Tramitador Procesal de SCOP

6.1. Strategic Vision

The strategy for InnDie Ltd is to establish the OIBN as the United Kingdoms leading online business creation network, linking academic institutions, entrepreneurs, industry, investors, business support organisations, management support providers, and the government together to generate commercial opportunities that produce real economic value.

6.2. Business Model

The OIBN will provide free business networking and business creation services to its user community supported by advertising revenue. For this model to work effectively it is reliant on providing services that the target audience will want to use, attracting advertisers to the site with offerings tailored to the user population, and attracting a critical mass of users across the identified groups to generate advertising revenue and create business opportunities.

From a service standpoint the OIBN offers a unique set of tools to enable users to offer and seek business opportunities, create detailed business plans, and search for business plans for investment consideration and business opportunities for commercial engagement.

Specialised networking sites are better able to attract advertisers due to the more focused interests of the target audience. As such the business will target advertisers seeking to exploit the needs of the business and investment community.

A critical mass of users will be generated by a number of means. Unlike many other online service offerings, a direct sales approach will be taken to engage with the potential user community to raise awareness of the OIBN and its unique services. Added to this, selected online advertising will be undertaken as well as seeking to generate as many links to the site as possible in order to raise the search profile of the network.

6.3. Objectives and Milestones

To accomplish the goals of InnDie Ltd three parallel business streams will be undertaken, each under the leadership of one of the business founders.

6.3.1. OIBN Management Stream

This stream will commence on business start up by taking the designs and spending the first three months developing the website ready for beta testing. The next three months will then be spent beta testing the live site and further developing it ready for its official launch at the end of the sixth month.

Following the formal launch of the site continual development will be undertaken to constantly increase site functionality and provide further business tools to the user population.

6.3.2. User Engagement Stream

This stream will begin by focusing predominantly on the East Midlands region during the first two years prior to moving to concentrate on the whole of the UK from year three onwards.

The first three months will be spent building awareness of the OIBN and seeking a small sample of users from across the potential user community to aid in beta testing the site. From the end of month three until the end of year two focus will be placed on building the user base through direct means from across the East Midlands region, this focus will then shift from year three onwards to engage with groups across the entire country.

In parallel with the direct engagement approach, advertising will be undertaken on a regular basis during the five years targeting all identified user groups across the UK. 6.3.3. Advertiser Engagement Stream

This stream will take a direct approach to advertiser engagement during the fives years in order to ensure the quality of advertising content and maximise revenue generation. The first three months will be spent seeking advertisers willing to come on board to advertise on or sponsor the site during the beta testing phase. From month three to six the focus will then change to seek advertisers willing to advertise on the site following the

formal launch. From month six to year five the business will then look to build its advertiser base.

6.4. Marketing and Sales Plan 6.4.1. Marketing

Once the site is up and running in beta form marketing activity will commence and consist of three parallel streams of activity. The first will be to begin an online advertising campaign focused on the larger potential user groups of entrepreneurs, businesses, academic institutions, and investors. The most popular sites used by these groups will be targeted. The second will be to use the network of contacts the business has gained to undertake a personalised email campaign promoting the benefits of the OIBN to industry, entrepreneur, academic, and investor groups. The final stream of activity will be to produce a number of promotional business cards for the OIBN to be used during direct sales engagements.

6.4.2. Sales

The approach to sales will be by direct means, both to the target user base and advertisers, and involve two of the founders travelling the UK to engage with potential users, advertisers, and regional development agencies to stimulate interest in and support for the OIBN. The secondary objective of the direct sales approach is to gain support for the OIBN by seeking groups willing to make links from their websites to the network. This will aid in directing traffic to the OIBN as well as increasing its online search result rankings.