The Market:

UnblockAfrica is a company that seeks to provide banking services to South Africans citizens that up to now have been unbanked. The aim is to offer a fintech technology and banking facilities to ordinary people. By using the App the people will be able to do money transfers, make bill payments, make credit Transactions and deposits and all of this can be checked on the App using the internet on a Smartphone and without transaction any fees!

In developing a business model, forecasting of demand and evaluation of the expected demand is crucial, because the success of the proposed business model depends largely on the expected demand. The main operation of the proposed business is banking activities. Hence, customers opening account with them would constitute the market share for them. In respect to the market, we can elucidate a robust potential market that can benefit around 54% of the population. As well as this, as a company, the product can produce significant profits that can increase dramatically from SAR 138,422 in the first year to SAR 54,677,143 in year five.

In respect of the weakness Market-wise, the business will have to overcome the reluctance to change from the population. Considering this is a new service for a community who has been deprived of banking services for such a long time it won’t be easy to place directly on the market.

Many will be reluctant to bank through an App, and it will take time until the potential customer will accommodate to the benefits of the banking through the internet. Hence, initially it might become difficult for the proposed business to gain interest of the customers and to reach out to the customers, but later on, with the increase in awareness of benefits and ease of doing banking they can gain a significant market share in the banking industry.

Team:

The venture has a remarkable team who possess the skill, knowledge and expertise that can make the business viable and successful.

The key players in the team are:

1.    Lerato Dube: a business literate who has the expertise in building the company and who is capable of envisaging the future of a company. Ms Lerato was able to build the business model and financial projections.

2.    Jaco Brink: Mr Jaco is the brain of the business and capable of developing the App, due to his knowledge and expertise in the banking system. The company knows that the App has to be easy to access by every potential customer.

3.    Janna Vermeulen: Janna is an expert in Fintech technology and has a PhD in this subject. She is confident about the potential of a blockchain technology application.

The team was built strategically to address the potential issues of the product and the market. Therefore, combination of people from diverse fields can become the strength for the company to formulate their business model and strategies and to build such a marketing strategy which will help them to achieve the desired demand for their services thereby achieving their overall business objectives.

On the other hand, the weakness of the team is that although they are having expertise in different and required areas for the business, they do not have any practical and past experience. Hence, it might be a challenging role for them to play in a new start up with their knowledge and with an aim of making the business successful.

Lastly, it can be commented that, a good combination of individuals in the tam can lead the business towards success.

The Business Model

The aim of the proposed business is to provide banking services to the citizens of the South Africa who are still unable to access banking services. The business model is based on the internet banking and mobile banking activities through a single mobile application or internet. They can avail all types of banking services through that mobile application.

As all the operations will be completely internet based and will be made through the mobile application the main objective of the business will be to promote their mobile application in various social networking sites and through other advertising channels. To promote such a banking business, they have to arrange for necessary licences and permissions from the central bank of the country as well as the authority governing and monitoring the financial transactions and business in the country.

The business will be operated from its centralised office and through various branches across the country to serve their customers and to resolve their issues. Hence, if the expected demand for their services can be achieved than the business will be successful in achieving their objectives and making significant profit.

The success of the business depends on the number of customers reached and number of potential customers converted into the actual customers and retained with the company. Hence, not only the marketing aspect of the venture should be efficient, also the customer support and customer relationship management must be efficient to retain the customers and increase the customer conversion rate.

Therefore, the combination and collaboration of each and every team members and departments of the company is important and necessary for achieving he objectives of the business and to make the venture successful.