Business Idea Report On Developing I-Search Application
Question
Task: This is a group assignment that builds on the work completed in Assessment 2.
The objective of Assessment 3 is to develop skills that enable you to evaluate which idea (from Assessment 2) has the highest chance of success, and to then prepare a pitch that presents a compelling business case to secure financial backing. This facilitates an appreciation of what potential investors will be evaluating before they commit to project investment.
In summary, there are two parts to Assessment 3. The first requires the group to prepare a 1500-word business report that compares then selects which business idea to present from Assessment 2. The second involves everyone in the team pitching the idea to secure development capital. Each of these is detailed below:
Idea Selection: The structure of 1500-word business report should be set out as follows:
- Idea Evaluation (Develop an evaluation framework to compare the ideas developed individually in Assessment 2)
- Idea Selection (Describe and justify how the best idea was selected) (Answer- the idea selection should be on the bases of feasibility of idea such as Technical feasibility, marketing feasibility, Financial feasibility, organisational feasibility) please all these aspects mention in the answer.
- Improvements (Identify any gaps that need to be addressed before the idea is pitched to an investor)
- Revised Business Model (Amend the business model canvas to incorporate the above revisions) ( The business model component Value preposition, Customer relationship, Channel, revenue stream must be well explained)
- Cash flow projections (Prepare ‘best case’ and ‘worst case’ cash flow projections for the first two years. Remember to state your assumptions about the key drivers of cash flow in each scenario)
Answer
Introduction
In the verge of technological advancement, people are nowadays adapting new innovative technologies in their daily life. Mobile devices are now a part of human life and various applications are now available in these devices to help people to take advantage of different types of facilities like food ordering, booking hotels, finding accommodation and many other features. The study aims to understand the effectiveness of the chosen business idea mentioned in the Assessment 2 which is a mobile application to guide and help the students who are coming from abroad for study in a university and searches for accommodation.
Developing evaluation framework to compare the developed idea in Assessment 2
The aim of the chosen business idea is to give support to the international students who is coming from abroad and taking courses in the universities and frankly finding accommodation for staying and the name of the application will be i-search. Nowadays, various types of applications are now available for the mobile devices which helps to solve several issues through some touch. Software developers are now developing different applications for various purposes. Nowadays, the number of abroad students in universities are increasing gradually. Students often finds difficult to locate places where they can stay safely (Legner, Urbach & Nolte, 2016). New localities become a major issue in this scenario and safety is another concern to remind by the students. However, to do that, different pre-measures have to be done by the business group to provide accommodation facilities to the newcomer students. They have to at first select a database where they can store the data of the locations of the accommodations. Then they have to give advertisement to the general people to enlist their houses and rooms in this app platform for renting facilities (Walravens, 2015). The idea above have a great potential but to give the idea a real structure, the developer team have to do a tough challenge to reach every people in the vicinity of different universities for enlisting their houses and homes for this app. Reaching those people physically is next to impossible and the developer team can give advertisements to the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, give advertisements in the television channels, radios, FMs and other means of media platforms.
Describing how the best idea was selected
The reason behind choosing this idea is number of international students is increasing worldwide and it is a very concerning issue for them to find proper accommodation for staying. Proper safety, food, water, electricity and other facilities are also mandatory for the students to live peacefully. Everyone tries to find a place where they can stay and get those facilities above. The business idea has a great potential to become successful in near future (Song et al. 2018). However, to make profit from this business, this business needs to be popular in the market and here come the promotional strategies. Strong promotional strategies can aid this business to gain an active customer and favorite market position only if general people get to know about is application so that they can enlist their houses in this application. Now a day’s people spend a significant amount of time in their mobile devices and they love to take advantage of the different applications present in the mobile platforms (Winter et al. 2018). From choosing foods to booking hotels, mobile applications are now becoming very handy and trustworthy for everyday use. During the renting process, giving image of the rent houses helps the customers to choose their accommodation as per their choices. Security is another issue and fake and misleading information can decrease the reputation of the i-search application.
Identifying gaps which are needed to address before the idea is pitched to the investor
There are several things to pay attention to the developer team before investing for the idea which is as follows:
- The developer team at first have to reach to the people who will provide accommodations, houses and paying guests and assess the physical condition of those houses and which kind of facilities they are going to give to the students who will go to rent those houses (Latif et al. 2016).
- The business authority has to negotiate with the room owners about the rooms so that the students can get best-valued services.
- The i-search team have to communicate with local restaurants, cafes, dine-out restaurants for enlisting in their application.
- They also have to contact with the transportation cabs and private cars for transportation facilities provided by the app (Hoehle & Venkatesh, 2015).
- The developer of i-search application also has to be prepared for different payment processes so that they can take payment from the house owners for giving them rent and a part of the money for cab and restaurant bookings.
- At first, they have to invest in the promotional strategies so that students coming from abroad to Australia gets to know about the app and search for the rooms, foods and transportation.
- The developer team also have to contact with shareholders and sponsors for the project to accomplish as it needed a large number of contacts (Tang, 2016).
- The developers of i-search team have to ensure the safety of the accommodation along with the features prescribed in the application so that the students can find exact specification they seen in the application. The foods and transportation they will prescribe also have to be safe for the students and they have to maintain quality for the students.
Revising the business model
The overall proposed business plan has a great potential to become successful in future. However, the develop of i-search team have to be careful about the facilities they are going to provide to the students coming from abroad to take admission and learning sessions in various Australian universities. The facilities have to safe and secure and they have to be exactly as defined in the application. The i-search application can be developed for different mobile platforms such as Android and iOS for download and use. The safety measures of the foods can be shortlisted by the government certified restaurants. The customers of the customers will be students coming from abroad to Australia for taking career courses and wants to find accommodation, food and transportation (Wich & Kramer, 2015). The application has to be synced with local shelters, rooms, houses, PGs, restaurants, cabs and private cars in the local vicinity of the different Universities so that students can save money in the daily transportation. The proposed business can help the students to find safe and secure accommodation and transport as well as fooding solution which will minimize their expenditure during their career courses abroad.
Preparing the best-case and worst-case cash flow projections for first two years
Cash flow signifies the total money coming in the business as revenue collection from the market and going out of the company as expenditure.
- Best cash flow projection is a scenario where the expenditure is lesser than the revenue collected from the business and it signifies that the business is growing and achieving steady success. This situation happens when the business operations going positively and the organization is gaining popularity and trusted customers in the market (Stice, Stice & Stice, 2017). According to the table shown in the below, it can be seen that the closing balance is increasing gradually and the organization is profiting from their business operations.
- Worst cash flow projection on the other hand, is a situation where the collected revenue from the market is lesser than the expenditure which means the business is going is loss and long term operation is impossible for the organization is they do not change the strategy and make the revenue more than the expenditure (Stice, Stice & Stice, 2017). Pattern shown in the below table shows that, the closing balance is decreasing continuously due to lesser revenue collected from the market than the expenditure.
|
January to June of 1st year |
July to December of 1st year |
January to June of 2nd year |
July to December of 2nd year |
Opening balance |
$80,000 |
$90,000 |
$1,10,000 |
$1,30,000 |
Cash in |
$80,000 |
$1,00,000 |
$1,20,000 |
$1,35,000 |
Cash out |
$70,000 |
$80,000 |
$1,00,000 |
$1,10,000 |
Closing balance |
$90,000 |
$1,10,000 |
$1,30,000 |
$1,55,000 |
|
January to June of 1st year |
July to December of 1st year |
January to June of 2nd year |
July to December of 2nd year |
Opening balance |
$80,000 |
$60,000 |
$50,000 |
$40,000 |
Cash in |
$50,000 |
$40,000 |
$30,000 |
$35,000 |
Cash out |
$70,000 |
$50,000 |
$40,000 |
$40,000 |
Closing balance |
$60,000 |
$50,000 |
$40,000 |
$35,000 |
Conclusion
People are now adopting new technologies in their daily life, from mobile devices to other technologies. From the above study it can be concluded that the application can help the students to find foods and cheaper transportation facilities in the nearby locations where they will be going to take accommodation. This can help them to save their money and time. The idea of helping the students to find nearby accommodations for the students of universities can help the students to safe and proper housing based on their likings easily. Feedbacks can be taken from the service users for further improvement of the i-search system for better productivity. Business Idea assignments are being prepared by our IT assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable best assignment help service.
Reference list
Hoehle, H., & Venkatesh, V. (2015). Mobile application usability: Conceptualization and instrument development. Mis Quarterly, 39(2). Retrieved on: 26 May 2019 Retrieved from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8171/405b2c1538c6b2eff0eb7fb87b7b2c68eeba.pdf
Latif, M., Lakhrissi, Y., Nfaoui, E. H., & Es-Sbai, N. (2016, March). Cross platform approach for mobile application development: A survey. In 2016 International Conference on Information Technology for Organizations Development (IT4OD) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. Retrieved on: 25 May 2019 Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Najia_Es-Sbai/publication/304371091_Cross_platform_approach_for_mobile_application_development_A_survey/links /5a9fcdfc0f7e9badd99f1da9/Cross-platform-approach-for-mobile-application-development-A-survey.pdf
Legner, C., Urbach, N., & Nolte, C. (2016). Mobile business application for service and maintenance processes: Using ex post evaluation by end-users as input for iterative design. Information & Management, 53(6), 817-831. Retrieved on: 25 May 2019 Retrieved from: http://www.fim-rc.de/Paperbibliothek/Veroeffentlicht/556/wi-556.pdf
Song, J., Baker, J., Wang, Y., Choi, H. Y., & Bhattacherjee, A. (2018). Platform adoption by mobile application developers: A multimethodological approach. Decision Support Systems, 107, 26-39. Retrieved on: 25 May 2019 Retrieved from: http://dspace.aus.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11073/9363/SongBakerWangChoi_2018_DSS_ PlatformAdoption%20%282%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Stice, D., Stice, E., & Stice, J. (2017). Cash Flow Problems Can Kill Profitable Companies. Available at SSRN 3057698. Retrieved on: 26 May 2019 Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Derrald_Stice/publication/320001234_Cash_Flow_Problems_Can_Kill_ Profitable_Companies/links/59f71cf5aca272607e2bf1f7/Cash-Flow-Problems-Can-Kill-Profitable-Companies.pdf