Investment Plan For Valentino Chocolates Marketing Essay

Today, Valentino’s chocolatiers are making over 60 different quality chocolates, with respect for tradition and a passion for taste. Thousands of people are enjoying more than 300,000kg of Valentino chocolates, bars and figures every year. In addition to the all time favorites, Valentino specializes in new creations which have been recognized and prized all over the world. Each month, Valentino presents a new chocolate, based on an exclusive design or an original taste, using origin covertures from Ecuador, Togo or Sao Thomé. The assortment is completed by a wide variety of chocolate specialties such as mendicants, truffles, orangettes, cerisettes, chocolate bars, sugar free pralines, liquor pralines, easter eggs and figurines.

Valentino chocolates are sold in more than 60 exclusively chocolate shops within Belgium and are also exported to over 30 different countries throughout Europe and Asia.

Valentino is one of europe’s leading manufacturer of luxury chocolates and has won many international awards.For the past ten years valentino has expanded rapidly and now has almost 300 employees,75 company owned shops and a turnover of £90million but now last two years,sales have slowed down and the costs have risen due to this four main causes which are price cutting in the industry,production problems,a fall in demand and low staff morale.this has caused the company fall in profits,the owners of this company had set up £1.5million to solve this problem.we as the directors are here to solve this problem and we have chosen some of the options after a brief talk with all the directors to solve this problem.

Valentino has become one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of luxury chocolates and has won many international awards. For the past ten years, Valentino has expanded rapidly and now has almost 300 employees, 75 company-owned shops and a turnover of £90 million. However, in the last two years, sales growth has slowed down and costs have risen because of price-cutting in the industry, production problems, a fall in demand and low staff morale. This has caused a fall in profits. So, the owners have set aside £1.5 million to solve this problem and enable Valentino to become a competitive international business.

Objectives

To remedy this problems outlined above and make Valentino a more competitive business internationally, an investment of £1.5 million was proposed. We can help Valentino Company earn more profit by using this new investment plan. When consumers eat our chocolate, they will feel satisfied and happy. Other than that, we can distribute our chocolate to countries around the world. Moreover, our chocolate is harmless to people who have sickness because our chocolate contains sugar free and low fat products. Besides that , we hope that our company can produce more creative , delicious and healthy chocolate in the future in order to let our customer enjoy our chocolate . In the future , our company are going to have a new way of promotion .We are going to let the consumers to test the chocolate sample to get feedback before these chocalate enters the market . In addition , our biggest aim is to become the most well known chocolate industry around the world .

Options and benefits

The Board of Directors has agreed the following investment plan.

Firstly, we need to buy new machinery as new machinery can end the delay caused by the old machines that are breaking down. As the machinery breaks down, it will stop the production of the chocolate and the company will suffer losses every day which can lead the company to close down. Other than that, new machinery can help the company to produce more chocolate which the old machinery cannot produce the amount that are wanted. For example, the new machinery can produce 5000 chocolates per hour, while the old machinery can only produce 500 chocolates which the company will not get the profit they want. Furthermore, new machinery can help the company to produce more types of new chocolates which can help the company to promote their new chocolates to the customers. Moreover, buying the new machinery can help the company to save cost on paying their workers and can use the money to hire some professionals that specialise in the machinery process.

Secondly, finance a market survey and research trips to the USA can help Valentino to assess the market potential for Valentino products as this trip can help Valentino to see other country’s chocolate and bring back some idea to produce a new chocolate for the customer. Other than that, the trip to USA can help Valentino to know more about their famous chocolate flavours, their pricing and the material to produce the chocolate by interaction with the agents in the company. Price and material are important as people in the world like to purchase cheap products with good material and this will help Valentino to increase their profit.

Thirdly, buying a new fleet of cars is very important to our company because our sales staff need a ride to let them move around in the city to introduce our Valentino’s products and sell to consumers. This can increase motivation of the sales staff of our company. By doing so, they will be more deligent and hardworking in their work which can also increase our company’s profit. Besides that, they will get commission of the products which they have sold out. These new fleet of cars can also help our company to deliver consumer’s order to their houses or shops. With this, our company can deliver all order in time to let our customers feel satisfied with our efficient work. Therefore, they will feel happy to buy the products and continues their order from us. We can also print out our company products and paste it on our new fleet of cars to promote our chocolates when moving around in the city or town. Hence, this will make our company name and image more famous around that area.

Fourthly, Research and Development is very important towards a company. Every company has their own product. These products that are produced by the company has to go through many types of process .One of the process is Research and Development. This process is to search for new ideas to produce new products. If a company does not have a research and development department, they will surely unable to produce a good product, because they do not know what the consumer wants and also what type of product can satisfy the consumers. Invest in Research and Development is very important for our Valentino company because there are many other competitors in the chocolate market such as Ferrero Rocher , Kinder Bueno ,Cadbury and many more . Most of the company will produce new product every year to increase their sales and also let the consumers to have more choices. Our company should invest in Research and Development in order to let our consumer to have a better choice. Our company is going to develop some new products which is different from other companies .For example, low fat chocolate drinks , new types of biscuits and also new flavor of cakes . We have done a lot of research about the types of flavour which is a favourite to the consumers and we will produce a more creative and delicious product in order to let our consumers feel satisfied. As the people in the world now are not eating very healthily and have many types of sickness, our company is going to produce a low fat and also sugar free chocolate products. These chocolate are harmless to those consumers who suffer from sickness, such as diabetes .One of our aim is to let the consumers who have sickness to enjoy the tasty chocolate. Besides that, by eating low fat chocolate, it can also help the one who is on diet to have no worries to eat our chocolate .The consumers would not have to suffer by seeing others eating ,while they cannot eat.

Lastly, investing in an existing group of cafes will help to advertise and promote on our company’s product. For example, we can invest in cafes like Starbucks. People can not only enjoy just coffee and bread, but a bite on our company’s chocolate. By doing so, we can increase our production to gain more profit. But of course before we invest, we will take a few samples of our chocolates and place it in the café to make sure the response is good. Besides, we will also hire a few staffs to help out in cafes for introducing and promoting the chocolates to target consumers. Moreover, we can also advertise our products in the cafes website and let customers make order through the internet. Furthermore, we will also sell out our company’s chocolate for customers to take away in the café with attractive packaging so that customers can purchase as a gift for other people.

The heads of the departments are concerned about the investment plans and will hand in a monthly progress report. The Board will then meet to assess the progress made in the five areas. In conclusion, the options we made would be the best to make the company achieve their target of putting the company back on track. As directors we will do our best to make the company a profitable one and the money would be used for the benefits of the company. We hope the CEO will look through our investment plan and make the best decision. Thank you.

In a nutshell, after doing this assignment, all our group members have understand more about how to plan an investment in a company. From this assignment, we have learned that teamwork is important in an organization. Though teamwork , we can get many different ideas and opinions which may be useful to our objectives .Without teamwork, we will not be able to accomplish our mission and goals successfully. On another hand , we have also learn that how to make use of the sum of money to invest in different areas in order to help the company to increase their profit and also let the company become well known in the market .Through this assignment ,we have built up our interest towards making plans and decisions. In this way ,we will become more confident in any decisions that we make in the future .