Sample of assignment:

Business plan for Old Town

White Coffee (full text)
This Assignment Is Published With Permission From The
Author For Online Review Only
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Content Page

1.
Introduction
5
2.
Country
analysis
6
3.
Selection of
country
. 13
4.
Entry
mode
.. 13
5.
Partner
selection
. 14

6.
Management
structure
. 14
7.
SWOT
analysis
15
8.
Industry
analysis
16
9.
Demand
analysis
18
10.
Mission
statement
19
11.
Strategic
goals
19
12.
Sustainable strategic competitive
advantage. 19
13.
Business
strategy
.. 20
14.
Functional
strategies
.. 21

14.1
Human
resources
. 21
14.2
Marketing mix
strategy
21
14.3
Finance
. 23
15.
Control
framework
.. 24
16.
Uncertainties
.. 24
17.
Contingencies
. 25
18.
Conclusion
.. 25
Reference
26

List of figure, chart & table

Figures
Figure 1.0 Export map of the Old Town White
Coffee5
Figure 2.0 Current basic economic indicators of the UK, US
& Australia9
Figure 3.0 World coffee consumption by countries per
capita10
Figure 4.0 Tim Hortons
chain..14
Figure 5.0 Michael Porters five
forces16

Charts
Chart 1.0 Growth of UK GDP by quarter (Statistics.gov.uk
2010)8
Chart 2.0 Growth of United States GDP by
quarter..9
Chart 3.0 Growth of Australia GDP by
quarter..9
Chart 4.0 Coffee consumption growths in USA, UK &
Australia per kilo per capita.11

Tables
Table 1.0 UK corporate tax rates (HM Revenue & Customs
2010)..7
Table 2.0 US corporate tax rates (Law.cornell.edu 2008)
..8
Table 3.0 Gross expenditures on R&D as share of gross
domestic product.12
Table 4.0 SWOT analysis of joint venture15
Table 5.0 Tim Hortons keeps renewing its menu by
introducing new products..20
Table 6.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2011.22
Table 7.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2011.22
Table 8.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2011.23

1.

Introduction

Set up in 1999 in Ipoh Town, through more than 10 years

effort OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE has established itself as
the largest Malaysian local coffee brand in the Malaysian
market with 171 chain coffee shops all over Malaysia and
oversea markets. In late 2009, the first oversea OLDTOWN
WHILE COFFEE shop was set up in Singapore after the
initial oversea market expansion by direct export of its
major commercialized products such as 3-in-1 instant
coffee in United States, Canada, UK and other countries
and regions as shown in Figure 1.0 (OLDTOWN WHILE
COFFEE official website 2010). Now United Kingdom,
United States and Australia are selected as the potential
markets for the companys expansion plan to start up new
overseas chain shops.

Figure 1.0 Export map of the Old Town White Coffee

The product involved in this report refers to the outlet
business, the OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE cafe outlets,
rather than an particular coffee product. In a particular
OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE cafe outlet, beside the various
white coffees that inherit the white coffee legacy started in

1958 with special brew, as a Malaysian local coffee shop

OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE also provides a range of local
foods such as Nasi Lemak that would not be expected in a
traditional western style coffee shop like Starbucks.

This report has three major goals to be fulfilled.

1.

I.
Indentify a suitable country for
OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE shops oversea expansion
2.
II.
Select an foreign market entry mode for
OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEEs market development in the
country selected
3.
III.
Provide a business plan with strategies
guiding the business activities

2.

Country analysis

In order to find out the best of the three candidate markets

(United Kingdom, United States and Australia) for the first
step of OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE outside Southeast Asia,
PEST analysis will be used to focus the discussion within
this analytical framework on the political, economical,
social and cultural and technological factors that may
influence the business operation for the company.

Political and legal factors

In the selected countries, United Kingdom, United States

and Australia, which are all highly developed with high
political stability and well established administrative
systems, but still some political and legal factors need to
taken into considerations before the company can start its
business. In the legal filed, corporate tax which is usually
based on the incomes, property or existence in different
jurisdictions usually concern a company a lot as it reduced
the net profit that it gains from its business operations.
The corporate income tax rate in Australia is a flat 30%
which are widely applied to corporate limited partnerships,
strata title bodies corporate, trustees of corporate unit
trusts and public trading trusts except some credit unions,
non-profit organizations and pooled development funds
that will have special tax rates (Australian Taxation Office
2009). And similarly, the corporate tax rate in UK in 20102011 fiscal year is 28% as shown in the table below and
could not enjoy the 21% small profit rate for a foreign firm
like OLDTOWN WHILE COFFEE as it is not headquartered in
UK that makes it a resident firm.

Table 1.0 UK corporate tax rates (HM Revenue & Customs

2010)

But even so the corporate income tax rate in UK is still the

lowest compared to the other two countries as the United
States based on a taxable income level of over USD
100,000 which should be easily achieve by OLDTOWN
WHILE COFFEE once its plan of expansion starts. The US
corporate income tax rate varies based on the taxable
income levels that are clearly defined as demonstrated in
the table below. This graduated tax rates are encouraging
in the beginning stage of a business but its comparatively
high tax rate of over 34% in the taxable income over USD
75,000 make it a discouraging factor for OLDTOWN WHILE
COFFEEs expansion into the US market.

Table 2.0 US corporate tax rates (Law.cornell.edu 2008)

Economical factors

The economic environment in a market has influences the

profitability of a business because they affect both capital
availability and cost, and demand (Thompson, 2002). In a
market that provides low cost capital but with strong
demand for consumption of certain products, most
companies providing such products could gain sound
profits. And according to the past experiences, demand for
most products grows in a booming economy even though
a depressed economy could also provide opportunities for
some products (Robinson, Hichens & Wade 1978).

Chart 1.0 Growth of UK GDP by quarter (Statistics.gov.uk

2010)

Chart 2.0 Growth of United States GDP by quarter

Chart 3.0 Growth of Australia GDP by quarter

(Source: Tradingeconomics.com 2010)

Figure 2.0 Current basic economic indicators of the UK, US
& Australia (Update to the second quarter of 2010)

As demonstrated in the figures and charts above, the

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of these three
selected economies witness similar downfall during the
worldwide economic crisis especially UK and US which
both had undergone a approximate 6% GDP fall in the
fourth quarter of 2009. And currently, the three economies
seem to return to back to growth particularly US with a 1.7

percent growth according to the latest data despite that

these three countries are all slow in economy growth. On
the other hand, one factor that raises foreign investors
concern a lot is the interest rate that could influence the
cost of loans for investment activities. In term of interest
rate, Australias interest rate of 4.5% is considered as the
highest in the major economies in the world and such high
interest rate will increase the capital cost for a company to
expand its business by loan.

Social and cultural factors

Figure 3.0 World coffee consumption by countries per

capita (World Resource Institute 2008)

Despite the well known fact that United States is the

largest coffee consumption country in the world, it could
not be listed as one of the coffee drinkers based on the
chart above. The top ranking positions are mostly occupied

by European countries such as Finland, Norway and

Iceland. But United Kingdom seems to be an exception as
its people drink much less coffee than other European
people. So among the three selected countries, United
States consumed more per capita coffee than UK and
Australia.

Chart 4.0 Coffee consumption growths in USA, UK &

Australia per kilo per capita
(Source: International Coffee Organization 2008)

Though the consumers in these three countries consume

less coffee in comparison with European frenzy coffee
consumers, in the perspective of consumer behavior
people in these three countries still show great love of
coffee. Whats more a growing market to some extent will
be more appropriate for the introduction of a new brand
rather than an established and developed market. But
since the growth rate of these three countries are quite

similar, USA will still be the best choice following by UK

and Australia.

Technological factors

Technology has been widely recognized for its influence on

strategic management for a company to create its core
competitiveness (Johnson & Scholes 1993) in its business.
A company will have easier access to advanced
technologies with lower cost and even enjoy technological
spill over in a country that invests more percentage of its
GDP on the non-defense R&D and basic research activities
that will bring substantial benefit to the companies doing
business in it. Non-defense R&D/GDP ratio calculates the
gross expenditures spent on civilian R&D intensity against
the Gross Domestic Product to examine a countrys R&D
ability in a business perspective. As shown in the table
below, in term of non-defense R&D/GDP ratio, United
States spent 2.26% of its GDP in the non-defense R&D
activities while this digit was only 1.6% for United Kingdom
and 1.93% for Australia indicating an enforced leading
position of United States in R&D performing among the
three selected countries.

Table 3.0 Gross expenditures on R&D as share of gross

domestic product
(Resource: Nsf.gov 2010)

3.

Selection of country

Base on the PEST analysis above, United States will be the

best country as the target market of OLD TOWN WHILE
COFFEEs expansion plan outside Asia because of its the
excellent R&D performing ability, widely accepted coffee
culture, comparably higher economic growth with less
interest rate, and moderate corporate tax rate. Whats

more the fact that Unites States is the largest consuming

market for coffee which means a vast room for expansion
has make it a more attractive market than United Kingdom
and Australia.

4.

Entry mode

The expansion into a foreign market usually could be

achieved by exporting, licensing, joint venture and direct
investment. For Old Town White Coffee, a short history
small company base in Malaysia it is recommended to
start its business by setting up a joint venture with a local
partner in the targeted United States coffee market. The
reasons of adopting joint venture are three fold: First of all,
risk can be shared by introducing a partner into the
business in the new market development. Though the
United States has been identified as the best option
among the three candidate markets, but risks still exist
sine such market expansions come along with potential
failures besides profit makings. Globally successful chain
coffee shop Starbucks also experienced failure in the
expansion in Australia by wrongly understanding
Australias cafe culture (Ausfoodnews.com.au 2008). So it
is important to share the risks by inviting a good partner.
Secondly, a well established local partner and a proved
successful foreign coffee brand could pool their resources
such as experiences, technologies and capitals together to
expand the business in a fast speed. Last but not least,
partnership between two small businesses could be helpful
in assisting them to fight the bigger competitors such as
Starbucks.

5.

Partner selection

Tim Hortons, a Canadian origin fast food restaurant chain

specializing in providing fresh coffee, baked goods and
home-style lunches (Timhortons.com 2009) could be an
excellent local partner in the US to Old Town White Coffee
for its fast entry and expansion into the US market. To Old
Town White Coffee, Tim Hortons is a perfect partner
because of its more than 500 chain stores in the US
market that covers 10 states and operational experiences
in US food and beverage business. On the other hand in
the perspective of Tim Hortons, the cooperation with Old
Town White Coffee also bring excellent opportunity to
speed up fulfilling its ambition to increase the market
share in the US and introduce the eminent Asian coffee
brand that would be attractive to the customers.

Figure 4.0 Tim Hortons chain

6.

Management structure

Since a joint venture is a type of strategic alliance in which

the two companies join together to create a new business
entity that would be legally separated and distinct from its
parents (Griffin & Pustay 2010) and this entry mode for Old
Town White Coffee is critical in increasing its market
presence in the US and when this goal has been achieved
Old Town White Coffee could set up its own independent
chain coffee shop in the US. So in term of management
and control of the new joint venture firm, compromises
could be made. Old Town White Coffee could own less
share of the new firm but still participates in managing
activities by setting up jointly share management and
appoint some key personnel from the parent company.

7.

SWOT analysis

There will be advantages and disadvantages in setting up

a new joint venture that need to be taken into
consideration before putting it into actions. Such impacts
could be analyzed under the SWOT (Strength, Weakness,
Opportunity and Threat) analytical framework.

Helpful
Interna
l origin Strength:Shared risks
Shared knowledge and expertise

Harmful

Weakness:Lose of autonomy
Profits sharing
External originOpportunity:Market presence
Synergy
Competitive advantageThreat:Incompatibility of partners
Limited access to information
Changing circumstances
Table 4.0 SWOT analysis of joint venture

As stated in the table above, the strength, weakness and

opportunities could easily be expected by the companies,
but the threat of the joint venture could not be easily
perceived by the parent companies before actual
operation of the joint venture begins. These threats such
as incompatibility of partners and changing circumstances
if happen would render the joint venture obsolete so that
threats need to be avoided by careful preparations.

8.

Industry analysis

In this part of analysis, discussion will be focused on

analysis of industrial environment by applying Michael

Porters five forces model to examine the competitive

environment that the new joint venture will face upon its
establishment. This model including five variables:
industry suppliers, buyers, potential new entrants, existing
competitors and substitute products.

Competitive rivalry within an industry

An industry could be defined as drawing a line between

the established competitors and the substitute products
offered by competitors outside the industry (Porter, 1998,
p. 17). And the competitive rivalry exists between the
established competitors in the same coffee segment and it
is the center of the Michael Porters five forces model as
shown in the figure below.

Figure 5.0 Michael Porters five forces

One of the direct harms of high competitive rivalry is the
decreases of return rate as Grant (2008, p.69) suggests
that there will be industry floor rate of return if market is
perfectly competitive. But in the coffee industry, though
there are many large chain coffee shops such as Starbucks
and Tullys Coffee, the industrial competitive rivalry would
not obviously downgrade the return rate of investment
since the competitors in the chain coffee shop industry
provide differentiated products that are attractive to the
customers. So price war would not be prevalent due to the
consumption of specialty coffee is insensitive to price
fluctuations (Larson 2008).

Bargaining power of customers

The bargaining power of the customers also poses

significant influence over the business behaviors within
the coffee industry. Such forces usually could be seen in
term of forced down prices, demand for higher-quality or
more services and pit rival organizations against one
another (Porter 2998, p24). In the specialty coffee industry
that the new joint venture set up by Tim Hortons chain and
Old Town White coffee is operating in, most customers are
individual consumers with small quantity of purchase, so
customers bargaining power is reduced though they do
demand in high quality coffee.

Threat of new entrants

The threat of new entrants comes is quite high due to the

low entry barriers in the chain coffee industry. Because the
distribution channels in the chain coffee industry is mostly
counting on the retail outlet established by the respective
chain company so that entry barriers to the potential new
entrants could not set up by controlling the access to the
distribution channels. But the high differentiation of
products in specialty coffee industry makes it possible to
act as barrier to protect its segment market once the
brands has been established in the market.
Bargaining power of supplier

Take the supply chain of one of the most important

ingredient, Arabica beans, as an example, the suppliers of
Arabica beans are mostly small and medium sized family
owned farms and companies in Latin America, East Africa
and Pacific Rim that sell their crops to the processors
through local market (Lee 2007). And the lack of
unionization of these farms greatly reduces the collective
bargaining power of these suppliers. Base on the already
well set up White Coffee manufacturing center in Malaysia
and existing cooperation with the current suppliers, it
should be possible for Old Town White Coffee to control
such increases in bargaining power from suppliers due to
the increasing demand of products during the execution of
the foreign market expansion plan.

Threat of substitute products

The threat from substitute products to coffee products is

very little thanks to the more and more popular coffee
culture in the United States. The major substitute product
of coffee is soft drinks that contain caffeine produced by
Pepsi and Coca-Cola (Quelch 2006). But even the low
prices of such caffeinated soft drinks could not substitute
the coffee due to the obvious differences in taste and
especially the leisure environment created by the coffee
shops is considered as part of the coffee culture that could
not be substituted by simply drinking a bottle of CocaCola.

9.

Demand analysis

Base on chart 4.0 and the well known fact that United
States is the largest coffee consumption country in the
world and complied by the data that during the 25 years
term from 1982 to 2007 the specialty coffee consumption
had grown from 1% to 20% in term of market share (Lingle
2007), there is no doubt that the demand for specialty
coffee is growing so dramatic that Old Town White Coffee
will gain its market share since its 3-in-1 blends has been
successfully introduced in the market share by export
before its chain coffee shop could get established.

10.

Mission statement

The mission statement of the new joint venture need to be

a mixed statement that demonstrates both parent
companies philosophy and values in the management of
the new company in terms of setting overall goal and
guiding the decision making. It could be like this: Tims Old
Town caf is dedicated to satisfy the changing tastes of
customers with the most authentic Malaysian Old Town
White Coffee and Malaysian food together with Tim
Hortons special menu.

11.

Strategic goals

The strategic goals of the new joint venture, Tims Old

Town caf, include: In term of the number of outlets in the
three years strategic planning, 500 chain coffee shops are
expected to be established in the major cities of the 10
states that currently the Tim Hortons is operating in. In
term of mark share, in the market of the selected cities,
the market share of Tims Old Town caf is expected to
account for at least 20% in the local markets.

12.

Sustainable strategic competitive advantage

The sustainable strategic competitive advantage of the

new joint venture sources from two major fields: unique
and legendary Old Town White Coffee, Tim Hortons coffee
and the companys commitment to satisfying the changing
tastes of customers with continuous product innovation.

The special brew of the Old Town White Coffee and Tim
Hortons coffee have been the core product of the
respective company that brings sustainable strategic
competitive advantage to the company and to the new
joint venture company this basic principle will not change.
And on the other hand the Tim Hortons excellent tradition
of introducing new products into its menu to satisfy the
customers changing needs and curiosity needs also be
maintained as shown in the table below. And for the new
company the introduction of authentic Malaysian food
would add up this tradition.

Table 5.0 Tim Hortons keeps renewing its menu by

introducing new products

13.

Business strategy

In Michael E. Porter (1980)s classical Competitive

Strategy, in order to cope with the five competitive forces
as stated above, he provide three potentially successful
generic strategic for a company to outperform the
competitors in the industry: Overall cost leadership,
Differentiation and Focus strategy. Giving the uniqueness
of its products that form the major of the sustainable
strategic competitive advantage as analyzed above, it is
advisable for the new joint venture company to adopt the
second generic strategy: differentiation strategy.
Differentiation strategy is defined as differentiating the
product or service offering of the firm, creating something
that is perceived industry-wide as being unique (Porter
1980). For the new joint venture, the differentiation
strategy could be achieved along the following
dimensions: product design (special recipe of the coffee),
customer service and brand image. The differentiation
strategy could help the new company to gain aboveaverage return and occupy an advantageous position in
standing against the five competitive forces (Porter 1980).

14.

14.1

Functional strategies

Human resources

Since the Old Town White Coffee chooses to form strategic

alliance with Tim Hortons in term of setting up a new joint
venture with the ambition of fast expansion in the US
market and taking into consideration a survey conclusion
that the lack of international talent is ranked as the third
barriers to entering foreign markets (Ernst & Young survey

1994), it would be important for the parent company Old

Town White Coffee to influence the human resource
management activities and cultivate international talents
to cope with the expansion need for the joint venture and
later Old Town White Coffees own later international
business requirement. In the field of recruitment of
managers, Old Town White Coffee could appoint some
experienced and young staffs internally from the parent
company into the various managing position of the joint
venture company to train them as internal talents in
foreign assignments. Such talents could make up the core
human resources in the future strategic expansion.

14.2

Marketing mix strategy

This part of analysis will be focused on the marketing

strategy of the chain coffee shops under the new joint
venture. In term of product strategy that the Old Town
White Coffee would need to adopt a blend of
standardization and customization in the product design in
the new company as the new coffee shop will have a mix
menu of both Tim Hortons and Old Town White Coffee. For
the products that Old Town White Coffee that will have on
the menu in the US market, on one hand it should keep
standardizing the companys comment to provide unique
Malaysian taste and authentic Ipoh White Coffee and
quality Malaysian food in a global scale; but on the other
hand the company should also customize its products mix
to satisfied the special needs of the new customers, and
Old Town White Coffee could learn from its partner in term
of the customization strategy in its products as Tim
Hortons has been serving the US market since 1995 and
keeps releasing new products as mentioned above.

In term of pricing strategies, the new joint venture

company would need to set the prices following an
ethnocentric marketing approach by using a two-tiered
pricing policy to set the price of the products differently
from the domestic market. And obviously the prices of the
products would be higher than in the home country market
since at least the new prices need to be set in such a
manner that the revenue can cover the marginal cost
associated with the foreign sales.

In term of promotion decisions, the new joint venture need

to input great efforts into the promotional activities to
increase the new companys presence and exposure in the
United States markets. To substantially increase the
attractiveness the products, promotional mix including
advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public
relations could be use to persuade the potential customers
to into the purchasing. Within these promotional elements,
the most important element is the advertisement and due
to the cultural differences the a mixed corporate culture
between the two distinguished parent companies, it is
advisable to adopt a local advertising rather than global
advertising to better focus on the local markets.

The last P of the marketing mix is distribution which could

be defined as the process of getting products and services
from the firm into the hands of customers (Griffin & Pustay
2010, p500). Distribution is another issue that need to be
taken into consideration as the new company is trying the
expand in a national wide scale in the largest coffee
market in the world. For many products such as the

authentic white coffee which are produced in the

Malaysian manufacturing center could to be transported to
the US by airplane to reduce the international order cycle
time.

14.3

Finance

Subject

F
Ja e
n b

J A
M A M Ju u u
ar pr ay n l g

Advertisement &
Promotion

R&D

100

Bud
get

400

Distribution
channel mainten
ance
Public relations

D
O N e
ct ov c

3,4
00

Sale force
stimulation
Sale force
training

S
e
p

150

500

3,0
00

7,5
50

Total
In thousands (USD)
Table 6.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2011

Subject

F
Ja e
n b

J A
M A M Ju u u
ar pr ay n l g

Advertisement &
Promotion

D
O N e
ct ov c

500

Distribution
channel
maintenance

150

Public relations

Bud
get
4,6
00

Sale force
stimulation
Sale force
training

S
e
p

R&D

170

520

3,1
00

9,0
40

Total
In thousands (USD)
Table 7.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2012

Subject

F
Ja e
n b

J A
M A M Ju u u
ar pr ay n l g

Advertisement &
Promotion

Sale force
stimulation
Sale force

S
e
p

D
O N e
ct ov c

5,8
00

Bud
get

700
250

training
Distribution cha
nnel
maintenance
Public relations
R&D

270

820

3,3
00

11,
140

Total
In thousands (USD)
Table 8.0 Marketing actions and budget Gantt chart for
2013

15.

Control framework

Three Key Performance Index (KPI) need to be achieved

includes: number of chain shops, market share and
profitability in term of rate of cash return on assets. As
mentioned above, in the three years term, the number of
chain shops is expected to reach 500 and accordingly the
market share should achieve 20% in the targeted cities in
the next three years. And in term of profitability, the
company could focus on the cash return on assets which
calculates the cash flow from operations against the total
assets, by focusing on the cash return the company could
expect a high return to support its expansion plan.

16.

Uncertainties

Some uncertainties may happen that could lead to the

failure to the expansion plan as described above. One
important risk could be that staffs from these two parent
companies may have difficulties in working together to
achieve the set targets of the new joint venture company
with each other since they are from different cultural
background with different corporate culture also which will
be demonstrated in the way they have the work done.
Another risk is also regarding the culture which is the
acceptance of Malaysian food culture in the United States.
If the consumers are not very likely to get to love the
Malaysian white coffee and foods, then the expansion may
be called to stopped.

17.

Contingencies

On contingencies that need to taken into consideration is

the undergoing economic crisis, if the economic situation
is not so optimistic and the new joint venture may have
problem to borrow money from the bank and fund the
expansion plan which has been well designed. Then the
growth of the business in the United States market may be
decelerated.

18.

Conclusion

After the PEST analysis on the three candidate markets,

UK, Australia and the United States, United States has
been identified as the more suitable market for Old Town
White Coffees expansion with the better market
conditions there such as the lower corporate tax rate and
interest rate to start a business, widely accepted coffee
culture and R&D performing ability. But the company still
need to find a local partner to expand the business in the
US in a fast speed and share the risks. And term of
implementation new joint venture should enact a
marketing strategy that could best fit the US target market
and set a three year marketing plan and try to act
according to the plan to achieve the goal set.

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