Executive Summary

Bursa Ta assists college-bound students with their search for foreign scholarship money.
Bursa Ta is able to increase the award amount for students that have a scholarship or can
increase the likelihood of a scholarship award for those on the border line of receiving one.
Bursa Ta maintains an extensive database of available scholarships and offers each client
individualized consulting.
Keys to Success
Bursa Ta has identified three keys to success which it believes will be instrumental to the
health of the organization. The first is the need to offer significant value to the customers. The
second is to maintain a 60% success rate for securing scholarships or increasing the amount of
the scholarship. The third key is to adhere to strict financial controls.
The Market
Bursa Ta has segmented its market into two distinct segments. The first group is sure thing
applicants, the market segment that is very likely to receive scholarships. This segment is
growing at 10% per year and has 93,000 potential customers. The second group is
questionables whose needs will be met by significantly increasing their likelihood of
receiving a scholarship through Bursa Ta's guidance. This group has an annual growth rate of
11% with 112,000 potential people.
Management
Bursa Ta is being lead by industry veteran Snziana Medvechi and Corbeanu Alin - Vladu.
Snziana's Snziana worked in U.S. admissions counseling for almost four years and during
this time visited a number of U.S. universities on the East Coast and specialized in helping
students get admitted to U.S. schools. Alin`s background is based on corporate solution
seeking economical growth. Having a well seasoned manager team will help ensure success
for Bursa Ta.
Bursa Ta has conservatively forecasted sales of 350.000 RON for year two, rising to 650.000
RON by year three. Profitability will increase over the next three years. Through a
combination of an innovative business plan in a growing market space and a seasoned
manager, Bursa Ta will quickly increase market penetration in a very exciting market space.

1.1 Mission
The mission of Bursa Ta is to help thousands of college students realize their dream of
attending a foreign college by helping them find scholarships. Bursa Ta will aim to maintain
100% customer satisfaction for all clients.

1.2 Objectives

Become known as THE resource for foreign scholarship assistance.

Reach profitability by the end of year one.

Generate yearly sales of 600.000 RON within three years.

1.3 Keys to Success

Offer significant value to clients by having a comprehensive database of scholarships

and useful application information.

Help at least 60% of the clients secure significant scholarships.

Maintain strict financial controls.

Company Summary

Bursa Ta has been founded on the idea that there are a wealth of scholarships available to
students that few are aware of. By becoming professionals in this arena, Bursa Ta can
generate significant profit while helping clients make a foreign college a reality. Bursa Ta has
chosen Bucharest as its headquarters because of the huge pool of students in town including.

2.1 Company Ownership

Bursa Ta is a Bucharest L.L.C. with Snziana Medvechi as the main shareholder.

2.2 Start-up Summary

Bursa Ta will require the following start-up equipment/expenses:

Assorted office furniture for four work spaces, including desk, chair, light, computer;

Computer server with laser printer, broadband Internet connection, fax machine;

Assorted furniture for the waiting room;

Legal consultation for the business organization formation, review of contracts, etc.;

Business consultation - this service will be a fairly broad area of consulting from HR
to marketing.
Start-up Requirements
Start-up Expenses
Legal
Stationery etc.
Brochures
Consultants
Rent
Research and Development
Expensed Equipment
Total Start-up Expenses

RON 3,000
RON 300
RON 350
RON 2,000
RON 1,000
RON 4,000
RON 700
RON 11,350

Start-up Assets
Cash Required
Other Current Assets
Long-term Assets
Total Assets
Total Requirements

RON 22,350
RON 1,300
RON 10,000
RON 33,650
RON 45,000

Services
Bursa Ta offers foreign college scholarship assistance to college students. There are many
scholarships available that would help make foreign college affordable for most people.
Unlike loans which require repayment, scholarships are "gifts" that generally do not need to
be repaid. Many scholarships have initial prerequisites as well as performance requirements
for the recipient while they are in school receiving aid.
Some scholarships have initial prerequisites such as financial need, aptitude/scholastic
performance, ethnicity, association membership, etc. Many of the scholarships also have
performance benchmarks that must be met while the person is receiving the aid such as a
certain grade point average, avoiding academic probation, etc.
Each organization that offers scholarships have their own requirements and these
requirements are at the discretion of each organization.
There are thousands of foreign scholarships available that the potential applicants are not
aware of. This is where Bursa Ta offers value. Their two primary services are:

Provide the client with a list of possible scholarships from Bursa Ta's master database
that would be the most likely options. This database is a collection of many different
available scholarships, a list that Bursa Ta has spent countless hours researching and
continually updates.

Increase the likelihood that the client receives a scholarship for each one that they
apply to. By leveraging Bursa Ta's knowledge of how scholarship recipients are
chosen and passing this information on to its clients, it increases the strength of its
clients application. Bursa Ta is also able to offer individualized suggestions specific to
the different scholarships.

Bursa Ta fee structure is based on an incentivized performance compensation model where it

gets paid if it successfully helps the client realize the scholarship. This is the proper fee model
because it forces Bursa Ta to perform and it encourages many potential customers to sign up
since payment is contingent on them getting money, a win-win situation.

Market Analysis Summary

Bursa Ta has identified two customer segments that it will attempt to convert to customers.
The first segment are "sure thing" customers, those that are likely to get a scholarship
generally due to their circumstances, whether economic or performance based. The second

market segment is the "questionables" who are on the fringe for getting a scholarship but need
Bursa Ta's help.
Both of these segments, if they are going to rely on outside help to attempt to secure a
scholarship, will generally use a career services person, either at their high school or at the
college to help assist them with this process.
While the career services can be helpful, the students must be aware of the fact that the career
service person helps a lot of different people thereby making the time they can spend with
each student fairly small. Additionally, the person has no financial incentive in securing a
scholarship and they have a limited amount of time to commit to each student.
There are no direct competitors for this type of service. Each career service department
maintains a list of possible scholarships, however, it is not exhaustive nor updated often.
There are a few websites that maintain a list of possible scholarships. These lists can be
helpful, however the clients do not receive any individual attention or consulting for which
scholarships to apply for and how they can strengthen their application.

4.1 Market Segmentation

Bursa Ta has segmented the market into two distinct segments:
Sure
thing
customers
These people are likely to secure some sort of scholarship for a variety of reasons. This group
is using Bursa Ta's services as a way of increasing the amount that they would receive from a
scholarship or the number of scholarships that they receive. Demographic information is as
follows:

If their likelihood of getting a scholarship is based on academic performance, this

segment has a baccalaureate score of > 9,00.

If their likelihood of getting a scholarship is need based, their household income is

>RON 2,500.

Are fairly sophisticated regarding the college education process.

Are definitely going to college but would like to minimize the expense of their
education as much as possible.

Questionables
This market segment is trying to make college a reality by securing a scholarship. The
category is called questionables not because they are questionable about going to school, but
because they are on the border line for receiving a scholarship. This group is therefore using
the Bursa Ta's services to secure a scholarship thereby making a college education affordable.
Demographic information is as follows:

If they are need based applicants, their household income is >RON 1500.

Baccalaureate scores of < 8,00.

Recognize that they need help in securing a scholarship. They may or may not have
spent time doing research on their own.

4.2 Target Market Segment Strategy

While Bursa Ta will be using the same media outlets for its advertising campaign, it will have
different ads tailored for the different segments. One set of ads emphasizes the ability for
Bursa Ta to secure larger amounts of assistance for each student. These ads will appeal to
students who are highly likely to get a scholarship and will be lured to use Bursa Ta through
the prospect of increased grant aid.

4.3 Service Business Analysis

There is not a large industry built around scholarship assistance currently. This can be
explained by the fact that much of the help comes from career service counselors whether at
the college or high school level. They do an adequate job, especially in light of the limited
time and resources that they have. Within the last four years the industry has seen the
emergence of several firms that offer a database of available scholarships on the Internet.
These firms are more a list of resources as opposed to a company that offers individualized
assistance.

4.3.1 Competition and Buying Patterns

Bursa Ta does not have any direct competition, however, there are several different companies
working in the same space.

Guidance school counselors. While these people do not charge for the offered services,
they are hired by the school or district to assist the kids, they do provide similar
services to what Bursa Ta does.

Internet-based databases. There are several firms that offers lists of scholarships via
their website.

Individual consultants. There are some consultants that offer their services one on one
to clients, but they are priced out of the range of most students.

Students are generally price sensitive. This means that they will often forgo a service provider
or chose the least expensive one. Bursa Ta's fees are billed on a contingency basis; they are
only paid if they perform.

Strategy and Implementation Summary

Bursa Ta's strategy will be based on raising awareness of its services as well as educating
prospective clients on the effectiveness of its services. The effectiveness of Bursa Ta's services
is its competitive edge. It has the ability, because of a variety of factors, including extensive
research, and industry insight, to show people the money.
The marketing campaign will educate students about the services offered, both the extensive
database as well as the individualized counseling. The sales strategy will be based on the
conversion of qualified leads into customers based on Bursa Ta effectiveness of getting
foreign scholarships for students who would not otherwise get any awards or increasing the
award amount for those that would otherwise receive something less.

5.1 Competitive Edge

Bursa Ta's competitive edge is its effectiveness to either secure scholarships for students or to
increase the amount that the student would otherwise be able to do. Bursa Ta's effectiveness
percentage is forecasted to be 60% (and has been in limited number trials). This will be
accomplished due to their extensive research that is completed on an ongoing basis as well
as its wealth of industry knowledge. It is the industry knowledge (detailed in the Management
Summary section) that allows it to be so effective, it knows how the industry works and what
needs to be done to win scholarships for students.

5.2 Marketing Strategy

Bursa Ta's marketing strategy is a strategic program designed to raise awareness among the
two different student target groups regarding the services offered by Bursa Ta and how
valuable it could be to the students. This will certainly be a challenging task since the services
that Bursa Ta offers are a relatively new service offering. In the past the students got this type
of help, albeit of lower quality and specificity from career counselors provided by the schools.
The marketing effort will utilize both advertisements and a word of mouth grass roots
campaign to accomplish their goals. The advertisements will be placed in several local
magazines whose readership is similar to Bursa Ta's target demographic. The basic message
that will be communicated is simply put that students can get far larger awards for
scholarships if they use Bursa Ta's help. Prominent in the advertisements will be its claim that
Bursa Ta has a 60% success rate in helping secure scholarships or securing more out of a
scholarship than if the student proceeded alone. The grass roots campaign will rely on two
efforts: 1) a referral system, 2) student representatives that are "cheerleaders" for the service.
This should be effective since the students are making the pitch to their peers and they already
have a trust relationship with these people so what they say holds more weight.

5.3 Sales Strategy

Bursa Ta's sales campaign will have the objective of making conversions of qualified leads
into paying customers. The target customer is a qualified lead if they recognize the need for
the services and have to some degree sought out help from Bursa Ta. The conversion process
should not be that difficult for two main reasons. The first reason is its high success rate. The
success rate would be even higher but for the reality that some students are not meet the
criteria for scholarships - either they do not have the scholastic ability or economic factors are
not in their favor. The second issue that should make the conversion relatively easy is the fact
that the students use Bursa Ta's services risk free - they pay nothing unless they are awarded a
scholarship. The agreement is not exclusive, meaning the students are free to utilize other
services and they do not have to pay for Bursa Ta's services unless they perform.

5.3.1 Sales Forecast

The first few months will be fairly slow in terms of sales. This forecast is normal for two
reasons. The first is the fact that Bursa Ta is a start-up organization and it takes time to build
awareness, goodwill, and a client base for the business. The second explanation is the process
for applying for scholarships is seasonal. It is not until April or May that students become
more aggressive in securing plans for college.
The revenue stream that Bursa Ta receives is based on a percentage of the scholarship that is
received by the student. Bursa Ta will receive a 6% commission on the money that it obtains
for the students. This will have a positive impact on sales as there is a direct incentive to raise
as much money for each student. Bursa Ta believes these sales forecasts to be reasonably
conservative based on several factors. The first factor is the fact that Boston has a very large
student population with so many different colleges and universities, some extremely desirable
for people to attend. This provides Bursa Ta with a huge market. The second factor is that as
students become increasingly more busy with extracurricular activities and work, they have
less and less time to spend on the college entrance process. With less time and more money
(the last two years has seen the highest percentage of students working in over 30 years)
students were willing to pay someone else to accomplish tasks that they once had the time and
desire to do.

5.4 Milestones
1. Completion of business plan;
2. Profitability;
3. Monthly revenue exceeding RON 15,000.
Milestones
Milestone
Start Date
Completion of business plan 1/1/2003
Profitability
1/1/2003
Monthly rev RON 15,000 1/1/2003
Totals

Web Plan Summary

End Date
2/15/2003
9/30/2003
2/1/2004

Budget
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0

Manager
Snziana
Snziana
Snziana

Department
Strategic
Operations
Operations

Bursa Ta will have a website as a way to disseminate information to prospective customers. A

website is a very cost effective means for broadcasting information because it allows people
to browse the material at their own leisure at whatever time is convenient for them. It also
allows them to answer their questions without much help from Bursa Ta. Without the website
the company would be overwhelmed with phone calls requiring more and more hours of
Bursa Ta employees. The site will present people with a list of offered services, case studies
of helped clients, and accomplishments of the firm.
6.1 Website Marketing Strategy

Bursa Ta is well aware of the fact that just because a company has a website does not mean
that is any value since nobody might be visiting it. With this in mind, Bursa Ta will work hard
to increase traffic on the site. All of the printed material that Bursa Ta uses will make
reference to the site and encourage visitors. Bursa Ta will also be diligent in website
submission. This is extremely important so that if a student is looking for these types of
services but is not familiar with Bursa Ta specifically, they will still be hooked up with Bursa
Ta.
6.2 Development Requirements

Development of the site will be handled by Politehnica computer science students who are
generally quite effective, yet work at below market rates.

Management Summary
Snziana Medvechi and Alin Corbean, the founders of Bursa Ta, bring a wealth of skills and
experience to their leadership roles in the context of their new business. Their expertise in the
educational and business arena complement each other and add to the mix of know-how and
expertise that the Bursa Ta team offers its clients.
The two founders met while doing their MBA at University of Bucharest, the foremost public
university in Romania, in the UNESCO Department. Prior to this, Snziana received her
Business Administration Degree at University of Bucharest, while Alin pursued his
undergraduate degree at Ovidius University in Constanta.
Before starting her MBA, Snziana worked in U.S. admissions counseling for almost four
years and during this time visited a number of U.S. universities on the East Coast and
specialized in helping students get admitted to U.S. schools on massive scholarships, as high
as $70,000/year.
Meanwhile, Alin was honing his skills in business management while working on starting up
his company. His company focused on heping companies find corporate solutins to different
personnel development and training issues.
Close to the end of their Master program, Snziana and Alin began discussing a possible joint
project a business venture with transformative social impact, a company that would leverage

her intricate knowledge regarding scholarship awards and his strong opportunity-seeking
business background.
7.1 Personnel Plan
Bursa Ta has forecasted the need for a total of five employees for the first couple of years.
The following bullets indicate the different employees. Please review the following chart for
financial information regarding the personnel plan:

Snziana: operations, marketing, business development, scholarship advising and

training of the new advisers (see below);

Alin: business development and day-to-day operations, marketing, some financials,

any B2B;

Researcher: this position will be responsible for the development and maintenance of
the scholarship database and with ad-hoc research tasks;

Advisers (2): they are responsible for most of the interactions between Bursa Ta and
clients; advisers will work hard to support the applicants well, fast, and with
enthusiasm.
Personnel Plan
Year 1
Snziana
Alin
Researcher

Year 2

RON
30,000
RON
RON24,000
30,000
RON24,000

Year 3
RON 40,000
RON 40,000

RON16,500 RON22,000 RON26,000

Account Manager RON13,500 RON22,000 RON26,000

Account Manager RON13,500 RON22,000 RON26,000
Total People

Total Payroll

RON67,500 RON96,000 RON118,000

Bursa Ta will be a holistic organization. As such, it is designed to observe the 5

principles of the holistic organization and to build the Whole into the Parts:
1. The importance of redundancy
2. Requisite variety
3. Minimum specs (critical specifications)

4. Learn to learn
5. Teams ready to complete a whole process
After all, like Benjamin Franklin said, We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we
shall all hang separately.
Knowledge Management
Bursa Ta is very keen on knowledge management. Like never before, leveraging on
knowledge and expertise is no longer a luxury. It is a necessary game changer. Given the very
nature of our work, we aim to turn our know-how & expertise, competencies, market
experiences etc. all this human capital into intellectual capital. We aim at creating value in
order to increase people skills and expertise, through sharing and giving back.
We feel that our knowledge management will keep us safe from constantly reinventing the
wheel and will allow us to focus on increasing talent and keeping our employees with us longterm.
Based on benchmarking, our prior expertise, and the way Bursa Ta turns out, we will
implement a knowledge management strategy. We propose a phased approach based on six
major life-cycle components, as suggested by Deloitte (image below), allowing the creation of
a sustainable knowledge sharing culture.

We will work towards integrating our KM into our objectives and business strategy. Right
from the start, we will work for KM maturity and build a KM roadmap.

Our organizational culture will reflect our business: young, well-prepared, innovative, and
willing to invest time and energy in the things that matter: a job well done that will help our
students get scholarships to their dream universities.
While we focus on building knowledge for a three-point perspective strategic, managerial,
and operational our KM will focus on:
Knowledge Creation/Generation
Like any company, we will surely create and use a lot of data during our daily activities. It
will be essential to have a system for managing newly created information so it can be reused
to solve new problems or leveraged to add value to other business activities.
For example, we will ask our clients to provide feedback and then have the researcher
compile it so that we may learn to learn as our business grows.
Knowledge Codification
Data and information need to be collected and analyzed to become useful knowledge. This is
the stage where tacit knowledge is converted into explicit knowledge: a critical phase for the
success of the other main stages - application and transfer. Without documenting and
codifying tacit knowledge, its transfer for the purposes of learning and utilization, both
internally and externally, risks being a cumbersome task.
Furthermore, legal protection of these valuable knowledge assets can only be done if the
knowledge has been codified. For example, we will need to register our name, branding, any
special unique projects etc.
Knowledge Application
Our experience shows that sometimes companies dont know how to generate value from the
use of the knowledge they have. It is worse when a company does not even know the kind of
knowledge it has.
Our KM will integrate a management system for the company to ensure that our knowledge
assets are properly documented and that the knowledge in different fields of activity will be
shared within the organization.
Knowledge Transfer
Knowledge is dynamic. It can be adapted and evolved through the processes of learning and
sharing. The impact made by individual knowledge is not as great as collective knowledge:
ours will be a sharing organization.
We will also work towards partnerships with related businesses for higher
impact of our collaborative pursuits (for example we might have a
partnership with a bank for better rates on loans for our clients).
Financial Plan

The following sections will outline important financial information.

8.1 Important Assumptions

The following table details important Financial Assumptions.

Year 1
1
10.00%
10.00%
30.00%
0

8.2 Break-even Analysis

Break-even Analysis
Monthly Revenue Break-even

Average Percent Variable Cost

Estimated Monthly Fixed Cost

8.3 Projected Profit and Loss

The following table will indicate Projected Profit and Loss.

Year 1
RON 89,192
RON 12,487
RON 0
RON 12,487
RON 76,705
86.00%

RON 67,500
RON 4,200

RON 2,004
RON 7,200
RON 2,400
RON 2,400
RON 10,125
RON 1,800
RON 97,629
(RON 20,924)
(RON 18,920)
RON 0
RON 0
(RON 20,924)
-23.46%

8.4 Projected Cash Flow

The following table and chart will indicate Projected Cash Flow.

Year 1

RON 89,192
RON 89,192

RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0

RON 0
RON 0
RON 89,192
Year 1

RON 67,500
RON 36,201
RON 103,701

RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 0
RON 103,701
(RON 14,509)
RON 7,841

8.5 Projected Balance Sheet

The following table will indicate the Projected Balance Sheet.

Year 1

RON 7,841
RON 1,300
RON 9,141

RON 10,000
RON 2,004
RON 7,996
RON 17,137
Year 1

RON 4,411
RON 0
RON 0
RON 4,411
RON 0
RON 4,411
RON 45,000
(RON 11,350)
(RON 20,924)
RON 12,726
RON 17,137
RON 12,726

8.6 Business Ratios

The following table indicates important Business Ratios for both Bursa Ta as well as the
industry as a whole. Please note that any material variances between Bursa Ta's ratios and the
industry rations can be explained by the fact that the services offered by Bursa Ta are quite
new and are not duplicated by others therefore it is reasonable to expect that the ratios are not
always consistent with the industry as a whole.