provide a brilliant foundation for the rental businesses future as it will increase the overall revenue and help us provide more bikes for the students to rent. we think in the long run the business could possibly looking at expanding its service to become the main provider for bike rental services for students across the south of England then possibly throughout the UK. If we were able to form a good reputation of providing an easy, uncomplicated and cheap service to students, we think we could expand to have sites on most university grounds throughout the UK working with each university to help cater their student’s needs.

3. Business strategyThe strategy for the year to come

Over the next year we plan on properly establishing ourselves within the Talbot Campus in Bournemouth

Providing a target of 60+ bikes to students Gain a solid customer base + decent reputation

The strategy fo the next 3-5 years Start contacting or have already contacted other universities around

the UK telling them of the success of the idea and see whether they would want to take it on

Providing 120+ bikes to students in the Bournemouth area Capitalise on the tourism industry in Bournemouth by renting out more

bikes to the public, possible expansion of site down to the 8 mile coastal run as well to ensure success

TacticsThere are many things that need to be considered during our initial start up period in terms of resources required, advertisement etc. We first intend on contacting the university to see whether there would be an opportunity for us to set up a main rental station within the main Talbot campus. Once acquiring a base within the Talbot campus we intend on purchasing the bikes and equipment in plenty of time before we start advertising, making sure the bikes and equipment are maintained and fit for use. Immediately after we intend on advertising our rental service through leaflets, the Bournemouth University

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student magazine (Nerve Magazine, A8), posters within the Talbot campus and all the local radio stations (i.e. 2CR FM, 107.6 FIRE) that will most likely have students listening.

Initially we do not expect a flying start with sales as students may be too used to the bus system or may not have taken any notice of the rental service. However we expect when the first students to rent the bikes come through, the word will spread about how cost effective renting the bikes really is and also the keep fit factor that many students are taking into account these days. We expect this to go on for about 2-3 months, by then we hope to have gained around 20+ students using our service. By which time the word will have spread to enough students to create a much wider interest (aided by additional advertising) and during the next 9-10 months we expect to see many more students come to use our service. By this time we hope to have reached our first year’s target of a minimum of 60+ students renting monthly.

In terms of resources we will be requiring several students to work for the rental service part time, and being situated on the main Talbot campus we intend on these students being located in the student village which joins on to the campus. The student village is full of terrace houses and flats where students of the university can stay and use as accommodation during their studying period at the university. Being next to the campus it allows for flexibility of working hours for students that decide to work for us, and can mean that we have several students rotating several shifts daily.

We are planning on providing training (A2.7) for ourselves and any employees to become qualified bike mechanics so that everyone in the business is able to make repairs to the bikes as and when it is required. We have no plans of making certain days to carry out maintenance; we decided this because we felt that having specific days to carry out maintenance would affect our overall profits. Carrying out maintenance whilst on the job means that it is included within regular hours with no time lost.

Strategic issuesThe only real strategic issues with our 3-5 year plan is that other universities say, ones like Oxford and Cambridge (two very big, high profile bicycle orientated universities) may already have a rental service for students. Not only this, but after researching on the internet we have found that Oxford are looking to introduce a low cost rent-a-bike scheme to ease congestion of the Oxford roads. If the business were to be implemented in other places across the UK with university, then this could prove to be a very commercial competition for the student rental business. This we feel however could benefit us if we could capitalise on this opportunity and eventually become part of the solution towards easing congestion on the roads.

Core valuesOur core values within this business are to provide a cheap and healthy alternative to transport for students in the Bournemouth area. The average student loan is poor and can prove be a struggle for many students who are

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living away from home. Our service provides a cheaper alternative to travel that is easy and accessible via the university on the main Bournemouth campus. Not only is it a cheap method, but it is also a great way for students to exercise. The students of 2009 tend to have a keep fit attitude towards life and with the areas around Bournemouth being bicycle friendly, they have a great opportunity to use a bicycle as there main form of transport.

Because our business is run by students as well, we are looking to provide discount for our staff, giving them even more of a reason to work for us and use a bicycle. Whilst working with us as well as gaining discount, it gives the staff the opportunity to meet new people that attend the university, allowing them to get to know new people and new faces if they have come to the university without knowing anyone.

So to sum up, our core value is simply to make the student life easier by providing a healthy and cheap method of transport.

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