Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Overview:
Ziimart is currently finishing with the market entry stage and embarking on the
growth stage. We have had a total of three investment cycles over the last two
years and are about to start on our fourth. Currently we have active investment
units in cereals produce and we are piloting and planning to expand to include
investment options in piggery and poultry. With the cereals investment options
we have been able to take on 10 investors and these want to reinvest and have
other potential investors that also wish to invest with us. Given this growing
interest in our investment platform we have embarked on expanding the
platform, investment options, capacity to take on investments and investors.
Vision Statement:
Our Vision is to grow Uganda and Africa into the food basket of the world with
Ziimart as the top agricultural produce supply and investment company in the
world.
Mission statement:
Our Mission is to commercialise agriculture in Uganda all of Africa by providing
an investment vehicle for people who want to invest in agriculture to invest in
the agricultural value chain.
Objectives:
Ziimart provides the urban working class an effortless, quick, profitable and safe
way to invest in agriculture and while they invest with Ziimart they are
enhancing small holder economies.
2. The Service:
The Ziimart is commercializing agriculture by organizing farmers into
investments where the urban working class can invest and have their
investments monitored and supervised by agricultural experts which will
reduce their risk and increase their profit margins while providing employment
and land rental income to the small holder farmers.
We firstly run pilots of the investments to establish the cost of the investment
which includes all the operational cost for the investment from start to finish.
This is in turn listed on the platform as the cost for the investment and the
investor is able to invest by logging into the platform and selecting and
investment paying for it, Ziimart does the investing, supervises the production
process and sales the produce on their behalf.
On the sale of produce from the investments, we charge a 20% commission
on the profit paid to the investor at maturity of the investment and 10% of the
commission is reinvested in training and facilitating farmers to grow their
farms to commercially invest-able farms. The farmers are ultimately listed as
investment options and receive investment capital from our pool of investors
on the platform.
By investing in the farmers, Ziimart is making use of the growing middle class
in Uganda while stimulating small holder economies.
4. Competition
Direct Competition
Our major direct competition is small. Currently there no companies in
Uganda offering agricultural investing and hence people have resorted to
telephone farming. Telephone farming is when someone does farming by
making phone calls to give instructions and sending the money over
telephone to the people doing the farming. This has mostly been done by our
core target market, the people who are very eager to invest in agriculture and
will do everything to ensure they invest in agriculture.
Telephone farming has however proved to be very unsuccessful as most have
registered many losses and have had a very high supervision cost.
Indirect Competition
The indirect competition is our major most significant type of competition as it
consists big already established companies. These include: investment funds,
securities and stock brokers. These have already existing structures and a track
record that spans years. This instils trust in their potential and existing
customers. We and our competitors are focusing on the same core target
market the working class 25-40 year olds and given Uganda’s youthful
population there many other international companies that are setting their sights
on opening in Uganda. The only deterrent for these companies is the high set
up cost and government minimum capital requirement. The down side to these
companies is not only the high cost to buy the investment options (USD
1000),with lower returns on investment (30%) but also the Return on investment
time which is in a few cases is one year but in most its 3-5 years. Ziimart how
ever has short Return on investment times with most investments giving returns
in 2-6 months and our investment start from as low as $300 with a return on
investment ranging between (10-80%) which makes them very accessible.
However as a way of providing insurance to our investors’ money on top of the
insuring to all the investments we will invest money with the already established
funds annually to further ensure at worst case scenario our investors recover
their invested amount.
5. SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Our short investment maturity time (2-6 months)
The high return on investment (10- 80%)
Reinvestment of 10% of our profit in the farmers
Our short investment maturity time and high return on investment is
going to be at the fore front of our marketing message. We need our
target customers to know they can get high returns in a short period and
see the people (existing investors) that have done it. Our reinvestment
in the farmer is going to enable us improve the quality and the number
of investment options we offer on the platform. This will ensure we have
the capacity to take on more investors as they join the platform, the
farmers that associate with Ziimart will have an improved livelihood and
greater yields which will attract more farmers and will attract more
investors when they know their investment in Ziimart improves
someone’s life.
Weakness
We are a new product with low market testing
We have a weak brand at the moment.
We have a small marketing force.
For every investment that we setup before we roll out the investment we
carry out a pilot which enables us to establish any risks associated with
the investment so we can solve it in advance. We are also going to
provide agricultural insurance with in our respective investments to
ensure the capital from our investors is protected. We are going to
rebuild our website into a state of the art site that is user friendly which
will better our investors’ experience and make it easy for them to show
others how the investment works. As part of our marketing plan we are
going to ensure investors have a very good experience with our platform
so they can recommend the platform to others. We will also make use of
social media to share our investors stories and the impact of our work
on the farmers all this to grow our market share while keeping the
marketing budget low.
Opportunities
Huge desire for people to invest in agriculture
Government and international support for agriculture
Large market for agricultural products.
We are going to make the new rebuilt website so simple and user friendly
so that anyone who hears about Ziimart and decides to invest can do it
from the website with ease. This will enable us recruit the large number
of people with a desire to invest in agriculture. We are going to keep the
different government and funding agencies abreast of the work that we
are doing with the small holder farmers and the impact we are creating.
This will put us at the forefront of receiving the support designated for
agricultural enhancement. We are also going to ensure our packing and
delivery is great quality to ensure that we maintain and grow the
customers for our agricultural produce. Our marketing team is not only
going to seek investors but also seek customers for our agricultural
produce.
Threats
Few barriers to entry into the market
Agricultural losses due to weather / pests and diseases
Limited capital to expand fast enough for emerging demand.
Since there few barriers to entry we will ensure that every investor we get has
a good experience with us and hence we retain them to invest more and invite
other investors this will enable us gain a big market share and reduce the
competition. We also plan to insure all our investments and have some capital
invested in other investments as a secondary insurance for our investors to
ensure them don’t loss invested capital.
We also plan to keep the investment units that Ziimart will own in the pilot stages
of any project to keep going and the profit from them will be used to expand into
other areas and enable us set up the infrastructure to take on more investors.
6. Operations Plan
Rebuilding the web platform,
The first step is going to be rebuild our web platform to grow from one that just
lists the investments to one where the investors can have and account on the
website to view, select, pay for and follow up their investments in real time. We
plan that this will be done in the first quarter of the first year.
Piloting:
Before we take on and list any investment or farmer, we carry out a pilot
agricultural production with them. For the Investment the goal of the pilot is to
establish the cost for the investment, inputs requirements, quality of inputs,
items to package per investment unit, the price to change per investment unit
and the projection of return on investment. For the farmer the pilot period is
study his strengths and find out if he is a fit for Ziimart.
Investment set up; The structures for the investment successful execution
are setup this includes farm structures and systems (management, records,
supervisory).
Listing: Here the investment options are listed on the Ziimart web platform for
the investors to select the options and number of investment units they would
like to invest in. The platform contains the details of the investment like how
much is contained in each investment unit, the projected return per unit of
investment and details on activities that are going to be involved in the
investment. The listing per investment in give a time window after which it
closes new options are listed,
Investing and Follow up : The investor is able to create and account on the
Ziimart web platform from which he is able to invest money with Ziimart,
receive updates(weekly picture and text updates) to follow up on the
investment and to receive the returns from the various investments.
Farming: After the close of the investment window the actual farming
commences. The labourers on the farm carry out the daily operations of the
farm under the supervision of the farm manager. We have agricultural experts
who supervise and these usually visit the farm weekly or twice a week to
ensure all operations are going well. During the farming the investor is given
continuous updates on the investment in picture, video and text.
Sell of produce: At the maturity of the investment the produce from the
investment is harvested packed and sold.
7. Marketing Plan
TARGET MARKET
Our target market for the start are urban working class people who are a total
of 10 million people of the total 19 million working population in Uganda.
(Source; UBOS- UGANDA NATIONAL HOUSEHOLD SURVEY 2016/17). In
particular we are targeting people with access to internet in the 25-40 years
age bracket. We plan to grow to include the other 9 million in informal
employment. The working population is growing at a rate of 3% per annum.
Our secondary target market the people retiring from the formal employment
and have pension or retirement accounts. These we are targeting people 60
years and above which according to Uganda Retirements Benefits Regulatory
Authority they are a total of 2million people and pension sector report had the
pension sector valued at Uganda shillings 6.5 trillion and rising at an average
of 10% annually.
MARKETING STRATEGY
Our marketing strategy for marketing is focusing on three stages:
The investors; we will start by reaching out to people we know, colleagues,
friends and family who we know are already interested in investing in
agriculture. We share promotion videos with the potential investors to explain
to them about how they can invest and profit from the platform. Our goal with
this is to give the investors a good experience on the platform so they can invite
other people to invest on the platform. To encourage this we will have
commissions paid to those that invite others that actually end up investing with
us.
Social Media; with the successful investment stories and impact that our
investments will have on the farmers in the areas where our investments are
running. We will share our promotional and investment explanation videos on
our social media platform. This will help us reach and recruit more investors
onto the platform. This will also focus on people that have an interest in
agriculture.
Farm visit; these are built into the investments to enable investors follow up on
their investments but we plan to use these to attract people that don’t
understand what happens in agriculture. During farm visits the investors will be
encouraged to bring others that are not invested on the platform. When these
people appreciate what happens in agriculture and at Ziimart they will invest
with us.
8. Management
(i) Managing Director
Functions
In charge of planning and strategy development
Oversight on all the activities of Ziimart
Sourcing for funding for the Ziimart projects and ideas
Will also serve as Human Resource
Qualification
Business administration degree
Agribusiness degree
Qualification
9. Financial Plan
Key Assumptions
(i) Investment units cost averagely Ush 1,000,000 and have a projected
profit of Ush500,000 hence commission is Ush 100,000
(ii) The commission of Ush 100,000 is what is quoted as the Investment Unit
product price.
(iii) All operational costs for the investment will be charged with in the cost
of the investment.
(iv) For the pilot units which are to be retained by Ziimart and are product 2
quoted is the projected average selling price.
(v) Even when we put a provision for land and vehicle we will not buy them
until the 5th year
Cost Estimations & Projections
Direct costs
Raw material 6,600,000.00 7,920,000.00 10,929,600.00
Direct labor 2,400,000.00 2,880,000.00 3,974,400.00
Farm overheads* 5,000,000.00 6,000,000.00 8,280,000.00
Inbound transport 1,000,000.00 1,200,000.00 1,656,000.00
Fixed costs
Salaries and Wages 3,080,000.00 3,388,000.00 5,566,000.00
Rent 7,200,000.00 7,200,000.00 7,200,000.00
Utilities 6,000,000.00 6,300,000.00 6,615,000.00
Marketing/Advertisement 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00
Administrative* 4,000,000.00 4,800,000.00 5,280,000.00
Maintenance 1,200,000.00 1,200,000.00 1,260,000.00
Insurance 4,000,000.00 4,480,000.00 5,152,000.00
Transport 2,400,000.00 2,712,000.00 3,254,400.00
Subscription/Licenses 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00 1,000,000.00
Financing
A. Required Start-up capital
AMOUNT
ITEM (ush) DESCRIPTION
37,596,000.00
Revenue Projections
We are to have two sources of Revenue
A. Commissions from Investment units: To invest on our platform investors
buy investment units and the maturity of the investment we sell the
produce and charge the investor a commission 20% on the profit.
Assumption: Average 20% 0f the profit is Ush 100,000
B. The other source is pilot unit; before we list an investment we carry out a
pilot to establish the cost, risk and other variables of the investment.
However the units invest invested in during the pilot for every investment
are retained by Ziimart to generate revenue for infrastructural expansion.
NOTE; These provide income as profit not as commission
Investment
units 819 100,000 81,900,000 942 100,000 94,200,000 1,168 100,000 116,800,000
Pilot Units 120 500,000 60,000,000 122 500,000 61,000,000 128 500,000 64,000,000
Revenue
Operating Activities
Investing Activities
Financing Activities
Liabilities and
Equity
Liabilities
3,500,000
3,000,000
2,500,000
2,000,000
1,500,000
1,000,000
500,000
-
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
Year 10
Revenue Expenses Net income
3500000
3000000
2500000
2000000
1500000
1000000
500000
0
Year 10
Year 0
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Year 4
Year 5
Year 6
Year 7
Year 8
Year 9
-500000