“Building a house is one of the most important decisions in our life and having it sustainable and healthy should be one of our prior concerns.”
Table of contents
The Idea/Concept 3
The product 4
1. Customer’s benefit 4
2. Range of product 5
Market analysis 6
1. French real estate market: general trend 6
2. French market of private individual’s houses: direct competitors 6
3. Eco-housing market: a favorable context 7
Strategy of the new venture 8
1. Mission 8
2. Objectives 8
3. Core business 8
4. Development strategy 8
5. Company structure 9
6. Further development: Possibility of exploring new markets 10
Risk analysis and exit strategy 11
1. Entry barriers 11
2. Possible exit strategy: 12
Marketing strategy 13
Financials 14
Management team 15
1. Current board 15
2. Missing members 15
Appendix 16
3. Questionnaire 16
4. Les tableaux excel 17
The Idea/Concept
The EcoBuilding Consulting Company consists in:
§ Proposing high quality advices and global solutions adapted to clients needs and budgets from initial project to final achievement based on a range of productS with high architectural identity
§ Certify the respect for the HQE® standard in all its realization
§ Creating a network of franchises on the French territory
The product
1. Customer’s benefit
We are a consulting that provides all-in-one solutions for building parts or entire ecological housings. The aim is to be an intermediary between the architect office by offering a broader range of expertise and products in everything that is related to ecological houses.
We carried out a questionnaire in order to target precisely our potential new customers. We found out as main result that the awareness towards ecology is quite well acquired but that there is a lack of clear information of what is available on the market.
The customer is currently lost among a lot of offers in the ecological housing segment. We therefore offer added value by putting together these split offers.
Unlike architects who do ecological housing “besides their normal job”, we propose a clear and unified structure to make the customer able to get a reasonable overview on what is today doable within the ecological housing segment. We have the knowledge thanks to cooperation with local architects and present a transparent set of solutions with 3 main products. And since price is often an issue, we have matched our product range to the money and level of interest of our customers. Highly customized, highly professional: here is the motto of our products.
In all case, a range of expertS is at the customer’s side to answer all possible questions and help him to carry out all the administrative procedure that occur, for example getting a financial support from the state for solar panels.
We want also to convince our customers of the cost effectiveness of our homes or equipment in terms of heating (thus addressing the surge in oil prices or the cost of electricity) both home and water-heating, on the insulation properties of the natural materials (which are in most cases more efficient than industrial ones). Moreover our homes provide a healthier environment to our costumers. Not only can we propose to use different materials but we can also give some insight on how to optimize the use of regular ones. We want our customers to feel there home is the first place they want to be in after work, during week-end or when inviting friends. This does not rely ON green aspects of our constructions but also by recognizing that clever designs already exist but are not yet exploited at there full capacity, for example functional kitchens where you are at ease when cooking and not fighting against the wall cupboard. Open spaces in the living room or tv room so that people feel of not being locked into a tiny box. A lot of other ideas have been proposed by architects and we intend to empower them.
2. Range of product
We are positioned in a local market and offer additional value thanks to synergy between local and experts that are within the company. Here is our range of products:
Environmental friend:
This is the first solution for people having a much tighter budget: Our team will listen to customer’s expectations for a whole house and propose solutions including design proposals (performing wall isolation, natural ventilation, terrace location, profit from sun benefits through good sizing of windows and location, possibly solar panels, etc). These advices will be provided in the first time by our architect and other experts of our team. In a second time, we will get in touch with one of our architect network who will realize the house and tune the proposal in order to offer a balance between an ecological friendly house respecting the HQE® standards and a good price.
Environmental close friend:
For those who can afford more for the environment and for themselves:
Environmental friend + additional features such as geothermic, earth cooling/warming tubes, photovoltaic panels, and double-skin façade could be added in order to drastically improve the energy efficiency of the building. The over-cost will be partly overcome by taking advantage from current legislation. The installation will be nevertheless profitable on the long term view.
Environmental top friend: This range of product address to people wanted to go beyond current standards and having quite important budget to realize the eco-house of their dream. The design will be good enough to make the house even energy productive thanks to the combination of renewable energies and appropriate use of materials.
Market analysis
1. French real estate market: general trend
Our analysis is focused on France which is our target market. In France we have a sustainable demand for new houses, 20.9% last year which correspondS to 562’000 houses which were allowed building permits. The real estate market is composed of approximatively 17’000 brokers and is generating 53 billion euros in 2003, 23% of which is generated by new houses this put our target market at around 12 billion euros[1]. The market is growing at a steady pace of 5% a year.
2. French market of private individual’s houses: direct competitors
The French market for private individuals’supprimer houses is above all regional with about 3800[2] different constructors on the French territory this is at our advantage in term of competition but is a negative point regarding our growth.
The sector has a pretty good employment characteristic and everyone seems to be able to capture some market shareS, the difficult part being the growth to a larger scale than regional.
However, very few home builders for private individuals seem to be engaged for more eco-oriented buildings.
Among the five bigger French home builders[3] only the current leader Geoxia seems ready to follow that way without being fully involved yet.
Furthermore, most of these companies lack for good reputation because of poor quality achievements and architectural identity.
The interest for eco-houses and recourse to sustainable development logics (renewable energies and materials, better use of resources, etc…) being relatively new, no clear leadership is established yet.
We do not compete directly with architects since we propose all-integrated solutions, architects are considered thus as partners.
3. Eco-housing market: a favorable context
62% of Europeans are homeowners and 78% of French people would be ready to pay more in order to have an ecological house [Source].
From a poll[4] conducted in France 70% of the polled are ready to buy an ecological house if the government is helping them financially, the 25-34 year old are more enthusiastic with an 86% intention. This shows that there is a growing green mindset in France for the last few years.
In parallel, new legislation and attractive credits greatly favour house building and the use of renewable energies.
The French government has taken thus several disposals to help people access to house ownership and also other disposals to finance ecological housing. The French government for example deducts from your taxes a part of the price of ecological equipment as solar panels.
Since we are targeting the ecological housing market we can benefit from both kinds of disposals.
In the meantime, new standards such as the HQE standard (High Environmental Quality) begin to gain greater importance.
The additional cost incurred to construct an ecological building is estimated around 5%[5] but is largely balanced by energy savings during the life of the construction.
E[6]
Development Strategy
1. Mission
Building the ecological cost efficient house to help you better fit our world.
The company is focusing on selling houses all equipped, with a product line fitted to the budget. The company also has in perspective to develop, through knowledge and experts in ecological housing, a consulting service for professional and householders on the different cost cut and environmental gain they can achieve through ecological equipments and will deliver the propositions we propose with our partners. We try to get a better environment by providing pollution-reduced solutions.
2. Objectives
We want to be leader in the ecological housing consulting in France. We thus want to create a smoothing layer between the huge number of contractors, equipment sellers and the final client, which is at an early stage of knowledge of the different possibilities that ecological constructions may offer. We want to communicate to our client and employees our passion for ecological solutions, which in our mind are not at a significant additional cost.
3. Core business
Our core business will be the construction and supervision of ecological houses. We will start our business in France in a region where the market for green houses is already active. We are a knowledge based company; we intend to be on top of all green technologies proven to be applicable to building construction and to take off all the hassle of regulatory requirements, standards of ecological construction, tax reduction request. People willing to go for ecological solutions are our first client base.
4. Development strategy
Early principles
Our knowledge will come from a detailed study of what the market has to offer, what is worth integrating into our company’s catalogue (indeed a lot of companies give green labels to their product even if it for minor reasons). If we can make a parallel with a similar service, it would with FNAC, which sells electronic devices at higher prices than other retailers but offer an unmatched test and advising service to customers. At the start we will not have the luxury of hiring experts in each domain that we cover, but our team will include an architect, for the rest we rely on our skills and passion to get inside the company the needed expertise.
First phase of development
In a first phase we will try to partner with other local architects, we do this to diversify the house designs that we design to better match customer’s taste and allow for growth. When we start the architect of our team will design the houses but as we get more customers we will outsource some part of the work. We will also try to get long standing agreements with equipment sellers of the region. We will propose in a first to play their sales force under the condition of reduced prices when selling through us. The marketing in this way will be profitable for both companies as they don’t pay us to do the work but at the same time we get reduced prices and we market our service. If we manage to partner with already well established architects and resellers we can gain from their reputation to make our company known. Here we intend to develop a critical size of client to be sustainable.
Second phase of development
In a second phase, we will move to neighboring regions through partnership in the same manner. We want our brand to be synonym of high quality and trust in the ecological field. To be able to grow ultimately to the nationwide scale we will establish a licensing charter to enable other consulting offices to open in part of the country where we are not yet present.
We are going to base our marketing argument mostly on the green aspect of our houses and solutions, our regulatory and standard knowledge therefore on our advising capabilities. But we do not want to play on the green wave state of mind solely.
We want also to convince our customers of the cost effectiveness of our homes or equipment in terms of heating (thus addressing the surge in oil prices or the cost of electricity) both home and water, on the natural insulation properties of the materials (which are in most cases are more efficient than industrial ones). Moreover our homes provide a healthier environment to our costumers. Not only can we propose to use different materials but we can also give some insight on how to optimize the use of regular ones. We want our customers to feel there home is the first place they want to be in after work, during week-end or when inviting friends. This does not rely green aspects of our constructions but also by recognizing that clever designs already exist but are not yet exploited at there full capacity, for example functional kitchens where you are at ease when cooking and not fighting against the wall cupboard. Open spaces in the living room or tv room so that people feel of not being locked into a tiny box. A lot of other ideas have been proposed by architects and we intend to empower them.
5. Company structure
Client = private individualEcoBuilding Consulting Company
Relationship with partners and suppliers / Project management and monitoring / Sales – Client relationship / Marketing / Research & Development