Introduction
Our project proposes to establish FitYo Food Technology Limited Liability Company, whose main product is FitYo micro-meal replacement. FitYo stands for “gut treasure” in Chinese, indicating our main product and its features.
With the popularity of the meal replacement industry in China and around the world, meal replacement products with various flavors, functions, and types have been launched; at the same time, more and more people are beginning to learn to calculate their daily calorie intake and consumption, hoping to manage their body with more scientific and quantitative means. However, meal replacement products have never been able to provide users with meal replacement products that satisfy both high quality, high degree of freedom and affordable price like traditional food, and it is not easy for non-professionals to quickly obtain their personal calorie intake per meal.
Figure 1. The logo of FitYo Food Technology LLC.
Our company's meal replacement products mainly focus on the concept of personal customization and free meal replacement, and have set up a highly free meal replacement flavor and function selection system on the user side, and provide extremely diverse flavors and functions, truly allowing users to do whatever they want. With their own meal replacement diet, and with the help of FitYo meal replacement APP, users can enjoy customized meal replacements more conveniently and intelligently, and manage their calorie intake more conveniently; through the popular science game Oh My Gut , while popularizing the microbes of the human digestive system to the public in the form of games, the brand of FitYo has been promoted in the Internet environment, and the concept of custom healthy diet has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Commercial Opportunities
With the consistent development of a fast-paced society, meal replacement foods have stood out as effective and convenient substitute of many traditional foods. Nevertheless, current meal replacements have several drawback like unaffordable prices, awful tastes, and imbalanced nutrients. Additionally, there is an almost unexplored area in the current meal replacement market. Most available meal replacements are produced and purchased directly by the user, and at best provided with optinonal seasoning packets which the user can selectively add; very few businesses accept customized flavors, nutrition, etc. Even if the product is customizable, users are provided with a set meal replacement and cannot design them to suit their needs easily. Hence, a vital problem with current meal replacement products is that there is little freedom for the user. The realization of DIY meal replacements is a completely new direction to explore.
Figure 2. Methods how Chinese consumers choose to lose weight in 2020 and their
percentages.
Meanwhile, the market size of meal replacement foods has been consistently growing. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people choosing meal replacements as a way to control their weight has increased dramatically. Due to the epidemic, people are stuck at home for long time, while gyms’ and sports halls’ opening hours have become much more limited. As a result people are focusing on diet rather than exercise to lose their weight. The number of Chinese consumers choosing meal replacement products as a way to control their weight reached 54.6% in 2020, making them the No.1 antidote to obesity.
SWOT Analysis and Strategy
We employ SWOT analysis to comprehensively assess our company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Generally, the SWOT analyses involves four aspects of considerations:
Table 1. SWOT Strategy for our company.
| Opportunities | Threats | |
|---|---|---|
| out novel brand initiating to develop | existing brands that may exert pressure to us | |
| Strengths | SO strategy | ST strategy |
| highly diversified and highly free options | forge brand characteristics and seize the market | improve technology and ensure quality |
| Weakness | WO strategy | WT strategy |
| GM food; instability brought by COVID-19 pandemic | establish mature publicity workflows, raise brand credibility | utilize competitors to emphasize our features, and improve competitiveness |
According to the above analyses, our company should center Research and Development, improving the production technology base on scientific talents and reasonable management systems.
Services
Our marketing and services are based on customer needs and requires a full analysis of the customer's needs.
Before purchase, customers can request personalized meal replacement flavors and functions based on their needs. After the purchase, the company team will communicate with the customer to obtain feedback and to improve the quality of service; at the same time, a series of after-sales service agreements should be developed and clearly announced to the customer to protect the customers’ rights and improve their belief in our company.
The latest product information, such as offers, updates and events, will be shared in real time on the company website and in the FitYo APP for publicity purposes. Meanwhile, the calorie management and exercise recording tools in the APP are open to all users for free, attracting more new users to learn about our company's meal replacement products and to understand the company's idea of customized diet management, attracting more and more users.
In addition, we plan to develop new and innovative themed experiences to suit the vernacular market, including offline experience shops and online experience platforms. Our Oh My Gut game is also available to all users for free as a promotion and publicity.
Initializing Plan
Demand Investigations
The company's founding team will identify its strategic goals and attract great talent to work with the founding staff in management and administration in the early phases of the business, while focusing on developing talent in research and design.
To begin, the founders will undertake a self-assessment and mutual evaluation to examine the team's knowledge and discipline background, identify their own talents and attributes, and analyze the team's strengths and limitations. As a result, additional individuals are hired to capitalize on their skills and compensate for their limitations in order to grow the company's creative team as a whole.
Questionnaires, interviews with users, and contact with experts in the subject will all be used to determine the target group. The creative team will develop the questionnaire based on the company's condition. In addition, the team will utilize visits to record consumers' requirements and feedback in order to further bridge the gap between users and the organization. This information will be used as a reference by the creative team when deciding on the next phases of development, service, and promotion. The team will also confer with relevant experts to obtain more knowledge and prevent mistakes made by earlier teams, so that "standing on the shoulders of giants" can benefit the company's growth in its early phases of development.
Feasibility Assessment
Before forming a corporation, the team must complete a project feasibility analysis. Scientific research and analysis of a large amount of material, such as market directions, investment proposals, competitors, marketing plans, management plans, practical operational plans such as technology development, as well as the results of questionnaires, visits, and experience gained, evaluates the project's feasibility and draws conclusions and recommendations accordingly.
The evaluation of the project's advantages and hazards, i.e. the measurement and analysis of the company's economic and social benefits after completion, is equally critical. A quantitative examination of the new fixed assets, development and production capacity, as well as the economic and social advantages after the project's completion, in particular, will aid the team's later positioning and decision-making.
Entrepreneurship Team Building
The company's founding team will identify its strategic goals and attract great talent to work with the founding staff in management and administration in the early phases of the business, while focusing on developing talent in research and design.
To begin, the founders will undertake a self-assessment and mutual evaluation to examine the team's knowledge and discipline background, identify their own talents and attributes, and analyze the team's strengths and limitations. As a result, additional individuals are hired to capitalize on their skills and compensate for their limitations in order to grow the company's creative team as a whole.
Second, during the company's early phases, the creative team will identify its strategic objectives and hire talented people to work alongside the creators in management and administration, while focusing on training abilities in research and design.
To begin, the founders will self-assess each other, study the intellectual discipline backgrounds of the team members, identify the talents and attributes they possess, and analyze the team's strengths and limitations. Based on this, new talents are hired to complement and expand on their skills in order to accomplish the overall development of the company's creative team.
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