Financial Report Quality And Investment Efficiency In Startups: A Case Study Of A New Coffee Shop In Brisbane, Australia

Overview/Background of the Business

Discuss about the Financial Report Quality and Investment Efficiency.

In the modern era of development and advancement, people have started investing and implementing new practices to facilitate the self-purpose as well as population around them. Unlike traditional business operations, the modern world is more oriented to develop innovative and practical business models for the market. Such implications led to the evolution of startups, in which, certain services or products are presented, which are explored as a potential loophole of the existing market. For instance, the startup of Uber cabs is a considerable example of loophole and need of the market (Colombo and Grilli, 2010). It assisted the customers in finding their rides at their doorstep.

In the simple context, the considerations of a startup can be further explained as an entrepreneurial business venture, which aims to validate the requirements of the contemporary market conditions by formulating a business process considering a particular product, service, culture or platform. Moreover, the relations of the startup company can be relatively described as the operations of developing and validating the scalable business model. There is no denying the fact that the initiation of the startups possesses a high probability of failure rates. However, the minority success ratio flourishes the companies, which are aligned to grow large and influential (Gage, 2012).

 In addition to this, the business relations of startup describe it as a young company in the competitive market that just started developing. Usually, startups and other similar businesses are backed and operated by a single or a group of individual. The orientation of the startups is aligned to produce a service or product that is not currently available on the market. If available, then it is either being offered in higher prices or inferior manner (Hechavarria and Reynolds, 2009). The initiation of a startup is a relative process for the development of business practices. Furthermore, numerous factors are involved in the establishment and creation of a new business venture.

Considering the following relations, the anticipated study is undertaken to discuss the attributes of new business startups. The formulation of the research study is potentially aligned in a manner to discuss the relative information of starting up a new coffee house in the city of Brisbane, Australia. Consideration of a startup proposal will further assist the assignment in validating the proposed objective of the integrated business management. This study will also involve the sections of business overview, literature review, origin, production, advantages, disadvantages, business plans and vitalization of location.

History of Coffee

Overall, the following research study is proposed to make enlightening and informative discussions over the relations of integrated business management. Integration of a potential example of the new coffee shop in Brisbane will facilitate the study in making factual and descriptive arguments over the research topic. The influence of the sub-segments will assist the study in rationalizing the informative outcomes of starting up a new business venture (Creswell, 2008). Therefore, this study can be measured as a crucial and descriptive piece of research work to present potential insights into the implications of integrated business management. Along with this, advantages, disadvantages, budding challenges, business plan and vitality of location are a supplementary advantage to rationalize the following study.

Every morning, wakening from bed with bleary eyes is more certain to die. Though it’s a recurring process of everyday life, the morning sensation of wakening eyes prised by sunlight makes it challenging to initiate a single undertaking. This brings the urge of caffeine shots to boost the metabolism and satisfy the pine for coffee. The desperate plea for coffee or caffeine also facilitates the delivering from tiredness. Considering this need and evenness of the product, business ventures started investing in the following business of serving coffee to the customers (Mineharu, et al., 2010). With the passage of time, the following business advanced by introducing specialized blended coffees and other variants.

In the context of the aforementioned research study, a startup of a new coffee shop is proposed in Brisbane, Australia. The culture of coffee shops is quite evolving and certain in the city of Brisbane. Despite acquired market by the established businesses, no sense of competitiveness can be detected in the following business. Even more, the establishments of coffee-peddling bars and cafes are considerably lot more than just a coffee shop because many places have relatively started the business of dinner trading, boutiques and serving local beers (Oba, et al., 2010). The taste of coffee is trending and it is even flourishing the business ventures aligned to it.

As per the market relations, there is no denying the fact that Brisbane is growing as a major market player in the Australian coffee culture. From fancy outlets to old building courtyards, coffee shop brew bars and hand-roasted blends can be seen all around the city of Brisbane. All the ventures are functioning with diverse considerations to facilitate the customer relationship by satisfying the blend of coffee (Asadi, Zhou and Yang, 2009). Competitive factors are condensed to nominal as all the coffee shops located there are dedicated to a diverse range of blended coffees and other delicacies.

The following research study is undertaken to propose the startup of a new coffee house named as “Sip & Gossip” in the city of Brisbane, Australia. The urge requirement and contemporary market conditions prompted the investment in the sector of coffee and food culture (Monshouwer, Van Laar, and Vollebergh, 2011). The orientation of the research is to bring some innovative concepts and services to the market for food and beverages in Brisbane by providing good quality food, beverages, ambiance, services, and hospitality. Even, the name itself justifies the visionary outcome of the researcher as “Sip & Gossip” is a collective upshot of sipping coffee, relaxing, refreshment, chatting and gossiping.

The proposed business idea is a startup for sure but it will present a comprehensive example of high-quality services and hospitality in the business of food and beverages to the customers. In addition to this, the location of the coffee shop in Brisbane will also act as a facilitating factor in the successful business startup. Rising involvement of Brisbane coffee market and evenness of the product will majorly act as a contributing factor for “Sip & Gossip”.

In the contemporary lifestyle as well as business market, coffee is considered as the most valuable commodity, which is legally traded. After oil, it is the second most dealing entity that is used for both businesses as well as consumption. The stats further justify the utilization by presenting that every single day approximately 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed all around the world. With the existence of numerous fruits around us since the ages, coffee’s origination is considered as an enveloped mystery. It is believed by the people that a goat herder named Kaldi discovered the fruit of coffee when he observed that his goats are highly vigorous after eating the red fruits plucked from the shrubs of coffee tree (Luttinger and Dicum, 2011).

Some academicians even believe that the origination of the coffee is traced from the regions of Ethiopia since the date back to 10^th century. It could be originated earlier as well because of traits of coffee consumption are marked according to earlier legends and reports. The Sufi monasteries of Yemen have presented the most primitive evidence of drinking coffee and presence of coffee tree since the 15^th-century world. With the passage of time, during the 16^th century, the consumption of coffee reached the domain of Middle East, South India (Coorg), Persia, Northern Africa, Turkey and Horn of Africa (Ellis, 2011). Furthermore, it even stretched its consumption to Balkans, South East Asia, America, Italy and remaining countries of Europe.

In addition to this, academic researchers also certify that the term “Coffee” is rooted in many different languages all around the world. In the language of Yemen, it is named as Qawah, which is a romantic term used for wine. Further transformation led its name to Turkish kahveh and then to Dutch koffie and lastly to Coffee in English. This justifies the origination, evolution, and development of coffee from the earlier times to the modern world (Davis, et al., 2011).

In addition to this, the latest version of roasted coffee and beans is projected to be originated from Arabia. In the 13^th century, coffee gained enormous popularity in various Muslim countries due to stimulant power contribution, which helped the parishioners during long prayer sessions. Till the era of the 16^th century, coffee crops and farming was restricted to the regions of Arabia and Africa only. Afterward, an Indian pilgrim named as Baba Budan bought fertile coffee beans from Mecca, which further lead to the revolution of competitive coffee trade in European countries. The first European-owned coffee state was founded in the year 1616 In Sri Lanka. Thereafter, Ceylon and Java were also discovered as coffee estates in 1696. The comprehensive progression further facilitated the growth of coffee by French in the Caribbean, Spanish in Central America and the Portuguese in Brazil (Wolf, Bray and Popkin, 2008). Furthermore, the business development leads to the establishment of European coffee shops in Italy and France and also justified the business relations by flourishing enormous popularity.

Coffee is one of the most popular and universally consumed food beverage or commodity. A major section of coffee is produced in developing countries such as South America; however, it is mostly consumed in the regions of industrialized economies. In various developing countries, around 25 million people are solely dependent on the business of coffee production or trading in order to earn their livings. Brazil, who was the largest exporter of coffee in September 2017, has an estimated population of approximately 5 million small producers relying upon the business of coffee production by harvesting and cultivating the 3 billion coffee plants there (Murthy and Naidu, 2012).

Coffee cultivation is unlike sugarcane cultivation or cattle breeding as it comprises more labor-intensive culture than alternatives culture. Furthermore, the progressions are less aligned to automation practices and hence, require constant attention and heed. The export considerations of the coffee production indicate toward a remarkable business of the industry as it falls under the category of major export commodity. In 2004, it was recorded as the top agricultural export for 12 countries in the world. However, in 2005, coffee was documented as the seventh largest legal export commodity by value. And most importantly, from the year 1970 to 2000, the production and trading of coffee are evident as the second most valuable entity exported by the developing countries. The consistency and uniformity of the business for 30 long years justify the market conditions are business potential of the industry (Mussatto, et al., 2012).

Moreover, green (unroasted) coffee beans are also a market leading commodity in terms of export relations. The trading of following entities falls under the attributes of future contract on exchanges such as the New York Board of Trade, the London International Financial Futures and Options Exchange, New York Intercontinental Exchange and New York Mercantile Exchange. Globally, Brazil is the leading producer of green coffee followed by Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia, and Ethiopia. In addition to this, the port of Hamburg, Germany is also a renowned name in the business of coffee production and trading as it the world’s largest transfer point for coffee (Clifford, 2012).

Now, the production of coffee is defined as the industrial process of converting raw coffee berries of the coffee plant to the form of edible coffee. The pulp from the coffee fruit is removed to extract the seeds, which are then dried. As the dependency on coffee production is highly rated in developing countries, local processing of coffee also assists the local population as well the government in generating hefty revenue (Mussatto, et al., 2011).

 Production of coffee from the scratch is a long and throughout the process of approximately 5-6 years. Coffee plants do not even flower for three to four years since plantation. Afterward, flowering, ripening and drying process also takes time. The initial phase of coffee production is picking up of coffee fruits either by strip picking method or selective picking method.  Afterward, processing of the berries/fruits is done to remove the pulp and fruit layers over the seeds through a wet process, dry process or semi-dry process. Furthermore, the extracted beans are brought to the final process of milling undertakes to clean and sort the coffee beans. Hulling, polishing, grading, cleaning, and sorting are the potential methods involved in the procedure of milling. Overall, the process of coffee production is an elongated as well expensive industrial method (Gouvea, et al., 2009).

According to Kilmer (2014), distant from the following considerations of history, market conditions, production and industry of coffee, there are also some potential advantages associated to the start-up of small coffee shops (Kilmer, 2014). The following advantages are discussed below:

• The sense of Freedom: Owning a personal coffee shop seems quite fascinating as it could help the owner in getting the sense of freedom, which is usually dreamt by many people. It can also facilitate the lifestyle and work culture alike many successful business owners (Higdon, 2016).
• Be Your Own Boss: Startup of a new small coffee shop could also deal with the considerations of employment practices of an individual. This could be an opportunity for the person to utilize business skills, passion, compassion and work experience for steering own ship of entrepreneurship. Also, being your own boss is a determined vision of each and every working employee (Papachristos, et al., 2011).
• Profitability: Gaining profitability in the business of coffee shop ventures is a great task to achieve, but if achieved once, then it could facilitate the owner with all the developments and temptations of life. Success is also highly addictive like coffee and business of coffee shops could boost the profitability, expansions and customer service relations (Pulido, 2017).
• Uplift the Community: The further benefit or satisfaction associated with starting of a coffee shop is un-quantifiable as it provides a magnificent lifestyle to the owner as well to the owner’s community. Some businessmen consider it as a primary concern for the startup; however, others believe it as additional benefits of having a personal business (Higdon, 2016).
• Permit of Expressing Creativity: Creating a startup of the coffee shop also assists the owner in shedding the opinions and perspectives of other people in order to develop and execute personal ideas. The attributes of expression of creativity could lead to the sense of satisfaction and business development (Papachristos, et al., 2011).
• More Socialized with Neighborhoods: This employment is favorable in numerous ways because the owner of the coffee house if getting paid for the work heshe is happy to do. Meeting new people, making friends, gossiping and serving people with happiness is the working profile and people are readily paying for this. Thus, a nice coffee shop not only gives profitable business, it also eases the engagement of owner with new people and neighbors (Pulido, 2017).
• Comprehensive Consideration of Sharing Great Coffee with Passion: Owning a good coffee shop is a potential segment of occupation to align the passion for coffee along with spending quality time with friends as well as family. Overall, it hastens the passion for coffee and sociality to a new level (Higdon, 2016).
• Builds a Lasting Business: Starting up a small coffee house is a long-lasting planning of the sustainable and unremitting business. Neither the coffee goes out of style not the people stop hanging out with their loved ones. Hence, it is a trending business for hundreds of year to come unlike other market dependent businesses such as fashion, clothing, commodity, and services (Papachristos, et al., 2011).

Contrary to this, Johnson (2016) firmly believed that every business or startup is equally surrounded by pros and cons (Johnson, 2016)). Similarly, creating a new coffee house as a startup also has numerous disadvantages associated with it, which are discussed below:

• Boss is everything: Being a boss of any business venture is not an easy task. The authority of leadership and command comes along with responsibility and liability. Therefore, owning a coffee house simply means that everything starts with the owner and ends back to the owner (Tran, 2013).
• Always Looking for Money: Bringing up the dream project of a coffee house to ground considerably requires financial help and monetary flow to keep the business afloat. Consistent inflow and outflow of money to validate the sustainable development of coffee house sometimes become a matter of worry for the coffee shop owners (Johnston, 2017).
• Hiring and Firing: Dealing with regular up and downs of the hiring and firing process of the employee becomes challenging for few coffee shop owners because these implications demand sufficient time as well as efforts to hire a new employee and train accordingly to facilitate the business (Wilson?a, Wilson, and Whittingham, 2013).
• Risk of Drowning the Ship: Many times, despite lots of hard work, planning, passion and investment, the business of coffee shop fails. This simply means the investment made to the business also drowns, which is a considerable risk taken by the coffee shop owners. The risk is potentially justified as there is a reward for profitable, sustained and life-long business on another side (Tran, 2013).
• Time Consuming: Starting a business is a time-consuming task because it is a collective execution of planning, analyzing, efforts and hard work. Establishment of various things and bringing all them up in a single frame takes time as well as pains. No successful business are brought to the market overnight, there is a long story of passion, efforts, and sacrifices behind it (Johnston, 2017).
• Married to the Business: Though this phrase is age-old for the business owners, it validates the condition of a coffee shop owner. The level of commitment and work demanded by a coffee shop startup literally makes it feel like marrying to the business. Furthermore, owning a business means owning it for days, nights and even on weekends (Wilson?a, Wilson and Whittingham, 2013).
• Competitors: This is the most crucial disadvantage of starting up a coffee shop because the owner can rationalize the investment of money, efforts and time but the competitive market condition is a firm challenge to face (Tran, 2013).
• Suppliers: Initially, coffee shop owners have to deal with the suppliers as well. In order to get the entities at wholesale and competitive prices, trading with the suppliers is a must. However, availing credit for those items will not be possible as no one would give credit a newly started business. Hence, it is very detrimental to the cash flow (Johnston, 2017).

The most prominent indigenous factor for failures of startups, especially SME’s, is inefficient financial management and planning. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to give priority to this factor. This may seem natural but in actuality, the founder is mostly found to be in dissonance with the financial management. This could be driven by two factors, that is, either the founding member(s) ignore the importance of finance function, or do not have the appropriate knowledge or proper financial persons to make and implement financial plans.

The SME’s can be of many types, like, family owned, new technological market ones, franchises, social and nonprofit ones, etcetera. The common point in all of them is that financial issues, be those of indigenous (financial management) or endogenous (funding), are most influential for success and failure of a startup.

Finding the initial funding for the startup of a small coffee house can be difficult. The sources of funding can be many. To assure a constant funding for positive cash flow, the business plan for the coffee house must be viable in the long run. In the present marketplace, lean planning is more reliable with the one-page pitch as a tool to reflect the profitability of the startup, customer base and stimulated growth.

The financing may have a lifecycle approach (Robb, and Robinson, 2014) with stages of Initial Insider finance, intermediated finance, and the public finance. The initial insider finance can be provided by the startup team, family members, and friends. The initial finance can also be backed up by loans via local banks or credit union. It is seen that generally during first six months, a startup with potential could not generate enough revenue to stay positive in cash flow. Cash flow is the revenue the startup generates in terms of the expenses for its growth. For this, it must be ensured that personal expenses are covered by a side or part-time job, or simply by initial savings; up to six months. Intermediate finance is provided by finance companies, banks or by venture capital, while public finance sources mainly from the stock market and debt markets.

While the financial challenge in Existence phase would be to fulfill startup demands and initiating growth of it; in survival, it would be of maintaining cash to break even. Some of the processes to ensure this and later stages of the budgeting of the coffee shop would be Formal cash planning with cash forecasting, functional management of budgets with the long-term plan of dedicated planning and standardized cost planning.

To use the initial funding appropriately in creating growth in the organization, allocating resources wisely in products, services and resources are what calls for strategic planning. The two phases of existence and survival are cash demanding in market exploration, segmentation, building customer profile, product development, sales and its mapping.

The next important item is of working capital and the management of its cores of account receivables, payables and inventory. It is not advised to sell to customers with bad record or risky financial shape. A long-term cash flow projection with one-year cash flow statements on monthly basis is of prime importance.

Considering the viewpoints of McAdam and McAdam (2008), creating a startup of the coffee shop could be a facilitating as well as challenging because of its alignment to numerous factors (McAdam and McAdam, 2008). Moreover, the author also inferred that apart from financial and economic challenges, there are many other challenges in the following business, such as:

• Financial: Creating a startup of a small coffee shop is considered as a factor of potential market risk for the owner. Along with time, efforts and hard work, money is also an important fixation in the business policies. Sometimes, risking the savings and debts could lead to the accomplishment of successful businesses but initially, the owner should be prepared for the loss of investment (Douceur, et al., 2010).
• No More Dependency over the Paychecks: As per the experiences of many coffee shop owners, many times there comes the situation when they do not have enough funds to pay their bills, employee’s salary and personal expenses. Sometimes, the owners even have to work for 60-80 hours a week without expecting profitability for self. Thus, the owners of the coffee shops are expected to administer all the practices by paying for the food, rent and other basic necessities (Higdon, 2016).
• Ability to take Quick and Difficult Decisions: Owning a coffee shop in any city demand the owner to be courageous and spontaneous in making business-related decisions. Considering the business and investment at stake, it is required for the owner to take difficult decision in hard times by analyzing the prospects from all possible scenarios (Batova, Clark and Card, 2016).
• Ability to Adapt and Endure Growing Pain: After creating the startup of a new coffee shop, the owner is expected to move along the learning curve of the coffee business. This will certainly bring growing pains along with this. Therefore, it is expected as an owner of the coffee shop to build up stress, making mistakes, challenging with the employees and needless expenses (Douceur, et al., 2010).
• Adaptability to the Change in Lifestyle: Adapting the lifestyle of a businessman or an entrepreneur is a challenging task in itself. The business starts demanding long operational hours despite weekdays or weekends, consistently for weeks, months and even for years. Furthermore, the family also needs to make sacrifices of family trips, events or functions (Higdon, 2016).
• Being Right-Brained and Left Brained Simultaneously: This phrase is considerably used to present the dilemma of a coffee shop owner, who needs to be analytical as well creative while taking any potential decision of business development. Such implications could help the coffee shop owner in achieving the visionary aspects of business along with making it more feasible and economical (Batova, Clark and Card, 2016).
• Flexibility: Creating a startup of the coffee shop also strains the flexibility traits in an owner. The rationale for this requirement is to make the make the optimum utilization of the potential possessed by the owner. Sometimes, the owner is expected to wake up early and work till late night, which indicates the need of flexibility for the passion to make successful business venture (Douceur, et al., 2010).
• Providing Excellent Customer Service: In the modern scenario, there are numerous coffee shops and cafes around people and all of them are equipped with high-class facilities to provide quality food to the customers. However, the customers prefer going to the places not only on the basis of a taste of the food or coffee; they prefer the places on the basis of their overall experience. Therefore, the competitiveness of the market can be dealt with better customer service (Higdon, 2016).
• Marketing of the Cafe: Building a brand and investing hefty amounts on it could be an easy task. The challenge is confronted in the marketing of the proposed product or service. Similarly, marketing of a new coffee shop is also a crucial task for the owner because it needs to convince or attract the target population for the coffee shop (Batova, Clark and Card, 2016).

One of the real challenges for a business plan to be successful is to be discontinuous innovative, something which goes beyond usual business and reaches out to the customers in disruptive, unique ways (Zott, Amit, and Massa, 2011). The business plan must be originated from reflecting the reason for starting this venture. The driving motive must not rise in response to the external request but an opportunity.

The business plan helps make important business decisions, anticipate risks and obstacles, set benchmarks, respond to financial unpredictability and most importantly gather funding sources. In all, it manages Marketing, Operations, Finances and long-term development effectively (Chen, Hope, Li, and Wang, 2011). Sometimes, the factor ruining its effectiveness is impatience. The preliminary plan or the basic concept is incomplete to attract funding. The factors guiding the initiation of the planning process are the main concept, understanding users and their relationship with the products or services, clear business motives and focus, human resource management, financial control, market trends, adaptability to change and adept management.

The ability of the startup to be unique in be it in, products, distribution channels, market regions, better integration of services has a better chance to let startup succeed. The business plan process starts with etching out the basic business concept (Ramakrishnan, Jones, and Sidorova, 2012). This is the basic, strategic foundation for future success. The next steps entail collecting feasibility and specifics information, refining them as per requirement, followed by outlining the specifics and finally presenting your plan in a form which evokes interest. The background technique of questioning in each of these steps helps.

To view your finalized plan as a third person or an investor helps a lot. This is the reflecting process and includes amendments to any loopholes or drawbacks. The number of pages for a coffee house startup must not be more than 10-15 pages. These days, as there is a shortage of time with everyone, especially in the ever-growing investment markets, one- page pitch is a popular mode of presenting the business plan. One of the effective ways to write it is by STAR method. This acronym expands to Situation, Task, Action, and Result. This method helps determine the context of a situation and the opportunity provided, and what actions were taken in response to this. This plan is easier to get feedback on.

One page pitches are direct and to-the-point, are easy to update and act as a backbone to the detailed business plan, if necessary. Business plans should project your anticipated exit strategy or visions up to 3 to 5 years. For a business plan to be full-fledged, it must include a description of the startup, Industry and market trends, Target market, Competition, Risk analysis, strategic position, sales plans, Operations and technology plans, Social context, Development, milestones, exit plans, and Financials.

Focusing on its execution is the next mandatory task of creating a business plan. Critically and realistically devising marketing and distribution strategies is an important consideration for the investor to be convinced. Also, in this fast pace of resource and price changes, it is recommended to track pricing and marketing trends to compete with endogenous changes.

In addition to all the aforementioned things, location for the startup of a new coffee shop is the most influential factor in determining the outlook of the business. In agreement to the following context, Yu and Fang (2009) also presented a crucial discussion over the significance of location in exploring and accomplishing the business opportunities. According to the authors, visibility of the location is the principal factor, which needs to be considered while deciding the location of the coffee shop. Majority of the population visiting the coffee shops belong to the local masses, who wish to spend some good time with their friends, families or partners. Therefore, location, which is visible to common masses, is important for this business (Yu and Fang, 2009).

Agreeing to the following viewpoints, Collins (2008) further added that the entrance and exit of the coffee shop should be easy and convenient even for the customers, who are in hurry. There are numerous customers, who are a regular visitor to coffee houses on their way to work. Such customers do not like visiting the places having chaotic systems of entrance and exit. Moreover, the authors also emphasized the availability and occupation of the neighborhood. Surroundings play a detrimental role in determining the success relations of the business. Availability of the target customers nearby to the coffee shop is necessary for the successful accomplishment of the proposed objectives because this business posses customers of regular commutation (Collins, 2008).

The further assessment of the viewpoints of Karamshuk, et al. (2013) also revealed that cost-efficient business planning is a considerable requirement to create a startup of the coffee shop in the contemporary times. Therefore, the owner should critically analyze the location on the basis of rent, expenses, lease, installments and maintenance charges. Along with this, the demographics of the location should also be measured for the business operations because a coffee shop surrounded by foot traffic is beneficial for business. Also, the surrounded foot traffic should belong to the target customers of the proposed coffee shop, else all in vain. Therefore, the demographics of the coffee shop location should be justified analytically in order to assure overall and sustainable business development of the coffee shop startup (Karamshuk, et al., 2013).

Overall, there is no denying the fact that implication of business like a coffee shop is relatively dependent on the matter of location. A good location in the locality, having great infrastructure, customer service and easy to access will facilitate the overall business. However, not only location is competent enough to justify the business as the following market segment is highly competitive in nature. Therefore, good quality food, beverages and of course coffee aligned with the essence of customer relationship could lead the business startup of the coffee shop to a market of next level (Dewri and Thurimella, 2014). The orientation of the owner should be diversely activated to make a community instead of customers for the coffee shop. Such attributes will lead to a justified accomplishment of the passion and efforts instilled in creating the following startup.

An effective marketing plan is necessary for recognition of the startup in the market and to reach to the consumers. It must be designed with a constraint of budgeting in mind since other areas take up a major chunk of the finances. It must be realistic and competitive with other contemporary firms in terms of price setting strategies and regulating them with demands and changes.

The marketing plan includes basic steps of making target customers aware of your products and their uniqueness factors, planning on basis of market demographics, the underlying theme or message in your products or services, their responsibilities in the social context. It also includes strategies to communicate that meaning or message to them, delivering at more than their expectations scale, and techniques for securing actual sales. Marketing includes advertisements, public relations, telemarketing, e-marketing and sometimes direct mail solicitations too. Marketing specialists, like, consultants, advertising agencies, etc.

The major elements which are a basis of communication to the consumers are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. The product aspect includes the types, range, and features of the product (Tian, 2011). On a realistic level, it is mostly the benefits which are seen by the customers rather than the features. Plus, on a longer-term basis, they look out for a product which fulfills their broader sense of well -being rather than just basic needs or amenities.

The price aspect includes the cost leverage it provides as compared to its competitors. Plus, these need to be regulated in response to fluctuating market needs, demands, and trends. The place feature includes the location’s ambiance, convenience, transportation routes, décor, etc. It is one of the important factors in attracting a customer base. Finally, the promotion includes the marketing strategies, tactics and the amount of marketing done.

There are five F’s or five metrics which help ascertain the marketing plan. The first metric is Fitness. It ensures that the products and services are up to date with customer expectations and if it is really fit for the purpose fulfillment of the customer. The second metric being Fulfillment measures startup’s ability to meet the quantity requirements and needs within the stipulated time. Generally, it is measured by deliveries which are on time and in full quantity or amount as expected by the customer or as ensured by the startup. Fast, the third metric measures how long it takes for the organization to meet the requirements of the customer. This is usually, the response-lead time between an order and the delivery. Flexibility includes its ability to meet the fluctuating demands of the market and the response time it needs to respond to the changes and trends. The last factor of Fare includes the cost which is employed in delivering and/or transporting the services and goods to the customers. This must be optimized for the profitability of the startup.

Many times the targets and product specifications of the organization and the customer motivations and demands do not match. Therefore, trade-offs must be considered wisely for better risk assessment and future success rates with growth in long run.

Conclusion

On the basis of all the aforementioned discussions and arguments, it can be inferred that consumption of coffee is an age-old practice for mankind. Undoubtedly, the consumption methods and practices have changed to a great extent with the evolution of time; still, the principal orientation of the people is same. The origin of coffee was traced from Ethiopia and gradually the production and cultivation moved to other regions such as Africa, Italy, Brazil, etc. Furthermore, the passage of time also classified the types of coffee such as green coffee, roasted coffee, green beans and many more. The gradual rise in the consumption of coffee in everyday life prompted the influence of the business idea of coffee shops.

Considering this aspect, the following research is undertaken to make vital discussions about the startup of a small coffee shop in the city of Brisbane, Australia. The orientation of this research descriptively presented enlightening information about the history, production, evolution, and industry of coffee. Furthermore, this study also made a comprehensive evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages associated with the creating a startup of small coffee shops. The auxiliary arguments of this research explored the various challenges such as budget, financial risk, employee retention, location and challenging lifestyle, which an owner of a coffee shop faces after establishing a business of own. Overall, it can be concluded that this study has made enlightening discussion over the proposed topic of starting a small coffee shop in Brisbane, Australia. Along with this, literature review from credible and authentic academic sources potentially contributed to the validity of the following research. Thus, this study can be presented as a competent piece of authentic information to the aspiring researchers and entrepreneurs, who are willing to engross in the business of starting a coffee shop.

References

Abrams, R.M., 2003. The successful business plan: secrets & strategies. The Planning Shop.

Asadi, S., Zhou, X. and Yang, G., 2009. Using local popularity of web resources for geo-ranking of search engine results. World Wide Web, 12(2), pp.149-170.

Batova, T., Clark, D., and Card, D., 2016, October. Challenges of lean customer discovery as invention. In Professional Communication Conference (IPCC), 2016 IEEE International(pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Chen, F., Hope, O.K., Li, Q. and Wang, X., 2011. Financial reporting quality and investment efficiency of private firms in emerging markets. The accounting review, 86(4), pp.1255-1288.

Clifford, M.N. ed., 2012. Coffee: botany, biochemistry, and production of beans and beverage. Springer Science & Business Media.

Collins, F.L., 2008. Of kimchi and coffee: globalisation, transnationalism and familiarity in culinary consumption. Social & Cultural Geography, 9(2), pp.151-169.

Colombo, M.G. and Grilli, L., 2010. On growth drivers of high-tech start-ups: Exploring the role of founders’ human capital and venture capital. Journal of business venturing, 25(6), pp.610-626.

Creswell, J.W., 2008. Educational research. Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research.

Davis, A.P., Tosh, J., Ruch, N. and Fay, M.F., 2011. Growing coffee: Psilanthus (Rubiaceae) subsumed on the basis of molecular and morphological data; implications for the size, morphology, distribution and evolutionary history of Coffea. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 167(4), pp.357-377.

Dewri, R. and Thurimella, R., 2014. Exploiting service similarity for privacy in location-based search queries. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 25(2), pp.374-383.

Douceur, J.R., Elson, J., Howell, J. and Lorch, J.R., 2010, June. The Utility Coprocessor: Massively Parallel Computation from the Coffee Shop. In USENIX Annual Technical Conference.

Ellis, M., 2011. The Coffee-House: a cultural history. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

Gage, D., 2012. The venture capital secret: 3 out of 4 start-ups fail. Wall Street Journal, 20.

Gouvea, B.M., Torres, C., Franca, A.S., Oliveira, L.S. and Oliveira, E.S., 2009. Feasibility of ethanol production from coffee husks. Biotechnology letters, 31(9), pp.1315-1319.

Hechavarria, D.M. and Reynolds, P.D., 2009. Cultural norms & business start-ups: the impact of national values on opportunity and necessity entrepreneurs. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 5(4), p.417.

Higdon, B., 2016. Strategies independent coffee shop owners require to survive beyond five years (Doctoral dissertation, Walden University).

Johnson, G., 2016. Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson Education.

Johnston, M., 2017. Eclipse Coffee Bar-Business Plan(Doctoral dissertation).

Karamshuk, D., Noulas, A., Scellato, S., Nicosia, V. and Mascolo, C., 2013, August. Geo-spotting: mining online location-based services for optimal retail store placement. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining (pp. 793-801). ACM.

Kilmer, B., 2014. Policy designs for cannabis legalization: starting with the eight Ps. The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 40(4), pp.259-261.

Luttinger, N. and Dicum, G., 2011. The coffee book: Anatomy of an industry from crop to the last drop. New Press, The.

McAdam, M. and McAdam, R., 2008. High tech start-ups in University Science Park incubators: The relationship between the start-up’s lifecycle progression and use of the incubator’s resources. Technovation, 28(5), pp.277-290.

Mineharu, Y., Koizumi, A., Wada, Y., Iso, H., Watanabe, Y., Date, C., Yamamoto, A., Kikuchi, S., Inaba, Y., Toyoshima, H. and Kondo, T., 2010. Coffee, green tea, black tea and oolong tea consumption and risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease in Japanese men and women. Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, pp.jech-2009.

Monshouwer, K., Van Laar, M. and Vollebergh, W.A., 2011. Buying cannabis in ‘coffee shops’. Drug and Alcohol Review, 30(2), pp.148-156.

Murthy, P.S. and Naidu, M.M., 2012. Sustainable management of coffee industry by-products and value addition—A review. Resources, Conservation and recycling, 66, pp.45-58.

Mussatto, S.I., Machado, E.M., Carneiro, L.M. and Teixeira, J.A., 2012. Sugars metabolism and ethanol production by different yeast strains from coffee industry wastes hydrolysates. Applied energy, 92, pp.763-768.

Mussatto, S.I., Machado, E.M., Martins, S. and Teixeira, J.A., 2011. Production, composition, and application of coffee and its industrial residues. Food and Bioprocess Technology, 4(5), p.661.

Oba, S., Nagata, C., Nakamura, K., Fujii, K., Kawachi, T., Takatsuka, N. and Shimizu, H., 2010. Consumption of coffee, green tea, oolong tea, black tea, chocolate snacks and the caffeine content in relation to risk of diabetes in Japanese men and women. British journal of nutrition, 103(3), pp.453-459.

Papachristos, A.V., Smith, C.M., Scherer, M.L. and Fugiero, M.A., 2011. More coffee, less crime? The relationship between gentrification and neighborhood crime rates in Chicago, 1991 to 2005. City & Community, 10(3), pp.215-240.

Pulido, M., 2017. Formulating a strategy for an E-commerce of specialty coffee: Startup company the Netherlands.

Ramakrishnan, T., Jones, M.C. and Sidorova, A., 2012. Factors influencing business intelligence (BI) data collection strategies: An empirical investigation. Decision Support Systems, 52(2), pp.486-496.

Robb, A.M. and Robinson, D.T., 2014. The capital structure decisions of new firms. The Review of Financial Studies, 27(1), pp.153-179.

Tian, X., 2011. The role of venture capital syndication in value creation for entrepreneurial firms. Review of Finance, 16(1), pp.245-283.

Tran, V.A., 2013. Business plan for a european style coffee shop in Ho Chi Minh city: case: AT Ltd. Company.

Wilson?a, N.L., Wilson, A. and Whittingham, K., 2013. Helping consumers “know who grows” their coffee: The case of THRIVE farmers coffee. International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 16(3).

Wolf, A., Bray, G.A. and Popkin, B.M., 2008. A short history of beverages and how our body treats them. obesity reviews, 9(2), pp.151-164.

Yu, H. and Fang, W., 2009. Relative impacts from product quality, service quality, and experience quality on customer perceived value and intention to shop for the coffee shop market. Total Quality Management, 20(11), pp.1273-1285.

Zott, C., Amit, R. and Massa, L., 2011. The business model: recent developments and future research. Journal of management, 37(4), pp.1019-1042.