Business Plan Template
A business plan is any plan that works for a business to look ahead, allocate resources, focus on key points, and prepare for problems and opportunities. Business existed long before computers, spreadsheets, and detailed projections. So did business plans. Unfortunately, people think of business plans first for starting a new business or applying for business loans. They are also vital for running a business, whether or not the business needs new loans or new investments. Businesses need plans to optimize growth and development according to plans and priorities.What is a Start-up Plan?
A very simple start-up plan is a barebones plan that includes a summary, mission statement, keys to success, market analysis, and break-even analysis. This kind of plan is good for deciding whether or not to proceed with an idea or venture, to tell if there is a business worth pursuing; but it is not enough to run a business with. By the way, we have a site where you can test this quick plan for yourself, free.
Is There a Standard Business Plan?
A normal business plan, that follows the advice of business experts, includes a standard set of elements. Plan formats and outlines vary, but generally, a plan will include standard components such as descriptions of company, product or service, market, forecasts, management team, and financial analysis. Your plan depends on your specific situation. If you’re developing a plan for internal use only, not for sending out to banks or investors, you may not need to include all the background details that you already know. Description of the management team is very important for investors, while financial history is most important for banks. Make your plan match its business purpose.
What is Most Important in a Plan?
What’s most important in a plan? It depends on the case, but usually it’s the cash flow analysis and specific implementation details. • Cash flow because it is both vital to a company and hard to follow. Cash is usually misunderstood as profits, and they are different. Profits don’t guarantee cash in the bank. Lots of profitable companies go under because of lack of cash. It just isn’t intuitive.
• Implementation details because that’s what makes things happen. Your brilliant strategies and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, and lots of following up and tracking of results. Business plans are really about getting results, improving your company.
Can you Suggest a Standard Outline?
There are predictable contents of a standard business plan. For example, a business plan normally starts with an Executive Summary, which should be short and interesting. People almost always expect to see sections covering the Company, the Market, the Product, the Management Team, Strategy, Implementation and Financial Analysis. If you have the main components, the order doesn’t matter that much, but here’s the order I suggest.
1. Executive Summary: Write this last. It’s just a page or two of highlights.
2. Company Description: Legal establishment, history, start-up plans, etc.
3. Product or Service: Describe what you’re selling. Focus on customer benefits.
4. Market Analysis: You need to know your market, customer needs, where they are, how to reach them, etc.
5. Strategy and Implementation: Be specific. Include management responsibilities with dates and budgets. Make sure you can track results.
6. Management Team: Describe the organization and the key management team members.
7. Financial Analysis: Make sure to include at the very least your projected Profit and Loss and Cash Flow tables.
I don’t recommend developing the plan in the same order you present it as a finished document. For example, although the Executive Summary obviously comes as the first section of a business plan, I recommend writing it after everything else is done. It will appear first, but you write it last.
This book, therefore, discusses the business plan in the order you develop a plan, rather than the order of the document outline.
Standard Tables and Charts
There are also some business tables and charts that are normally expected in a standard business plan.
Cash flow is the single most important numerical analysis in a plan, and should never be missing. Most plans will also have Sales Forecast and Profit and Loss statements. I believe they should also have separate Personnel listings, projected Balance sheet, projected Business Ratios, and Market Analysis tables.
I also believe that every plan should include bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers.
The following table includes a complete standard business plan outline. It explains in detail where the tables, charts, and topics fall in a standard outline and where you can find the related discussions in this book.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments
(
Atom
)
Very significant Information for us, I have think the representation of this Information is actually superb one. This is my first visit to your site. Business development strategy
ReplyDelete