Business Plan

Beacon Technologies

Authors:
Isuri Perera Balasooriya – x1850483
Dinh Tai Hoang - x6957245
Shanshan Zhang - X7713578
Duong Tran Nam - x4246275
Pham The Tuong – d118778
Godwin-Akpan Daisy – x2027743
Contents
1 Business Summary ................................................................................................................................ 2
2 Problem Statement ............................................................................................................................... 2
3 Solution Description.............................................................................................................................. 3
3.1 Business Aim ................................................................................................................................. 4
3.2 Business Objectives ....................................................................................................................... 4
4 Competitor Analysis .............................................................................................................................. 6
4.1 LinkedIn ......................................................................................................................................... 6
4.2 Local job platforms........................................................................................................................ 6
5 Financial Strategy .................................................................................................................................. 7
5.1 Cost Strategy ................................................................................................................................. 7
5.2 Financial Forecast.......................................................................................................................... 7
6 Marketing Strategy ............................................................................................................................... 8
7 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 9
7.1 SWOT Analysis............................................................................................................................... 9
8 References .......................................................................................................................................... 11
9 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................. 12

Table of Figures
Figure 1: Cost Strategy .................................................................................................................................. 7
Figure 2: Marketing Strategy ........................................................................................................................ 8

Table of Tables
Table 1: Expected cost for the first five years in EUR ................................................................................... 7
Table 2: Expected Revenue in EUR ............................................................................................................... 7
Table 3: Profit and Loss in EUR ..................................................................................................................... 8
Table 4: SWOT Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 9
Table 5: Comparison Between Beacon and LinkedIn.................................................................................. 10

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1 Business Summary

Any factors that influence an individual to feel uncertain of their professional career and its progression
can be defined as career uncertainty. It plays an important role in an individual’s career decision making
process and the overall success of one’s professional life. Both external and internal factors can contribute
to the career development of a person and more often than not, people spend their lives either doing
something they don’t appreciate or wondering how to find the courage to make a change in their field of
work. The impact of career uncertainty in the global workforce can impact not only the individuals but
also organizations and even economies of the world. The underlying issue that the business has identified
is the lack of knowledge and support in the current workforce to assist them in recognizing their true
potential and guide them to take decision that will put them in the correct path.

To overcome the identified problem, the business has proposed a solution which is a mobile application
combining cutting edge technologies such as Artificial Intelligence to be used as a B2C and B2B end user
application. The application collects data from four different stakeholders, job seekers, employers,
entrepreneurs and investors to primarily connect them in a single common platform based on their needs
and preferences.

The business has analyzed the existing market for such applications and identified the competitors that
are already established. A marketing and financial strategy is created by the business and presented in
this business plan outlining how we plan to stand out among the competition and manage any risks. This
document can be used to get a thorough idea about the business plan presented by Beacon Technologies
to overcome the valid problem identified in the market and how the business aims to fulfill the gap by
introducing the proposed solution to the society.

2 Problem Statement

Career uncertainty and lack of direction can happen to professionals in the workforce at different stages
of their careers. Starting from college graduates to professionals in their mid-careers, people can all go
through career uncertainty at some point of their professional career. While some people tend to change
their careers to a completely different field of work, others feel the need to explore more domains,
industries and gain more knowledge and qualifications around their field of work. Following are some of
the statistics from the studies carried out on the career uncertainty faced by people at different stages of
their professional lives. Only 27% of college graduates get jobs related to their major (Plumer, 2013) while
half of the college graduates in the UK do not end up working in their field of study (Garner, 2014). Moving
along to the already established professionals, it is estimated that a person changes their job 12 times
during their lives (apollotechnical, 2022). According to the same study, the major reasons for these career
changes are higher salary expectations (39%) and interest in a different field (21%). The disadvantage of
these frequent career changes can be described as below,

• Professionals invest a considerable amount of time, effort and money on a particular field of work
only to later realize that they prefer a different field

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 • Employers invest a huge amount of money and time on resources for training and career building
which is wasted when a big percentage of these resources leave their role and change careers
• College students invest a lot of money and time on gaining qualifications which is never used as
they later realize that they are interested in a different field
• Employers have a hard time recruiting resources due to their lack of certainty to remain in the
same field long term

On the other hand, entrepreneurs are having a hard time capitalizing on their business ideas due to the
lack of knowledge, guidance and support. One of the major problems faced by new entrepreneurs are
finding funding and investors because they lack the knowledge on presenting their ideas in a way that can
attract investors (Boitnott, 2022). At the same time, there are plenty of investors around the world ready
to invest in new exciting business ideas but unable to find such entrepreneurs or startups.

The backdrop for the identified problem for our business is the career uncertainty and lack of guidance
faced by professionals and entrepreneurs around the world at different stages of their careers. There are
four main categories of stakeholders identified as the impacted parties from this problem,

• Job seekers/ professionals

• Employers
• Entrepreneurs
• Investors

It has been observed that currently there is no platform in the market which connect all of the 4
stakeholders in one place. Our business solution aims to solve the different angles of the above identified
problem to satisfy the needs of all four stakeholders.

3 Solution Description

The proposed solution, hereafter referred as “Beacon” is a mobile application combining AI technology to
identify the patterns and personality traits of the end user to determine the future career prospects and
provide recommendations and guidance based on the unique needs of the user. The system is designed
for 4 main types of end users,

• Job seekers – fresh graduates looking for their first job or established professionals who wants to
find a new job, change their career
• Employers – companies or recruiters who wants to find new resources
• Entrepreneurs – Startups, new entrepreneurs or experienced entrepreneurs who wants to take
the next step in their business idea or find investors
• Investors – companies or solo investors who wants to find new exciting business ideas to invest
their capital

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3.1 Business Aim
The main aim of Beacon is to provide a platform to connect the 4 different stakeholders: job seekers,
employers as well as entrepreneurs and investors.

3.2 Business Objectives

• Connect job seekers with potential employers and vice versa
• Connect entrepreneurs with potential investors and investors with new business ideas
• Connect like minded people across different fields to promote professional growth
• Provide a platform for professional networking
• Connect third party service providers such as educational institutions, professional qualification
providers, skill providers with Beacon users
• Provide a personalized solution for each individual user
• Become the market leader in career guidance and job seeking platforms in the world
• Attract more users by providing unique and new features which are currently not available in the
market
• Compete with the already established market leaders and similar platforms by offering attractive
offers and promotions while maintaining the quality of the system

As a startup business, the decision to develop Beacon as a mobile application as opposed to a web
application was influenced by the following factors,

• 6.37 billion people in the world uses smart phones which guarantees the user reach
• 42% of small businesses have their own mobile apps which means the market trend is towards
having a business presence in mobile platforms (silvawebdesigns, 2022)
• An average person spends 3 hours and 15 minutes a day on their phone as opposed to 1 hour and
30 minutes per day on laptop/ desktop (ZALANI, 2022).
• Easier to connect with other apps such as social media apps

The future of technological advancements is most definitely moving forward along with mobile
technology. Along with mobile technology, there are few other technologies that are highly contributing
to the technological boost in the current society. One such technology is artificial intelligence. As of 2022,
the global AI market is valued at over USD 136 billion and it is expected to increase by 13 times over the
next 8 years (Howarth, 2022). By combining these two technologies, the business aims to achieve a more
relevant, cutting edge and attractive solution for our potential users.

The proposed solution aims to solve the identified problem by providing following basic features to the
end user,

• Job seekers will register to the Beacon app by providing their basic personal details, educational
details and professional experience if applicable. Additionally, they will provide data to the app
by answering a questionnaire which is tailored to their background. The questionnaires in Beacon
will be created based on existing market research on personality traits and consultations with
subject matter experts. Beacon will collect the user’s responses to the questionaries and feed

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 them to our unique AI algorithm to derived personalized results for each job seeker to provide
recommendations and guidance on their potential career path
• Entrepreneurs will register to the Beacon app the same way and answer a different questionnaire
which is tailor made to their context. In addition to identifying the entrepreneur’s personality, the
app will also collect data about the business ideas they have and categorize them within the app’s
database based on their responses.
• Employers will register to the Beacon app as organizations/ recruiters and provide data to the app
on the nature of their business and the type of potential resources that they are looking for. The
system will store the data and match job seekers with relevant employers.
• Investors will register to the Beacon app as organizations/ solo investors and provide the same
type of information as employers. Additionally, the system will try to understand the preferences
of the investors so that the app can match potential entrepreneurs with interested investors.

The main aim of the business is to stand out from the competition by offering unique and new features
that are not currently available in the market. In addition to the above mentioned basic functionality,
following are special features that will help to highlight Beacon among the competition,

• Focus on career orientation – The main functionality of Beacon is not to be a job seeking platform
but a career orientation platform where it helps end users to identify what they are really
passionate about that lead them towards a career in that path
• Personalized service – Beacon doesn’t aim to provide bulk template solutions where users get
similar results if they fulfill a certain criterion of parameters. Each user will get a personalized
solution based on their responses to the questionnaire.
• Localized service – Beacon plans to be a global platform from the initiation of the business itself
which means the system will be used by different users from around the world. The system aims
to be flexible and adaptable to different markets by taking different local job markets and their
needs into consideration.
• Connect entrepreneurs and investors – There are plenty of platforms which connects job seekers
with employers but very few platforms which connects entrepreneurs and investors. Currently
there is no substantial platform in the world which connects these two stakeholders which the
business has identified as a potential gap in the market that can be filled with the proposed
solution
• Platform for commercial partners to find potential customers – third party commercial service
providers like educational institutions, professional qualification organizations and skill providers
can sign up with Beacon to find potential customers. For example, if a job seeker gets feedback
from the system saying they need to acquire new language skills in order to pursue a career in
their interested field of work, a commercial partner such as “Duolingo” will be able to access the
data of that job seeker and offer their services provided Duolingo is registered with Beacon.

The functional requirements explained in this section are the basic MVP functionality of the proposed
app. The business team is actively planning and adding more features to the app and will continue to
improve the system in phases based on the user needs and market trends. In addition to the functional

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requirements, Beacon also consists of the basic non-functional requirements of a mobile application as
listed below,

• Data security
• Availability
• Reliability
• Scalability
• Performance
• Responsiveness

4 Competitor Analysis

4.1 LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an American business- and employment-focused internet service accessible via websites and
mobile applications (LinkedIn, 2022). The website, which was launched on May 5, 2003, is primarily used
for professional networking and career advancement, allowing job seekers to upload their CVs and
companies to post job openings. LinkedIn has around 830 million registered users from over 200 countries
as of February 2022.

Currently, the majority of the company's revenue comes from offering recruiters and sales professionals
access to information about its members. Based as an employment platform, LinkedIn provides customers
with a variety of interaction opportunities, allowing them to interact with merchants. On the one hand,
the platform feed selectively distributes posts to users who can interact with them by seeing them,
thereby making an impression. In contrast, users can express their opinions on posts through explicit
actions like as (1) liking (and five comparable reactions), (2) clicking on, (3) sharing, and (4) commenting
on the post. In addition, based on their experience with the supplier's posting, consumers can achieve a
higher degree of engagement and become followers, which is the ultimate objective in B2B social media
and indicates a proactive action (e.g., Katona & Sarvary, 2014). Since becoming a social media for
employment, LinkedIn users have visited frequently to grow their career networks, as opposed to simply
applying for jobs. People network with prospective employers, alumni, and school mates. LinkedIn status
updates can reflect every professional accomplishment. By the way, Beacon faces a significant difficulty
in maintaining user engagement with the app.

Although LinkedIn has become well-known as a job-searching platform, Beacon has the advantage of using
AI to personalise each job-experience seeker's when using the app. Beacon is able to deliver the best-
matched job by analysing education, personality, and career perspective... but LinkedIn just displays
results depending on the parameters that users input.

4.2 Local job platforms

In addition to LinkedIn, a global job network, there are other local job platforms in the majority of nations,
such as Indeed (UK), jobsinfinland, and jobsinhelsinki... All of them provide access to a variety of available
roles. In addition, online learning is available for users to acquire transferable skills.

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5 Financial Strategy
5.1 Cost Strategy

Figure 1: Cost Strategy

5.2 Financial Forecast

Cost Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5
Completion of App Development and Testing 100,000 - - - -
Marketing 100,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 300,000
Continuous development 82,000 144,000 150,000 250,000 300,000
Salaries 81,000 108,000 216,000 216,000 216,000
Total 363,000 352,000 516,000 666,000 816,000
Table 1: Expected cost for the first five years in EUR

Beacon plans to have a total cost of EUR363,000 for the first year. The cost consists of: Beacon App
development, beta testing and go live, marketing activities, salaries and allowance for shareholders. The
majority of costs are used for launching and development of the app, accounting for 78% total cost. Costs
for marketing activities and continuous development of app are our main focus with gradually increasing
until the 5th year of operation.

Number of users Revenue Total

Of which Premium
Registered Premium users Advertisers Services
Year 1 200,000 0 0 0 0 0
Year 2 600,000 50,000 100,000 30,000 10,000 140,000
Year 3 1,500,000 300,000 600,000 50,000 50,000 700,000
Year 4 3,000,000 400,000 800,000 100,000 100,000 1,000,000
Year 5 6,000,000 800,000 1,600,000 200,000 200,000 2,000,000
Table 2: Expected Revenue in EUR

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Beacon is expected to have a registered number of six million users for the first 5-year period, of which
premium users can reach 800,000. Beacon classifies 2 types of users: Regular users and premium users.
Regular users are free of charge when registering. Premium users consist of: job seekers, employers,
partners (lawyers, advisers, consultants), entrepreneurs and investors who register for Beacon’s premium
services would be charged an annual membership fee.

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5

Revenue 0 140,000 700,000 1,000,000 2,000,000
Cost 363,000 352,000 516,000 666,000 816,000
Profit/ Loss (363,000) (212,000) 184,000 334,000 1,184,000
Table 3: Profit and Loss in EUR

Beacon plans to incur loss for the first 2 years of operation. The profit is expected to gain from the 3rd
year with a rapid increasing trend. At this point of time, Beacon would be well-known for its useful and
effective services. As a result, revenue from advertisers and Beacon’s services providing would be also
increasing gradually.

6 Marketing Strategy

Figure 2: Marketing Strategy

These graphs Illustrate our expectation of users and profit but to do it, our project not only have to learn
the previous strategy from LinkedIn but also need to develop and make it unique to attract potential users
(Dhapai, 2022).

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In the first year, we may not gain the revenue yet, we should connect with the right network. For example,
we must divide employees to actively participate in Start-up workshop or Entrepreneurial workshop get
attention from them, get their contact, and briefly introduce to our product and show them how to sign
up, make it interesting for them to continue using our application.

After they have got their account, the application will give them offer that when they successful invite
their friend with code, that users will get specific amount of point to show in the recommendation in
finding job which also mean engage with the audience and build long-term relationship. Our first-year,
target are 200,000 users. Furthermore, we will create ad campaigns with filters to tap into a pool of
potential clients that can give you faster leads, which would lead to faster conversions and easy to get
new applicant. In other word, when they see our advertisement and we do regular posting with catchy
description by sponsored, it would Increasing our brand awareness, promote brand messages and
encourage people to keeping on using our app (Barker, 2022).

As regard, our project will be an application that look like social media for job seekers, entrepreneurs and
soon to be graduated people to define and develop their own career. By learning join conversations from
LinkedIn, we share relevant content and images in order to make rich media posts get more attention.

7 Summary

7.1 SWOT Analysis

We will use (SWOT) strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to control what can be changed.
Examples include our team members, our patents and intellectual property, and location. SWOT Analysis
is a tool that can help us to analyze what our company does best now, and to devise a successful strategy
for the future (Shastri, 2022).

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES THREATS

Focused user base. Less experience as a Unique features Data privacy
company

Real-life benefits. Managing fake users- Usage of new Intense competition

personal data and technology
information.

Social proof. Initial profit margins are Industry and economic Technology used to
expected to be smaller trends develop the app could
than the industry be outdated by the end
benchmarks of development
Unique selling Growth in the target Social/ political factors
proposition market
Potential partnerships
with different other
service providers
Table 4: SWOT Analysis

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We have an advantage through SWOT analysis and there are some good opportunities, but we must be
careful (statusbrew, 2021).

We have a huge responsibility because what we offer our customers is more sensitive than money; it's
data and information, commodities of irresponsible value in today's world.

Of course, the threats are the competition that we have maintained and emerging, but Beacon will
overcome these threats.

Our company Competitor-LinkedIn

Services/Products
Customer Segment
Value points
Marketing
Organizational Strategy
Job seeker Job seeker app
Investor
Entrepreneur app
Unemployed Unemployed
New job seeker New job seeker
Entrepreneur
Investor
- We provide potential stock, update news -Follow companies.
about stock market everyday by expert -Great job board
Investors. -Research tool
- Suggest job for job seekers.
-Focus on career orientation - Search highly targeted
-Connect entrepreneurs and investors customers and
-Personalized advice connections. ...
-Localized services -Stay on prospects radar. ...
-Provide a platform for commercial -Enrich your email marketing
partners to find potential customers list. ...
-Post quality actionable
content. ...
try to go viral. ...
-Focus on employee
advocacy. ...
-Leverage LinkedIn groups. ...
-Create own LinkedIn group.
- We may not gain revenue in the first year, -Talent solutions
so we should connect with the right -Marketing solutions
network like Startup workshop. -Sales solutions
- Encourage users to invite their friends
with code and give them some benefits
(keep long term relationship)

Table 5: Comparison Between Beacon and LinkedIn

Our clear and unambiguous USP (Unique selling point) can be an effective tool to help us shape and focus
our marketing goals to successfully differentiate our brand and products from the competition. We strive
to communicate USPs of unique benefits to consumers that help our company remain memorable and
create a positive impression from the user’s point of view.

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8 References

apollotechnical. (2022). 17 REMARKABLE CAREER CHANGE STATISTICS TO KNOW. Retrieved from

apollotechnical: https://www.apollotechnical.com/career-change-
statistics/#:~:text=years%20of%20age.-
,How%20many%20jobs%20will%20the%20average%20person%20have%20in%20their,people%
20have%20completely%20changed%20fields.

Barker, S. (2022). 12 Steps to Create a Successful LinkedIn Marketing Strategy in 2022. Retrieved from
shanebarker: https://shanebarker.com/blog/linkedin-marketing-
strategy/#8_Use_Images_and_Videos

Boitnott, J. (2022). The 5 toughest things entrepreneurs face when starting a business. Retrieved from
Jotform: https://www.jotform.com/blog/challenges-entrepreneurs-face-when-starting-a-
business/

Dhapai, H. (2022). 25+ Top LinkedIn Marketing Strategies for B2B, Small Businesses & More. Retrieved
from iide: https://iide.co/blog/top-linkedin-marketing-
strategies/#Why_is_LinkedIn_Marketing_important

Garner, R. (2014). Half of UK graduates do not work in their field of study, survey reveals. Retrieved from
Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/half-of-uk-graduates-do-not-
work-in-their-field-of-study-survey-reveals-9574042.html

Howarth, J. (2022). 57+ Amazing Artificial Intelligence Statistics. Retrieved from explodingtopics:
https://explodingtopics.com/blog/ai-statistics

LinkedIn. (2022). About LinkedIn. Retrieved from LinkedIn: https://about.linkedin.com/

Plumer, B. (2013). Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major. Retrieved from The
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/20/only-27-
percent-of-college-grads-have-a-job-related-to-their-major/

Shastri, A. (2022). Comprehensive SWOT Analysis of Linkedin – Detailed Explanation with Infographics.
Retrieved from iide: https://iide.co/case-studies/swot-analysis-of-linkedin/

silvawebdesigns. (2022). 10 Most Important Reasons Why Your Startup Needs A Mobile App. Retrieved
from silvawebdesigns: https://silvawebdesigns.com/10-most-important-reasons-why-your-
startup-needs-a-mobile-app/

statusbrew. (2021). 15 Tips To Boost Your LinkedIn Marketing In 2022. Retrieved from statusbrew:
https://statusbrew.com/insights/linkedin-marketing/

ZALANI, R. (2022). Screen Time Statistics: Your Smartphone Is Hurting You. Retrieved from
elitecontentmarketer: https://elitecontentmarketer.com/screen-time-statistics/

Z. Katona, M. Sarvary Maersk line: B2B social media “It’s communication, not marketing” California
Management Review, 56 (3) (2014), pp. 142-156

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9 Appendix

Sample questionnaire link:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4YwJgKZndt0Kz-
FcEsMUQqgVo7blejQ32Lc0TMQHgp9SbcA/viewform

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