Maternity Clothing Business Plan

Sandy Malone is the leader of the organization. Sandy received her undergraduate degree in sociology from Case Western Reserve. After graduation Sandy began to work for the Saks Fifth Avenue Corporation. Initially, Sandy was on the sales floor but she quickly moved up in the organization. After four years Sandy was one of the main buyers for the chain, in charge of procurement of inventory valued at $55 million.

After three years in this position Sandy had the first of three children. What struck Sandy as being odd was how difficult is was to get nice maternity clothes and the fact that although the mother and child are intertwined, she was forced to go to two different stores when she wanted to get something for herself and for the upcoming child. This phenomenon was something that she was aware of throughout the pregnancy of all three children. While she saw a business opportunity after her first child, she was unable to act upon it since she was dedicating her time to raising the children. After the second child Sandy began taking several management courses thinking that once her children were older, she wanted to operate her own business, capitalizing on this market opportunity. By the time that the third child was two years old Sandy was seriously considering opening her own business. She recognized that it would occupy significant amount of her time initially, but that over time she would be able to build it into a thriving business.

6.1 Personnel Plan

Malone’s Maternity has identified the following people or positions that will be needed to smoothly operate the business:

• Sandy – As the owner, she will have a wide range of responsibilities including: purchasing, training and hiring, customer service, some accounting, and whatever else may come up.
• Sales staff – Malone’s Maternity will employ several sales staff to help assist customers.
• Manager – By year two Malone’s Maternity will hire a part-time manager to assist Sandy with operational responsibilities.
• Bookkeeper – This person will perform accounts payable and receivable functions.