What is your role?
Susan has taken a look at your operational model for Petopia and has sent you her thoughts and some additional information. You’ll need to consider her response and revisit your research to reconsider the business decisions you made for Petopia. You’ll then need to recommend one or two changes to the Petopia business model that you think would increase its profitability, and justify your recommendations.

Why is this assignment important?
In the beginning of the planning process, you started with a vague business idea and with a financial goal for that business. As you’ve moved through the process, you’ve made a number of strategic decisions to refine that business concept. By building a more detailed model of your business, you’ve been able to assess the viability of your idea.

Frequently, such examination will show that your initial business idea isn’t adequate to reach your financial goals. Does that mean you should throw out your idea and start looking for another? Not necessarily. It could simply mean that it’s time for some careful analysis.

Throughout the business planning process, you’ve uncovered a lot of information about your potential consumers, your competition, and the market landscape. Perhaps this new information reveals some options that might improve your profitability picture. By reconsidering your business strategy, and revisiting your planning decisions, you might be able to positively impact the viability of your original business idea. With strategic improvements, your business might be able to meet your financial expectations.

How will this assignment work?
In this assignment, you’ll:

• Examine how some new information impacts the viability of Petopia.
• Review all the information you have and all of the work you’ve done so far in the course.
• Make one or two recommendations to increase Petopia’s profitability picture and adjust the Petopia operating model to show the impact of these improvements.

What Next: Click What's involved in refining a business concept?