CCO1_Sukunicai_Sukhant_322062_1D hard copy

S&U FACILITATION & CONSULTANCY

BUSINESS PLAN

Prepared by: Sukunchai Sukhant Student Number: 322362

Professional Role (Group): Dreamteam Class: 1D

23 March 2015

© S & U Facilitation and Consultancy 2015

This document is the proprietary property of S. Sukhant / S & Facilitation and Consultancy.

Copying or otherwise distributing the information contained herein is a breach of confidentiality agreement.

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Table of Contents

Page

Executive Summary 1

Introduction 2

1) My Business Idea – (Self Discovery) 3

Self Motivation The Business Idea The Vision: Long Term Aim of the Business The Mission: Short Term Objectives (for the coming 5 years) Strengths and Weaknesses - Analysis

2) Market Orientation 4

Target Market & Industry Trends Analysis Competitive Advantage Benefits to Clients The SWOT of the Business (Internal & External)

3) Marketing Plan 5

Marketing Strategy (based on TOWS Matrix) 7Ps – The Marketing Mix

4) Operational Plan 6

Financial Plan Network Map Action Plan

5) Appendices 7

Appendix 1 - Personal CV Appendix 2 - IDI Plan & Entrepreneurial Test Results Appendix 3 - Financial statements Appendix 4 - other documents




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Executive Summary S&U facilitation consultancy is a consultancy firm, which combine the cultural facilitation and mediation together. The firm is providing workshop and consultant service in the field of cultural differences operate in the Netherlands. S&U facilitation consultancy offers the training for solving the conflict between staff and employee in the workplace. Moreover, the company work with the NGOs in the field of education, so the university is the target group for the firm. The reason to operate the facilitation and mediation firm is that nowadays the world is globalizing people from the different background have to connect to each other, there might have the conflict regard to miss communication and the cultural differences. Moreover, the market of mediation is slightly growing; there will be the opportunity to start up the company to the market. According to the research show, the education industry in the Netherlands is becoming increasingly international. Almost every university in the Netherlands offer the international program. This is the reason why I choose the university as my target group. The analysis of the cost and the financial plan can be seen that S&U facilitation consultancy is not require the big grant to invest. The firm will promote itself by expand the networking through the conference and training. The long-term goal of S&U facilitation consultancy is to expand my firm to cover the European continent and target the different group of market for example multicultural companies, another type of NGOs organization as well as expanding network to some Asian country.




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Introduction Generally speaking in the business world, the rising of the entrepreneur is most likely to be the most popular way to start new business. there are a lot of big company which lack of innovation as a result, the new business need to come up with a smarter plan to compete and differentiate themselves from the competitor. significantly, the cultural awareness is playing a big role in the market business right now as more and more companies becoming international. As I always associate with the cultural in my study. It gives me the idea to start up a new consultancy firm in the filed of facilitation and training. The facilitation and training market nowadays increases because companies give it an international character. Therefore, I would like to run a firm that will be the middle person and give workshops to solve or prevent conflict in term of cultural differences in university in the Netherlands. The business plan will be discussed about the cultural aspects that need to be taking into the consideration to draw the attention from the investor. This report will give a clear description about the plan and market oriented to the investor. There are fours part contain in this report, the first part will explain in detail and the description of my business idea. the second part shows you the market trend analysis and the competitive analysis. After that, I will talk about SWOTs and TOWs analysis to see the opportunities and threats that benefit to the business. as a service company 7Ps of marking mix will be explain in this section as well. Furthermore, the last chapter will be shown the financial and operational plan to give the overview of the financial activity of the business. at the end , the result from IDI scan and entrepreneur scan will include in the appendix.




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1. My Business Idea – (Self Discovery) Self Motivation From my experience and my personal characteristic, I concluded that my creativity and social orientation will lead me to be a good entrepreneur. The reason why I want to become an entrepreneur is the challenge to be self-employed and the ways to improve myself. Starting up my own business requires a lot of skills such as creativity, social oriented, networking, and taking risks. I want to improve all these skills to become a good entrepreneur. Personally, I am open-minded person and flexible. I can adapt myself to a difficult situation easily. I am a talkative person, and also good listener. With my characteristics I will be able to start-up my own company and help people understand each other at the work place. Based on The Entrepreneur Scan, the result shows my strengths and weaknesses. The test indicates that my thinking styles are covered in the upper-right and the lower-right aspects with the score 35% and 45% respectively. It means that I am more a sales person and pioneer. In conclusion, I score well on a number of important characteristics and qualities of an entrepreneur, but less in other sections. In any case, my highest score is related to the ability to make contacts, which can support my business. This result is also supported by the fact that the entrepreneurial role of a salesperson best applies to me. I am the type of entrepreneur who knows how to visualize the needs of others and believes that a good sales team is extremely important for a company. The Business Idea My business idea is to run a firm that helps the employees understand each other at the work place in terms of intercultural competency; as well as training the employers to understand their employees and to solve conflicts at the workplace, by having a better communication. The idea behind- nowadays more and more companies have many employees who come from different countries, belonging to various cultures. Thus, it can be problems when they have to work together, because their background and way of working and behavior will be different. I want to help employees overcome this problem and guide them to find the middle way in order to solve the conflict. My target market consist of non-governmental organizations, therefore private universities in the Netherlands area. My services will be provided for teachers and staffs who work in the organizations to help them understand each other and working more productive. The universities in the Netherlands provide a very broad international programs, there will be employee come from the different countries, belong to various cultures. Many universities both apply science and academic universities often encounter struggle because of the miscommunication and different cultural background. This problem will lead to bad performance of the employees, which will have an effect towards the company different aspects. It is important to know how to deal with the problem in a proper way, but not every company succeeds; I would like to offer the companies the necessary training and guiding. The main reason for me to work in this area is because I am interested in the way people behave and communicate. I see myself working as a facilitator and mediator that give advises and help two parties understand and work with each other. The benefit of this service is that the company will understand its employees and know how to handle the conflict when the problem arises. Also, the employees will work in teams more efficiently and therefore will be more productive.




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My goal as a facilitator and trainer is to reach a target group as broader as I can. I will offer a good support for the international companies with my skills in communication and intercultural awareness. Moreover, my personal characteristics such as the ability to work with people and also the power to easily make contacts will drive my business succeed.

The Vision: Long Term Aim of the Business The long term goal of my business plan is that I want to expand my firm to cover the European continent and target the different group of market for example multicultural companies, another type of NGOs organization as well as expanding network to some Asian country. The Mission: Short Term Objectives (for the coming 5 years) The five year goal of my company is to have another branch in the neighbour countries, which will help me gain new costumer base and create the credibility of the company. In next two year I would like to expand my business to the neighbour country: in Germany and Belgium because this will give the opportunity to my firm to deal with the different culture norm and value that different than in the Netherlands. Furthermore, it is also a challenge to compete with the international competitor. Strengths and Weaknesses - Analysis My Strengths

• Social orientation • Creativity • Self Belief • Market Awareness

My Weaknesses • Need for power • Risk taking • Endurance • Low-context of communication

Idea Strengths

• New line of business • Specific type of market • Offering unique training

Idea Weaknesses • No former experiences •

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2. Market Orientation Target Market(s)/Industry Mediation is the neutral step to solve or prevent a problem between 2 or more parties. The mediation industry has a variety of domains: commercial, legal, diplomatic, workplace, community and family matters. The role of the mediator is to help the parties to solve an issue with the outcome both parties are happy to accept. My company is focusing on cultural mediations in the non-profit market. I focus on working with people who are different from each other by way of gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc. My main target is the business to business within the educational sector. My target business consists of non-governmental organizations, therefore the private university in the Netherlands. The Netherlands almost every university offers international programs and courses. The employees at these universities such as professor, assistants and management board, come from different countries and have a varied culture basic. They might have a problem in the communication between each other in term of culture. Because there is no company specifically focusing on this target market my company chose to facilitate the market target. In the Netherlands the marketing landscape of the facilitated and mediation is slightly growing, therefore this training largely runs parallel with the development of modern mediation itself and has become a booming business for private training institutions. Nowadays, more and more universities are becoming international. Almost every university in the Netherlands has an international programme for foreign student to study. As a result, the universities want to be an international environment. They focus on having a mix of the nationality of employees. This brings a variety of cultural backgrounds. Because of this mix they get an intercultural work situation. This variety brings many good things, but because of the differences, there also might be conflicts between the employees or/and the organization. The university needs to solve and prevent these conflicts in the right way. My company can help the universities to handle this in the right way. I focus on the needs of facilitation and mediation to help them overcome this matter. The facilitation and mediation market will grow in the future. Trends Analysis The facilitation and mediation trend in the market is increasing regarding to globalization, technology, economic growth, and demographic change. These factors drive the mediation training industry growing. As a result, these factors are the trend that relevant to the business or brands that should take it into consideration. Firstly the use of mediation is becoming more popular in a wide length of occupation that more and more user starting to use. The facilitation and mediation can help user get what they need: achieve goals, reduce risk, secure certainty, take less time so it will cost less and preserve reputation. This is leading to a slow but steady market in a demand led profession. The form of mediation becomes more assertive by practice and the term facilitative mediation is more evaluative than in the past. Moreover, the arbitration institutions cooperate mediation more enthusiastically. Secondly, the uneven economic growth would be the trend that can drive the facilitation and mediation market in a change. The economic growth has affected several sectors in our social environment: education, migration, and unemployment rate. The blooming of the migration rate of employees is slightly increasing because of the uneven economic growth. People want to have a better life in the place which




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has a good economy. This might be the reason why the society becomes intercultural and the conflicts might arise. As a result, the intermediation is needed to solve the problem in every career filed. Thirdly, the trend globalization, the world is developing in many aspects. For example, people can connect with each other from the other side of the world, because of the change of globalization. However, the global population thinks that the world is changing too fast and that it is becoming increasingly dangerous. The change in globalization is the factor that influences the change of the mediation industry and especially, the mediation in the education sector. The university becomes an international and intercultural environment, place where people might have problems when they have to work together. Consequently, the developing of mediation and facilitation is needed to handle the change of the world. From the previous discussion, it can be seen that globalization is the factor that affects other aspects for the entrepreneurs who want to start a new business. One of these important aspects is communication. Modern entrepreneurs need to keep in mind that the power of communication nowadays might have a big impact to the business in term of cultural awareness and globalization. Moving on to the next trend that – the demographic trend. The change of demography is a very important factor on which the modern mediation should focus on. Knowing how young or old a country's population will be is crucial for investors and businesses. The growth of population is the key in seeing the development of the economy and the quality of life. The following trend of the demographic is shaping the world right now

- the ratio of the young citizens in comparison to the older citizen is declining. Predictably, by 2050, the number of old citizens will increase twice as much as the young citizens.

- There has been a sea-change in the nature of illness to non-communicable diseases

- The speed of aging is rising rapidly in emerging economies The last trend will be discussed here is that the regulation in mediation industry. The government is readying themselves for regulating the mediation field to set the quality of the mediation both of mediation in practice and the study of mediation. in the deferent To meet the future demand and change in the market Looking at the trend in market right now, the education trend is blooming. The university become more international intercultural environment. they want to reach the high number of the international student as well as the staff or the professor who come from the different culture background. The facilitation and mediation is needed to prevent and solve the conflict that might get between the employee of university. My firm is offering the unique facilitation and mediation training by being independent and neutral to solve the problem in the different perspective. Furthermore, offer prior knowledge about the Asian culture to solve the conflict in a very specific case for example the university that might have problem to communicate with the Chinese or Thai staff. Thus, it will be the optional of my business idea to achieve my target market. Competitive Advantage Regarding to my research, I found out there are some mediation companies in the Netherlands, which is most of them solving the problem about marriage, but it is not directly to intercultural communication. Mostly, the mediation business in the Netherlands is individual that there is only one mediator run the company. There is the organization that every mediator needs to register to get the permission for running the business.




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The competitors that I have chosen are indirect competitors because they do not dealing with the conflict in the culture. These are list of competitors the relate to my company 1 Merlijn Group Merlijn group is a business team for mediation and facilitation but it is not a direct competitor. They have a broad scale of business and operate national. They give training to groups and help with conflicts. They have a advert about culture different. 2 Business mediators Business mediator mostly works with conflicts but do not help you with cultural conflict. Moreover, they are related business and divorce. Benefits to Clients My company will help the university who has the communication conflict between workers. Becoming international there are several problem that university has to deal with. One the big problem is misunderstand of employee in workplace in term of communication and cultural. Therefore, my firm will give the training the employee of the university to make sure that the way of communication will be improved and create the cultural awareness in workplace. This will ensure that university will get rid of the dispute between the worker and achieve their goal. In addition, the relationship between employees will be improved through the workshop. The SWOT of the Business (Internal & External) Strengths

• Good in solving problem • Good in negotiation • Adaptation to every situation • Prior knowledge about cultural

sensitivity • Specialize in the filed of

intercultural facilitation and mediation.

•

Weaknesses • narrow target market • low resource • No experience • No customer base due to it new

firm

Opportunities • Expend to the new target group • Growing in niche market • Border networking

Threats • Local Competitor • Growing of online communication • Changing in taxed and regulation




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3. Marketing Plan Marketing Strategy (based on TOWS Matrix)

TOWS Matrix

Strengths 1 Good in solving

problem 2 Good in

negotiation 3 Adaptation to

every situation 4 Prior knowledge

about cultural sensitivity

5 Prior knowladge of asain culture

Weaknesses 1 narrow target

market 2 low resource 3 No experience 4 No customer base

due to it new firm 5 No previous

experience

Opportunities 1 Expend to the new

target group 2 Growing in niche

market 3 Border networking 4 investor

SO: Product : with the skill of solving problem, I can develop the quality of service and training for the growing of the market. Promotion: With the networking, I have and the flexible of my business, it will help me to expand the company to another country also the chance to get new investor.

WO: The market is slightly growing. There will be the chance to expand the target group to get more income for my company. With the chance to expand the network it will help my firm to get the customer.

Threats 1 Local Competitor 2 Growing of online

communication 3 Competitive

pricing

ST: With the prior knowledge in specific cultural filed and the skill of solving problem will differentiate the company from the competitor. The flexibility of the company and the prior knowledge in Asian cultural background will compete the competitive price. The skill of negotiation is the factor to help my company approach the gaol of my firm

WT: The way to compete my competitor is to gain more the experience and build the good reputation for the firm.




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7Ps – The Marketing Mix As S & U Facilitation and consultancy is the service company, it is necessary to have a marketing mix strategy to run the company smoothly and have the right plan for different aspect of business. Service Product My firm offers the service that consist of facilitate and mediate training to the university in the Netherlands which want to improve their communication in terms of intercultural or want to solve the conflict in their workplace. in the upcoming years, the training will be offered to different kinds of non-governmental organization in the Netherlands. I am going to look for opportunities in the surrounding countries such as Germany, Belgium. There will be two type of services which can help the organization prevent the conflict and help them to solve the problem. The first one is the facilitated and mediate training. The training will help them understanding the cultural differences and how to deal with it in a working environment. The second of service is the consulting, S & U will guide the parties to a solution of the problem. I will advise them where necessary and help them find a way where both parties understand each other’s background and help them figure out how to deal with and accept the differences in the future. The combination of facilitation and mediation will be the unique services that my firm will offer to satisfy the need of customer. The client will get a lot of the benefits form the service such as the staffs and employee will work more productively, the relationships between each employee will be improved and the most important is that the communication will be better and effective. Moreover, after the training my firm will keep track to check and evaluate the outcome of the training to make sure that the training help the organization to improve Service Price The service price is important factor that my firm need to take into consideration. the service is dealing with solving and preventing the problem which has to perform in a high quality with high price. As my company want to reach the client from the non-governmental organization which associate with academic filed, pricing strategy will be applied to suitable with market. Regarding to the market research, the customer willing to pay for high price with a good quality of the services.as a result the pricing strategy of my firm rely on the fact that costumer associate with high price with high quality. According to the market price my firm will be offered the same price rate with competitor pricing strategy but with the high quality of the service to build the reputation. In the following year, my company will change the price rate after earing the credibility of the service. Service Place (Distribution): At first, the company will be founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands which is the geographic market segmentation for my business. the place will be divided in two part. First, it is the small office that only use for meeting the client to brief and discuss about the training service. Another part that use for hold the workshop I will use the room from the university building that is my client, because it already have the facility that need from the training such as projector screen, canteen, and the office equipment. In addition, it will be convince for the participant to travelling, and accommodation.




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Service Promotion: My promotional goal of my firm is to create the long-term customer relationship with a right strategy to attack the costumer’s attention. To provide the right information about my services, the information will be communicated through the social media platform and the other type of media to the customer. Push and pull strategy will be use in my promotional plan the reach the most clients. I want to gain the costumers loyalty in a long term, the pull strategy will be the most efficient way to gain the client. The promotional mix that will reach my goal are the advertising, public relation, Advertising: the use of social media is very popular for advertising. promoting my firm and services I will use this media channel as well as another online communication channel to provide the extract information to reach my target group. However, the other type of media will be used to advertise the company such as newspaper, magazine, and education journals. To begin, I will create the company website and facebook page that shows the information of new consultancy facilitation firm. after that, business card and flyer will be introduced directly to the target group which are the university in the Netherlands. Thus the customer will aware of the new consultancy facilitation firm. Furthermore, the advertising in magazine and newspaper will be used later on. Regarding the public relations, the website and facebook will keep on updating new information and photo or video from training. The audience can discover more about my services. This strategy will increase the mention of the service and brand to have more credibility and reliability. The use of the direct marketing strategy will help my firm have a very specific customer. The customized letters, and emails will increase the customer potentials. People (the service provider): In the consultancy firm people is the essential ingredient for the firm. As the service is the intangible goods, it is crucial to have a well-trained staff to serve the need of costumer. This will reflect the reputation and improvement of the firm. My firm will recruit the young open-mind which graduated in high education level, such as bachelor programme or higher. With the professional personnel will drive the firm to be successful and have a very good reputation. Service Process: The process of service is very crucial from my firm that will increase and maintain the customer royalty. The employee will serve the client need in any aspect and make sure that it has no mistake during and after the services. Every employees in the firm have to have service mind and know all the element of service. The high quality of training will be the evidence that show the how well the firm can serve the client. As well as helping the client with when the need some advice. During the office hour the employee will welcome and help the client when they come to contact the firm. Phone service will be more efficient and answer all the question from the client regard to the training, and workshop. Service Physical Evidence: S&U has a small office from meeting the client and use for briefing and discussion about the workshop. the company will welcome customer with the friendly environment. The venue for workshops and training will be used in the university of the client itself. The facilities that need for workshop has already provided. The advantage for the customer is that they do not have to travel and there are no extra costs.




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4. Operational Plan The operational plan is crucial for starting new business. this plan will help the firm keep track on the financial situation and the control the financial activity in the company. Financial Plan in order to run the business smoothly, the financial plan will be demonstrated to show the financial activity of the company. The analysis of the income and outcome of company shows in the table (moola) in the appendix In the beginning the firm needs to set up a place to operate the business, the company has to rent the office and buy furniture and office supply. The venue of the training and workshop the firm will be used the room from client. After setting up, the cost of advertising such as website, flyer business will be spent in regard to maintain the website. Licenses and permit will be paid to the government Thirdly, the salary expenses will be paid to the employees of my company, included with 2 trainers. The other expense such as gas electricity and the meeting with the client will be spent monthly. Finally, the income is from training and consultant, which calculated in package, and consultant per hours rate. However, in the first year company do not have the much client because it is a new firm and need to gain the credibility from the customer.




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Network Map In the following map, it shows the network of the company




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Action Plan S.M.A.R.T. – Action Plan (Play Sheet)

Goals/ Strategies

(Chapters 1&4)

Action Steps (to-do’s)

Support/Resources Needed

Target Date

Date of completio

n Personal Goals:

Being successful in facilitation and mediation business.

- Perform a high quality of service and give a good advices in the consultant - Have the customer base and maintain the customer value.

- Training course, in order to develop myself and gain more experience.

June 2017

December 2017

Operate the company in surrounding country Netherlands for example Germany, Belgium. In order to get more clients.

- Attend the conference and exhibition to meet new people.

- Making new partner with the different company

- Networking from LinkedIn to build the reputation and gain the credibility

- Conference or exhibition event

January 2020

January 2020

Target new group of customer such as multinational company in European countries.

-Gain more the experience of facilitation skill -Participate in training and conference in the filed of facilitation

-networking LinkedIn, and the other type of social network and business.

January 2026

March 2026

Business Strategies: Satisfy the need of the client based on the training and consultant service

-offer high quality of service and training -having a service mind to service the client -Having a well train employee to serve the customer need

-survey from the customer -the feedback from customer.

Continuous

The employee will be train and have a test every three month, in order to service and adapt themselves to

-self learning about the facilitation and mediation -sharing the knowledge in between each other

-book or material for training and developing themselves -conference or meeting about the new trend of facilitation

Continuous




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the new innovation



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References

Badkar, Mamta. 'GEORGE MAGNUS: These 5 Big Demographic Trends Are Shaping The World Right Now'. Business Insider. N.p., 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Ejcl.org,. 'Mediation In The Netherlands: Past - Present - Future, Vol. 6.4'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Globalpolicy.org,. 'Defining Globalization'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Groep, Merlijn. 'Mediation Specialist Merlijn Groep Te Nuland - Nabij Den Bosch'. Merlijn groep. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Ingram, David. 'The Impact Of Globalization On Communication Skills Development'. Business & Entrepreneurship -azcentral.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Lee, Jennifer. The Right-Brain Business Plan. Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2011. Print. Mediationplus.nl,. 'Mediation Plus Nederland'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Mediatorsnederland.nl,. 'Mediators Nederland | Wij Kunnen U Helpen In Al Uw Conflictsituaties'. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015. Vanenkova, Irena. 'International Trends In Mediation | Kluwer Mediation

Blog'. Kluwermediationblog.com. N.p., 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2015.



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6. Appendices Appendix 1 - Personal CV



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Appendix 2 - IDI Plan & Entrepreneurial Test Results



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IDI Scan result



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Appendix 3 Financial statement I. Costs and expenses analysis (Moola)

Moola map Moola Flowing

Out Moola Flowing

In - Rent office - Office supplies - Office furniture - Licence and permit - Taxes - Advertising - Auto expense - Salary(myself, employees) - Travel expense - Meeting expense (meal,

and coffee for meeting the client outside company)

- Utilities - Internet hosting

- training , workshop classes - consultant service - bank loan - personal assets - investment - privet client



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II. Funding Requirements In regard to cover all the cost to start up my business I need 10,000 euros , which I get from my personal saving during my study for 5000 euros. The other half of the money I going to loan it from the Rabobank Netherlands that give the low interest, rate for entrepreneur. The money will be spent on the stuff that need for starting new business, such as rating the office space, computer, furniture and so on. Sources:

• Bank loan • Personal saving

Required for:

• Office supplies • Computers • Furniture • Website • Advertising • Renting office space



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• III. Balance Sheets



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Appendix 4 Other Documents: Bussinesscard