Valentino Chocolates investment plan

Rationale

Valentino chocolates, which are made in Turin, are luxury products with a unique taste. They have won many international awards and so have expanded rapidly over the past 10 years. The fact file about the company: 300 employees, 75 company-owned shops and a turnover of 90 million and it’s all about this company. Nevertheless, in the last 2 years, sales growth has slowed down and costs have risen. This has caused a fall in profits.

Objectives

To solve our current problems and enable Valentino to become a competitive international business, we propose an investment of €1,5 million.

Strategy and implementation

The Board of Directors has agreed the following investment plan:

-Firstly, we must finance a market survey and research trips to the US. As the US is a large market where we can provoke create big demand for our products, we must consider it as a potential target market. These trips will let us assess the market potential for Valentino products and contact some influential trade agents.

-The second area we must pay attention to is investing in an existing group of cafes. Being a partner in cafes which sell and promote Valentino chocolates, we will be able to widen the range of our products there and increase our proposal in general market share.

- It is indispensable essential to buy a new fleet of cars to increase motivation of the sales staff, because it plays a great role in the whole process of manufacturing the company’s expansion. .

- We must consider setting up online sales. In such way we will be able to widen our customer base and increase sales and profits, making us more competitive.

Cost

Finance a market survey and research trips to the US-$200,000

Invest in an existing group of cafes-$500,000

Set up online sales-$300,000

Buy a new fleet of cars-$500,000

Timeline

Market survey to the US: process to be completed by July

Invest in cafes: to be completed in 2 months’ time

Online sales: website up and running by June

New fleet of cars: to be done completed in a month’s time