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MARKHAM HYDRAULICS

Venture Practicum Final Report

12/4/2013

By Carmen Visconti and Lucas Mascarenhas

Executive Summary

Markham Hydraulics is a small hydraulic service business located in Markham, Ontario. It’s

owned and operated by Carmen Visconti and Lucas Mascarenhas. Carmen and Lucas have been

exploring the idea of expansion within their customer base and growing the business to the

next level. In this report, the expansion plans, as well as the trials, tribulations and

opportunities that arose from our actions will be explained.

Carmen and Lucas learned a lot from this project, specifically the next steps that they need to

take to grow the business, including applying for a business loan, acquiring a lease and

financing equipment. Carmen and Lucas forged a lot of key contacts and had success in their

marketing plans, but still have a long way to go to make this a viable full time business.

Table of Contents

Title Page 1

Executive Summary 2

Venture Introduction 4

The Team 5

The Activities 6

The Project 7

What We Learned 8

Feedback from Entrepreneur and/or Team 9

Conclusion 9

GAANT chart 10

Venture Introduction

Markham Hydraulics is a small hydraulic repair service located in Markham, Ontario. We focus

on the repair and service of hydraulic products and equipment, including hydraulic cylinders,

motors, pumps, valves, hydrostatic transmission and much more. We specialize on the repair

and service of hydraulic cylinders. Markham Hydraulics is currently owned and operated by

Lucas Mascarenhas, and has recently brought on Carmen Visconti as his partner.

Markham Hydraulics has a small service business clientele list right now, focusing on customers

that Lucas has personal relationships with. Lucas and Carmen would like to expand the business

further to get our name out there in the hydraulic repair industry, growing our revenue and

making a viable full time opportunity for ourselves when we graduate.

To do so Carmen and Lucas focused heavily on Marketing and forging business contacts. In

doing so they learned a lot about business, and what they will need to do to succeed in the

business world with Markham Hydraulics.

The Team

Carmen Visconti – Carmen Visconti is half of the team, he is a Seneca College business administration student focusing on small business and entrepreneurship. Carmen was brought onto the project to help focus on finances, operations and management of Markham Hydraulics. Carmen already has a business outside of school right now; he is a co-owner at Print-It Roses Inc, a business that focuses on printing customized messages and logos on roses for business event and marketing purposes.

Carmen is in his last year of school currently and is hoping to run Markham Hydraulics and Print-It Roses full time when he graduates, always trying to grow his entrepreneurial spirit and make a name for him in the business world. Carmen’s specialization is in administration, finances and operations

management make him an asset to Markham Hydraulics day-to-day operations.

Lucas Mascarenhas – Lucas Mascarenhas is the second half of the team. Lucas too is a Seneca College business administration student focusing on small business and entrepreneurship. Lucas has a background in technical expertise and a wealth of knowledge regarding the hydraulics industry. Lucas is in charge of the technical side of the business, managing shop operations, and being the project manager for a variety of repair projects. Lucas will use his technical expertise to help the business function day to day.

Lucas is in his last year of school as well, he is hoping to run Markham Hydraulics full time with Carmen when he graduates. Lucas thrives in entrepreneurial settings and hopes to make a name for him in this industry. Lucas and Carmen are actively writing a business plan to obtain financing to start this business when they graduate.

The Activities

The activities of the Venture Practicum Project were mainly advertising and marketing. Focusing on communicating with businesses in industries that we hoped to expand to. Our routine tasks included:

Schedule meetings with prospective clients and leads

Develop business information on companies in the Markham, Northern Scarborough, and Stouffville Area who could potentially use our services. Come up with 10 leads a week.

Work with suppliers on creating routine systems for ordering seals and OEM Replacement Parts; communicate with at least one supplier a week.

Research new tools weekly and develop projection forecasts on how to purchase and finance these tools. Create a report on one piece of core equipment a week.

Our schedule included:

Schedule

Non-class hours-timeline schedule:

Mondays: 6pm-9pm

Wednesdays: 6pm-9pm

Total hours per week: 6 Hours

The Project

Project Purpose: To expand the business and have a larger client base, while maintaining the

same level of quality work.

Scope: The scope of this task includes the industries that were targeted, we decided to focus our attention on a variety of industries, which are applicable and can use our services. These industries include, manufacturing, construction, rent-all, snow removal, trucking and commercial transportation, and aerospace.

Process/Methodology

The process/methodology behind our Gaant chart and setup for this project was that we

wanted to focus on the marketing aspect of the business, forging business relationships and

networking as much as possible. We figured that if we got our name out there we would be

able to succeed in generating service revenue and trying to grow this business into a full time

job. In expanding our base through marketing we learned a lot, specifically that we need

finances to accompany the growth in sales, and need to expand our service base. This includes

offering more services like an in house hose replacement service, as well as getting new

equipment to accommodate larger cylinders.

End Product: A business (Markham Hydraulics) with significantly more business contacts and

regular work, an expanded business that still maintains the highest level of quality in regards to

mechanical repairs.

Appendix-budget/actual and GAANT chart: See Attached GAANT Chart for details.

What We Learned

Carmen and Lucas have learned a lot from this Venture Practicum project. We initially started off this project working on the marketing portion of the business, trying to meet contacts and put our name out there in the business world. We had great success in communicating with companies; we got our name out there and had convinced businesses to use our services. The problems that we encountered were that we could not offer a complete range of services to our customers because we did not have a full shop space and proper equipment. We were limited to sourcing parts and completing small repairs for our customers, but our customers wanted more services available from us, which at this point we can’t provide. This experience showed Carmen and Lucas that they need to write a full business plan, submit it to a bank and apply for funding, to open up a full machine shop and repair space to complete a wider variety of services to assist the marketplace.

An example of what we learned is in the image above. We got an email from a business that we marketed our services to. This business contacted us a few weeks after we advertised to them; they wanted a source and price on an aluminum hydraulic valve block. Carmen and I were able to source the part to a company in Oregon who was bought out by Sauer-Danfoss, and we managed to find a price to purchase a new valve block. The opportunity that we encountered was that we could have offered a repair price to this company, so they wouldn’t have to purchase a new block. The repair price would have been significantly less than the new block purchase price, but we couldn’t offer a repair service because the block required specialized machining to fix the valves, and we cannot offer these services to our customers.

Feedback from Entrepreneur and/or Team

Feedback from Carmen / Lucas

We thought that the project went well; we got our name out in the marketplace and forged a

lot of new relationships with clients that will use our services in the future. We also understand

the scope of our business much better; we know exactly what we need to do to further expand

the business. This includes obtaining financing, leasing a location, and funding our equipment.

We thought the venture practicum project was a great trial for a business, and that Peter

Miller, George and Samuel really assisted with creative feedback in different ways to tackle

problems and examine opportunities.

Conclusion

In conclusion Carmen and Lucas learned a lot about the business world from this Venture

Practicum project. We learned a lot about forging relationships and marketing for small

businesses. We met a lot of key contacts that will assist us for when we take our business to the

next level with a bank loan and a signed lease. Carmen and I also learned from our difficulties,

understanding what we need to do now to take our business to the next level.

Carmen and Lucas are actively working on their business plan, hoping to complete it before

January 1st 2014. The two are also in contact with TD Canada trust working on a financing deal

that will allow them to purchase their additional equipment and lease a space for a year. We

thought that this project was a great learning experience, and through accomplishing our goals

of marketing our business, we understand what it takes to push ourselves in the real world and

start this business off on the right foot.