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CLICK TO COOK [C2C]

Presented by

Sathish Raja Sekaran.

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Introduction

Wireless devices have changed the way individuals communicate, work and entertain

themselves. For many people in Gen Y, the last thing that is done before bed is to check their

smartphones, and it's often the first thing that is reached for in the morning. It is basically an

extension of a person. Two out of five said they “would feel anxious, like part of them is missing,”

if they couldn’t use their smartphones to stay connected. One in four people in Gen Y said the

amount of times they check their smart phones is countless. The smartphone has replaced the

newspaper, radio and PC, so it should come as no surprise that not only Gen ‘Y-ers’ but also

average aged people prefer smartphones along with PCs and even tablets. This opens up many

possibilities for looking for apps to suits their lifestyles needs. It is up to the ingenuity of developed

apps to identify consumer needs in order to produce the next successful app. That’s why people

who are busy with their life and work and do not have that much time for cooking use the Click 2

Cook apps to just make their life easier where they easily search for healthy recipes according to

their daily needs and demands depending on how much time they want to be spent cooking along

with what kind of food they want to cook. This business plan will introduce the foods and cuisine

app available on both iOS and Android.Click2Cook is designed to serve the needs of users,

potential customers and the cuisine service as a whole. Introduction of this mobile app is targeted

at United State of America. This plan will justify the apps value proposition, explain in brief the

apps key features, examine its product offering and identify the benefits to users and cuisine

services. The apps business model will be introduced and steps of implementation will be

examined, identifying key elements such as the apps capability, partners, key activities/resources,

cost, relationship, channels, customer segment, and revenue model and overall justifying the apps

value proposition. A market analysis of United State of America is conducted to determine the

potential for the app in the country, analysis potential opportunities and threats, as well as

determining the apps competitive advantage. A comparison with similar apps, will also be

analyzed. The final section of the business plan will examine potential risk such as ethical issues

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and socio-economic uncertainties that could potentially affect the apps growth and success.

Finally, the business plan will indicate the necessity of this app and argue that its value proposition

will convince any potential stakeholder of its success, necessity and demand.

Business Description:

Food and Cuisine industry and the E-recipe Mobile Application:

The cuisine of the United States reflects its history. The European colonization of America

yielded the introduction of a number of ingredients and cooking styles to the latter. The various

styles continued expanding well into the 19th and 20th centuries, proportional to the influx of

immigrants from many foreign nations; such influx developed a rich diversity in food preparation

throughout the country. Newspapers and magazines ran recipe columns, aided by research from

corporate kitchens (for example, General Mills, Campbell's, Kraft Foods). One characteristic of

American cooking is the fusion of multiple ethnic or regional approaches into completely new

cooking styles. For example, spaghetti is Italian, while hot dogs are German; a popular meal,

especially among young children, is spaghetti containing slices of hot dogs. The fact that most

Americans don't really even see this as a fusion of recipes shows just how common this trend is.

Similarly, some dishes that are typically considered American have origins from other countries.

American cooks and chefs have substantially altered these dishes over the years, to the degree that

the dishes now enjoyed around the world are considered to be American. Hot dogs and hamburgers

are both based on traditional German dishes, but in their modern popular form they can be

reasonably considered American dishes

Generally, the E-Cuisine with its primary goal is to provide an easy transmission and

communication of information in cuisine in forms of data and knowledge. Currently online food

industry is an emerging market and it is widely used in the US. Look out, America. This could be

the next future trend. As restaurant-delivery apps spread like wildfire throughout the country, more

people are figuring out that it's really easy to push a few buttons on their mobile devices, pay the

bill and tip online, and get dinner 30 minutes later. The habit is taking hold in New York, where

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about 58 percent of people's meals come from restaurants, either through takeout or dining in. The

national average is 47 percent (Zagat, 2015). The business has become fiercely competitive as

everyone from startups to Internet gorillas recognized the potential for America to start abandoning

its kitchens in favor of ordering food. Amazon (AMZN) is testing a takeout and delivery service

in its hometown of Seattle, letting people pay with their regular Amazon accounts.

Startup Caviar specializes in upscale eateries and, unlike its competitors, will pick up and

deliver the food instead of having the restaurants do it themselves. Up-and-coming payment

company Square acquired Caviar in August. Other rivals in the space include WunWun and

Postmates, both of which will pick up and deliver from retail stores in addition to restaurants.

Americans, now a days are more concerned about their health in terms of consumption of foods

(USDA, 2014). Hence, E-Cuisine is helping the food industry to increase industry standard thanks

to its role in maximizing the effectiveness in the agricultural industry by integrating both social

and professional networks.

The application click2cook specially design for individuals who are always in a rush with

hectic schedules and wanted to cook without much time consumption. But it does not mean that

the application do not have in general recipes. The targeted customers are mostly from working

people and busy college students who always have hectic and demanding days. The application

will offer recipes that can be cooked within 10, 20, 30,40,50,60 minutes with a segmentation of

special items, snacks, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There is another segmentation of heavy and

light foods. The company has a guaranteed health certification. As in America the safety and health

issues are important. As there is no such application available right now in US that effectively

achieve this.

Mission Statement:

Click2cook “aims to revolutionize the online food industry by creating as little barrier as

possible between consumers and healthy eating, as well as, to provide customers with easy access

of timeline recipes and foods which are healthy and can be handheld wherever they go around the

world, through the implementation of secure communication platforms that lowers cost and time.”

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The mission statement above clearly emphasizes the role of the technology that we use to

deliver to continuously enhance our lives. The effectiveness of e-cuisine is proven through recipes

and cuisine data integration between restaurant and individuals on traditional platform which is

via supplier directly. Now, we maximize it with a higher level through integration between social

and professional network at our finger tips via mobile technology. The information of healthy

lifestyle foods and recipes is now secured and shared among the community for the purpose of

improving life quality, food practice, and eventually it could lift up the industry standards. Thus,

the mobile e-cuisine application indeed revolutionizes our way of thinking and the cooking

processes. It is indeed the tip at the iceberg which is full of great potential, and finally, it helps us

to stay connected and alive with information technology through the apps as this application will

be used to advertise other application which can be another profit generating unit of these

applications.

Business Goal:

The first goal is on the individual user side. It is to use mobile technology to create synergy

between users and recipes providers. The mobile e-cuisine application is an interactive platform

flexibly stimulating transactions between the individual users and the recipes provider. For

instance, online recipe searching, updating the account information online if the user purchased

any of his/her selected chef’s recipes, order prescription delivery if someone want to buy any raw

material of grocery and as well as, other ingredients, access to trusted information for advices in

cooking, enabling online conversations with recipe provider, and live chat button to chat for

assistance from expert cooks or chefs, e-payment system are all available through the integrated

system of the e-cuisine application. Hence, the mobile e-cuisine application enables the individual

users to manage their own food practice and change the way they live their lives by encouraging

healthier mannerism. Thus, the mobile e-cuisine application is a useful gateway between customer

and recipes providers, in which it maximizes efficiency and reduces much time in the cooking

process.

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The second goal is on the business side. It is to encourage self-cooking, cooking school,

tutorial providers to engage better information sharing, leverage the advances of mobile

technology in cuisine management and cross cultural food practices. Indeed, by applying the

mobile e-cuisine apps, the cuisine information data will need to be completely digitized for storage

and sharing. Purchases also have to be recorded via computerized input. Thus, this reduces

paperwork and produces better quality data. Hence, all information from various sources will be

consolidated into one unified information system for professional use. As a result, this digitized

information will be shared securely and enable more informed healthy lifestyle food practices.

These records will be flexibly accessed via the online system. Eventually, efficient information

sharing is able to help the industry to improve e-cuisine services, lifestyle of food practices,

increased industry standards, and most importantly, develop new recipes to change food habits.

Value proposition:

A value proposition is defined as a business or promoting quote that compresses why a

shopper or consumers ought to purchase an item or utilize a service. This announcement has to

persuade a potential shopper that one specific item or service will include more esteem or

preferable take care of an issue over other comparative offerings.

Companies utilize this announcement to target shopper or consumers who will advantage

most from utilizing the company's items, and this aides keep up a financial stability. The perfect

worth suggestion is brief and speaks to the customer's decision making processes. It pays a high

cost when customer dismisses the company’s value-proposition (IAL, I. and RETURNS, F., 2003).

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Need for healthy foods is vital for every individual across the world. Especially for the

working populous and students who are in new environment or cross borders for education.

Therefore, this need can be served need through technological advancement in mobile devices that

people carry all time. Most of the people in developed countries are concerned about their food

and diet practices.

Although approximately 50 competitors serve this market but some core important factors

are lacking which need to be considered while handling such a market. The target customers are

mostly the urban populous with busy schedule and individuals that want meals to match their fast

paced lives, in other words, fast and precise response on search criteria made.

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Targeted Market:

As discussed above, the target customers are individuals in the urban working populous

who have mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. As the focus is on health, most individuals

will distinguish the application by the precise information based on their search criteria. The first

market launch would be in the USA and followed by UK and other market globally where working

class customers are located high in populous.

C2C App’s Features (Products value proposition):

E-cuisine platform:

It is an interactive platform helps users to find the recipe that is healthy, tasty and fast to

cook. It has many illustrative pictures on cooking methods assists cooking processes effectively.

Hence these benefits provide a little differentiation among the competitors but also has potential

to serve the market with healthy recipes with fresh ingredients.

Online recipe with Set timeframe:

This is one of our key differentiation strategies by providing healthy recipes in a set

timeframe according to the consumer need. The app contains a simple click button namely “recipe

set time” and provides easy to prepare according to its timely requirement of the consumer. For

example, a user a selects a time range from 5 minutes to 1 hour in multiples of 5 minutes each.

Each set timed recipe will contain 15 recipes which can be made within the timeframe mentioned.

It would be a freemium service to which customer can access it free for the first month and then

would need to subscribe by paying after the first month.

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Expert Assistance:

Round the clock assistance is a provided service managed by Click2Cook call centers,

which is directly linked to master chefs who have expertise knowledge in a particular recipe or

field. This allows customers to try cross continental dishes with hands on, as well as video

assistance. This would be the premium service to which the customer will be charged based on

their selection of recipe.

Ingredient Locator:

It is one challenging part when it comes to cook new cross-continental recipes or diet

recipes with fresh ingredients especially on a busy schedule. Since globalization is rapidly growing

around the world which makes it available with all types of ingredients everywhere around the

world. But the question is where to find it. Due to busy and hectic schedules, there is no time to

go and search for specific ingredient or herbs used for cooking. The app comes up with an

“Ingredient locator” button which links with grocery shops servers to show the availability of

ingredients and its price. Its uses the GPS option in the mobile devices to located the nearest and

also provides navigation to the grocery shop using GIS technology. The users also have an option

for the ingredients to be delivered to ones doorstep to save time resources for a delivery fee. It is

also a premium service to customers whom pay monthly subscription charge and suppliers will be

charged for indirect market purchases through the app.

Recipe reminder:

This will help the customer to plan recipes accordingly and also help to remind them to

purchase certain ingredients while they are near a grocery shop radius using GPS and GIS

technology. Its makes purchase easier and also time efficient.

Above are the value propositions offered by the app, which is beneficial for both domestic

and also international consumers like Expatriates.

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Business model:

As Click2Cook (C2C) involves a lot of new concepts, which makes it tough to identify the

business model. It falls under an M-commerce business model where it is segmented as Business

to consumer (B2C) framework. It allows user to

Ubiquity and mobility – access information anywhere and anytime.

Convenience – ease to use and user friendly.

Localization – location based suggestions.

Interactivity – provides round the clock assistance.

Personalization – menu suggestions based on personalized preferences.

The implementation process of M-commerce business model is very important for the

application, as its value proposition has to be identified along with the model. As Click2Cook is a

healthy recipe provider using portable devices, developing and designing of application plays an

important role. Its platform should be reliable, should offer good security measures and revenue

generation model would be the next important criteria in the implementation process.

Designing and Developing Click 2 Cook Application:

This can be achieved by outsourcing idea to a software developing company with a

copyright agreement or hiring developers, to do the coding, debugging and installation of the

application. Developing the application, involves comprehensive database creation of list of time-

lined recipes, contacts of chefs, groceries store’s location and products available to generate

interest from user to make use of the application. This app needs to be made user friendly as well

for any age group, especially the older generation which may barely be using smartphones, but are

also the primary users of the app.

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Reliable and secure network:

Users can use a password to authenticate purchased recipe and to prevent unauthorized access if

their phone is stolen. Consumers will use either their credit or debit card to make payments and

their information would be secure due to 128 bit encryption. Cyber security is very important to

the business as it is the prime concern of all the customers. Providing security to user information

would be the best way to have loyal customer as they have the believe that their information is

secure the company.

Initial target Market:

USA:

Most of the people in US is are obese which contributes about 75 percentage of their population

(Ogden & Carroll, 2010; Flegal et al., 2012). It is considered to be one of the major threat as it cause

numerous health problems like Hyper-tension, coronary heart disease, type II diabetes , gallbladder

disease, stroke and some sort of cancer. Maintaining a healthy Diet is becoming a mandatary lifestyle in

the busy environment. About 67% of American population use smart phone which serves as medium to

convey and concentrate on health factors. Our suggestion to this problem is providing a solution in an

hand held device.

PESTEL:

It is an effective way to analyze the market conditions and factors.

Political factor:

US is having a very stable cyber laws designed by experts. As per recent update form

white house that US has extended its cyber law outside of USA to which the operation are done

internationally. Its gives us more power to have copy rights over our Applications and also to a

stable agreements with partners. (Eg. Apps available in google).

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Economic factors:

Purchasing power of USA citizen is 53,042 USD as of in 2013 (a data from World Bank)

which depicts that citizens in USA are wealthy enough to afford a smart device. Obesity is

consider to be one of the top five health problems in USA which people are willing to put in

money for remedies.

Social Factors:

Health consciousness is one major factors which is more socially shared belief in USA.

As it is 3rd highly populated country, People there are becoming more and more concerned

towards health and trying to find solutions in various aspect. It creates a huge demand on health

related products and services.

Technological factors:

After the invention of smart phone by Apple Inc. on 2007, US people have more affinity

towards it which enables them to find solutions for their problems more effectively and easily.

Being such well sophisticated technological market, it’s easy to penetrate and catch customers

with a proper Value addition in the project.

Partners: Google play store:

Google Play, which was originally born and referred to by Google as the Android Market,

is Google's official store and portal for Android apps, games and other content for the Android-

powered phone or tablet. Just as Apple has its App Store, Google has the Google Play Store. By

merging the app with google play store gives access to worldwide market. Google Play’s

Development Console (2013) webpage provides a step-by-step guide on how to register the app

and launch it on Google Play. Android Developers provides a recommended checklist to

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understand the process, policies, agreements, tests of app’s quality, app content rating, platforms

and so on.

App store:

An app store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for mobile

apps. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of

the computer itself. Apps are designed to run on specific devices, and are written for a

specific operating system (such as iOS, Mac OS X, Windows, or Android). The functionality of

complex software designed for use on a personal computer, for example, may have a related app

designed for use on a mobile device.

Revenue generation model:

Click2Cook app will use the following revenue generation model.

1. Monthly subscription charges – after a month freemium period usage of the application,

customer would pay a subscription charge every month.

2. 1-2% of cost of ingredient would be charged to grocery shop owners as the app is

promoting its sale.

3. Advertising fees to place on a small banner on the app.

4. Consultation service or expert assistance will be charge depending upon the recipe

chosen by the user.

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Market, Competitors and Ethical Analysis:

Economic analysis:

The US is the largest economy in the world, with a GDP of $17.52 trillion in 2014, which

makes them ahead of the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada (Statista, 2014). In addition, with a

GDP per capita of $52, 800, the US has one of the largest and most technologically powerful

economies in the world (CIA, 2014). Due to the well being of the US from its economical power

and stability, Click2Cook has a great opportunity to operate in the American market.

The GDP of the UK is 2,687 trillion, and represents 4.07% of the world economy. The

country boasts of a favorable investment climate, but the government is challenged by a high

deficit and debt, which has forced it to curtail spending. The government also cut corporate tax in

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a bid to spur growth, but the economy continues to struggle due to stagnant growth and a banking

sector that remains vulnerable due to its exposure in Europe. (Mitropolau, 2013,pp.20-21)

The UK market consists of:

The population in the UK is 63,742,977 and the targeted market structure by Click2Cook,

is between 15 -24 years, which is 12.6% of the entire, population (and consists of male being

4,116,859 and female 3,945,146), the focus in the age group would consist of young adults that

live away from home. The major age group of 25-54, which is 41% of the entire population (male

13,299,731/female 12,843,937), would cater for individuals that are too busy to cook or busy

parents. This would be the age group that would be intensively be targeted by Click2Cook

(Anonymous, 2014,p.1).

The ethnic groups in the UK include, white 87.2%, black/African/Caribbean/black British

3%, Asian/Asian British: Indian 2.3%, Asian/Asian British: Pakistani 1.9%, mixed 2%, other 3.7%

of the total population. All groups would be targeted but the white population is the majority and

would be targeted intensively to increase revenue (Anonymous, 2014,p.1).

The statistics for the religious group are: Christian (this includes Anglican, Roman Catholic,

Presbyterian, Methodist) 59.5%, Muslim 4.4%, Hindu 1.3%, other 2%, none 25.7%, unspecified

7.2% (2011 est.). The majority is Christianity but Click2Cook needs to take into account other

religious requirements like the Muslim only eat Halaal (Anonymous, United Kingdom Religious

Groups, 2014,p.3).

The major cities in the UK are: LONDON (capital) 9.005 million; Birmingham 2.272

million; Manchester 2.213 million; West Yorkshire 1.625 million; Glasgow 1.137 million;

Newcastle upon Tyne 874,000 (Larsen, 2014,pp.9-10). The literacy rate in the UK is at about 99%

of the total population, male and female, aged 15 and over has completed five or more years of

schooling. Therefore individuals would be able to use the application.

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The Canadian market consists of:

Canada has a population of 34,834,841. The targeted market structure in which 15-24 years

consist of 12.7% of the population (male 2,267,210/female 2,142,085). And the most important

age group to Click2Cook is 25-54 years, which is 32%male 7,244,109/female 7,052,512)

(Anonymous, 2014,p.1).

The urban population is 80.7% of total population with a 1.06% annual rate of change. The

major city populations are: Toronto 5.573 million; Montreal 3.856 million; Vancouver 2.267

million; Calgary 1.216 million; OTTAWA (capital) 1.208 million; Edmonton 1.142 million

(Anonymous, Canada Demographics Profile 2014, pp.2-3).

The main languages are English and French, so the websites would have to be in both

languages. There is also a high literacy rate of 99% so usability of the application would be easy.

Obesity adult prevalence rate is 26.2%.

Three competitors that are popular in the target market

This section discusses the kind of competition Click2Cook is expected to face in the U.S

food and recipe industry. The country’s healthy food industry is extremely competitive with

reported of about approximately 80 food websites software and service retailers operating in the

market. In addition, the industry has rapidly expanded over the past five years, and it is expected

to continue to grow in the next five years to 2020. Advances in communication technology, such

as augmented reality, intelligent in store monitoring, sensor tags, have propelled the industry

forward and thus attracting more companies to invest. Therefore, understanding the features and

value proposition of these competitors operating in the target market is vital in mounting a

successful challenge and competitive edge (Spinner, 2013,p.1).

The main aim of this competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of

Click2Cook’s direct competitor’s in the US food industry and any weaknesses that can be

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exploited within the product development cycle. The following sections enlighten the three popular

direct companies/competitors that have been identified using information from corporate websites,

industry reports, newspaper articles and company profiles from independent sources in the target

market, which have the same or similar service offerings as Click2Cook.

Epicurious:

The main competitor in the US online food industry is an Epicurious.com website which

is under a Conde Nast publications. The company is the first and largest provider of digital food

advertising platform, sourcing from its subscribers as well as from renowned chefs. The company

was created in 1995 and is now part of the publishers food innovation group. The company has

over 2 million members with 24/7 accesses to affordable recipes via mobile devices, such as

phones and tablets and video step-by-step recipes, whenever consumers need it and from wherever

they are in the country. Epicurious also serves mobile content through applications available across

multiple platforms, including Android, Windows, and iOS phones and tablets, as well as the new

Apple Watch. Epicurious is considered to be the main competitor of Click2Cook because it can

leverage many economies such as economies of scale, well known brand name that Click2Cook is

trying to build (Epicurious, 2014,p.1).

Epicurious offered recipes, cooking tips and general information on food, wine, and dining

out and as reported last year Epicurious has more than doubled its membership and launched a

service that not only provides recipes to its subscribers but also recommends dining out places.

Also the company is ranked 15th in the world as one of the most innovative companies in the

digital food industry (Epicurious, 2014),p.1.

Epicurious caters to the market on a broad spectrum; it provides a wide variety of recipes

to its customers but has not specifically targeted the niche segment in the market, which are time

efficient healthy meals. Click2Cook saw this gap in the market and is attempting to be the market

leader in the digital health food market. And instead of suggesting restaurants as a link to the

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physical market. Its physical market strategies involve the delivery of fresh ingredients to its

customers.

Epicurious being the national leader in the industry has much strength. These strengths

include barriers of market entry, reduced labor costs, skilled workforce, existing distribution and

sales networks and also a high growth rate. It also has an established brand name in its target

market. However, the company has some limitations as the website is not very user friendly and

an expensive subscription plan.

All Recipes.com

Another strong competitor in the target market is Allrecipes.com, which was co-founded

by Tim Hunt, Carl Lipo, Mark Madsen, Michael Pfeffer, David Quinn, and Dan Shepherd in 1997.

Allrecipes.com is a global social networking service and forum headquartered in Seattle, WA,

which encourages users to post recipes, comment on and make changes to existing recipes and

search for specific recipes. In addition, it allows users to create recipe blogs, vote on pictures of

finished dishes, and receive awards based on their submissions and results. Users become part of

the community by reviewing and commenting on other people's food-related blogs, pictures and

recipes (AllRecipes, 2013,p.1).

As of 2010, Allrecipes.com was the most-visited online community for food and cooking,

with over 30 million visitors per month and more than 43,000 available recipes. All users may

search and read the site's content, but only logged-in, registered members may post recipes, write

blogs, add pictures, or write reviews. Registration is free which provides users with basic

functions. A paid "Pro Membership" is required for users to connect to each other, customize

recipes, and other features. The company transformed the digital food industry by enabling users

to interact with one another as if they were almost in the same room. The website is also accessible

and convenient and offers a wide variety of options such as appetizer, BBQ and Grilling, Breakfast

and Brunch, Chicken, Dessert, Healthy, Main dish, Slow cooker, Trusted Brands and Vegetarian

(AllRecipes, 2013,p.1).

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The site is updated about 3000 times daily and can be accessed at any time of the day, so

new variations of recipes are uploaded and updated which gives users value.

The food channel:

The Food Channel (not affiliated with Food Network) is a consumer Web site with food

recipes, news, reviews and advice. The site compiles information to produce food, industry trends

and aims to be a gateway for all things food. Site content is separated into four categories: recipes,

articles, blogs and videos. Recipes are created by The Food Channel chefs, as well as recipes from

featured cookbooks. Content for the site is generated by a team of editors and the chefs of The

Food Channel. Food bloggers also contribute content to the site. The Food Channel began as a

newsletter in the 1980s, it predicted and reported trends in the food industry and was published 23

times per year by Noble Communications. The Web site was launched on January 21, 2008, by

Noble Communications under the direction of CEO, Bob Noble and is headquartered in

Springfield, Missouri (TheFoodChannel, 2013,p.1).

The Food Channel compiles information to spot industry trends, using information

gathered by The Food Channel and Noble's Culture Waves team; food industry trends are analyzed

and reported on the site. In late 2008, the site released the Top Ten Food Trends of 2009, which

identified the significant food movements for consumers, food service professionals and

manufacturers. The site also introduced a food recipe Web widget. The widget provides users with

daily recipes created by the site's chefs or provided by partner sites. The recipe widget (which

consists of 9 round buttons which display different content when scrolled over) is a follow up to

the food trends widget that enables users to follow food trends. The company’s main strengths

include its value to customers, high quality care and convenience (TheFoodChannel, 2013,p.1).

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Other Future Competitors:

As mentioned previously, the digital food industry has rapidly expanded over the past five

years, and it is expected to continue to grow in the five years to 2020. Therefore, Click2Cook will

continue to face more competition in the future. Other minor potential competitors may include

companies such e-food delivery and Saveur. All of these companies are direct competitors to

Click2Cook catering to almost the same type of consumer needs (FoodAndWineMagazine,

2013pp.1-2).

SWOT Analysis:

Strengths:

Consumers will have the choice to either look for recipes that fall within a time frame or

order ingredients for particular dishes that save their valuable time and provide healthy

foods.

The company has Strong relationships with different suppliers that enable consumers to

buy ingredients for recipes.

Low capital requirement and high customer reach. Although it’s an application based

business due to this reason.

Reasonable premium charge that attracts customers.

The application is more informative compared to other one that gives them more accurate

direction.

Weaknesses:

Weak brand name, as the, business is new in the target market, and it takes time to build a

reputable the brand name and identity.

Less market awareness and reputation can be great weakness for the business.

Low customer retention due to low market awareness.

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Opportunities:

Large number of Internet user. 277,436,130 Internet users as of Mar/14, 87.0% of the

population. (Pew Research Center , 2014)

Large number of customer who are concerned about their healthy meal.

Target market consists of huge customer base.

Increase of trend of homemade foods.

There is an opportunity to strengthen the business network that will enable the company to

capture more market share as well as a brand name.

Diversification into related services. For instance, partnership and eventually the creation

of restaurant.

Threats:

There are already some cooking applications that have good brand names. For example:

How to Cook Everything Essentials, myfitnesspal, Jamie's Recipes, Modernist cuisine at

home etc.

The numbers of competitors increase daily which create more competitive pressures.

Slow cash flow of revenue. It is one of the biggest threats because Click2Cook has to the

breakeven to earn revenue as a new business.

Low barriers of entry, therefore Click2Cook faces a risk of intense competition

Competitive Strategic Approaches:

The purpose of creating competitive strategy approaches is to understand the viability of the

proposal if it is realized, and how to build a sustainable competitive advantage over other rivalries

in the industry. The features that are included in this section are:

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1. Market Seeking:

The whole idea of introducing an online platform for cooking is to capture more market

potential. Emphasizing on the value proposition of providing convenience to clients, this proposal

will be able to provide easy and time saving services to the people who are busy in their daily life.

2. Differentiation :

The difference between this proposal and what the competitors provides is the ability for

customers to get faster cooking recipes like within 15-20 minutes. So far, it is known that there’s

no competitor who provides cooking recipes with the information of place or shop name for the

ingredients where they can get it, as well as a delivery service. The link of the ingredients suppliers

will be provided and names of restaurant where they also can get healthy foods according to their

preferences. This will be our competitive advantage as the first mover who provides such services.

3. Growth

The opportunity to grow for this model is potentially large, given that Click2Cook could

successfully capture the online recipes market share. In the era where there’s many online recipes

application available in the Internet, sometimes customers want healthy recipes with less time

consumption. Customers will be willing to pay the premium to get these types of better services.

Click2Cook could also leverage their brand equity as a widely recognized and respected recipes

provider when it gains market share; the existing customer base will be the stepping stone creating

word-of-mouth to build trust and confidence to new potential customers that may want to try this

service.

4. Alliance:

The need to build strategic alliances with the ingredients supplied and some restaurants that

will provide better services as partners. Through strategic alliancing, these institutions could help

23

Click2Cook as a medium to promote awareness of the services. Thus, mutually benefitting

relationships.

Regulatory, Social Risks/ challenges:

a. Social Risks:

One of the possible risks Click2Cook might face with the customers is the concern for

payment security threats like fraud, theft of credit card and sensitive personal information. For

example, it is common that hackers use link manipulation that directs paying customers into fake

replica websites that seems legitimate from a glance, customers unknowingly enters their personal

credit card information which could lead to the compromise of their account and money being

siphoned out from their accounts.

b. Regulatory Risks:

In the United States government, cybersecurity regulation comprises directive from the

executive branch and legislation from Congress that safeguards information technology and

computer systems. The purpose of cybersecurity regulation is to force companies and

organizations to protect their systems and information from cyber-attacks. Cyber-attacks include

viruses, worms, Trojan horses, phishing, denial of service (DOS) attacks, unauthorized access

(stealing intellectual property or confidential information) and control system attacks. There are

numerous measures available to prevent cyber-attacks. Cyber-security measures

include firewalls, anti-virus software, intrusion detection and prevention systems, encryption and

login passwords (Paul Ferrillo, 2014,p.1).

Takeaways for the Private Sector:

The Framework provides organizations with a number of benefits that have lead to a

stronger cybersecurity posture. These benefits include a common language, collaboration

opportunities, and the ability to demonstrate due to care in adopting the Framework, the ability to

promote better security within the vendor supply chain, and cost efficiency in cybersecurity

spending.

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The clear direction of regulator interest in the Framework is added to these benefits. As

more U.S. federal agencies and state governments adopt the Framework, and strongly encourage

private sector organizations to implement its approach, there can be little doubt that the Framework

has or will soon evolve into the de facto standard for cybersecurity—still voluntary, but

nonetheless, the standard.

This may mean a higher bar for cybersecurity controls, which will yield a consistent

expectation (from regulators and consumers) as to what cybersecurity means within each industry

sector. Customers may come to expect the same security protections for their sensitive information

from their electric company, and from their cell phone carrier, as they do from their bank. It is

important, therefore, for organizations to keep close watch on the recommendations from their

federal and/or state regulators about adopting the Framework. At some point, “voluntary” no

longer means voluntary, but instead comes to mean mandatory. (McDermott will and Emery,

2015)

25

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