Small Business Development

Small Business Development

Executive Summary

Studio67 is a new medium-sized company located in London. Studio67 aims to provide food for patients and staff daily throughout the year. Hospital food should be palatable, attractive, nutritious and free from contamination. Patients are not there by choice. Some are too ill to eat, some have anorexia; the immunosuppressed, elderly, and children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of food poisoning. Religious, vegetarian and other special diets have to be provided.

Studio67 always consider that Patients receiving treatment at meal times require a flexible service to avoid storage of meals on wards. Staff, with variable meal times, and visitors who cannot leave the hospital (e.g., relatives of patients on intensive care or children's wards) need consideration. The effects of food poisoning range from the inconvenience of mild gastrointestinal symptoms to significant illness and death. Some intestinal pathogens carry the risk of transmission to others by cross-infection.' Consequently, barrier nursing may be needed. This distresses the patient, is labour intensive for staff and expensive. Food poisoning follows the ingestion of bacteria, their toxins or viruses, which may be present in already contaminated food, or derived during processing from other foods by cross contamination (from surfaces, equipment or catering staff hands), or, less likely, from carriers.

Management

Studio67 has assembled a strong management team. Andrew Flounderson will be the general manager. Andrew has extensive management experience of organizations ranging from six to 45 people. Jane Flap will be responsible for all of the finance and accounting functions. Jane has seven years experience as an Arthur Andersen CPA. Jane's financial control skills will be invaluable in keeping Studio67 on track and profitable. Lastly, Studio67 has chef Marion Langostino who will be responsible for the back-end production of the venture. Chef Mario has over 12 years of experience and is a published, visible fixture in the Portland community(Betancourt, 1999).

Most important to Studio67 is the financial success which will be achieved through strict financial controls. Additionally, success will be ensured by offering a high-quality service and extremely clean, non-greasy food with interesting twists. Studio67 does plan to raise menu rates as the restaurant gets more and more crowded, and to make sure that they are charging a premium for the feeling of being in the "in crowd."

The market and financial analyses indicate that with a start-up expenditure of $141,000, Studio67 can generate over $365,000 in sales by year one, $565,000 in sales by the end of year two and produce net profits of over 7.5% on sales by the end of year three. Profitability will be reached by year two.

Objectives

Sales of $350K the first year, more than half a million the second.

Personnel costs less than $300K the first year, less than $400K the second year.

Profitable in year two, better than 7.5% profits on sales by year three.

Mission

Studio67 knows that good catering practices and procedures depend on provision of appropriate training in food and personal hygiene for food handlers; understanding and complying with current legal requirements by catering and hospital management; and ...