Business Plan
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A Business Plan is a formal plan for a business organizations.
- Context:
- It can include a Marketing Section (with marketing strategy and marketing plan), Sales Section (with sales strategy and sales plan), a Product Section (with product strategy and product plan), ...
- It can range from being a Formal Business Plan to being an Informal Business Plan.
- …
- Example(s):
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- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Business Model, Plan, Business Strategy, Product Roadmap, Attainable Goal.
References
2015
- (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/business_plan Retrieved:2015-7-7.
- A business plan is a formal statement of business goals, reasons they are attainable, and plans for reaching them. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
Business plans may target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, taxpayer, or larger community. When the existing business is to assume a major change or when planning a new venture, a 3 to 5 year business plan is required, since investors will look for their annual return in that timeframe.
- A business plan is a formal statement of business goals, reasons they are attainable, and plans for reaching them. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.
2014
- https://www.sba.gov/starting-business/write-your-business-plan
- QUOTE: A business plan is an essential roadmap for business success. This living document generally projects 3-5 years ahead and outlines the route a company intends to take to grow revenues.
- Executive Summary: Your executive summary is a snapshot of your business plan as a whole and touches on your company profile and goals. Read these tips about what to include.
- Company Description: Your company description provides information on what you do, what differentiates your business from others, and the markets your business serves.
- Market Analysis: Before launching your business, it is essential for you to research your business industry, market and competitors.
- Organization & Management: Every business is structured differently. Find out the best organization and management structure for your business.
- Service or Product Line: What do you sell? How does it benefit your customers? What is the product lifecycle? Get tips on how to tell the story about your product or service.
- Marketing & Sales: How do you plan to market your business? What is your sales strategy? Read more about how to include this information in your plan.
- Funding Request: If you are seeking funding for your business, find out about the necessary information you should include in your plan.
- Financial Projections: If you need funding, providing financial projections to back up your request is critical. Find out what information you need to include in your financial projections for your small business.
- Appendix: An appendix is optional, but a useful place to include information such as resumes, permits and leases. Find additional information you should include in your appendix
- QUOTE: A business plan is an essential roadmap for business success. This living document generally projects 3-5 years ahead and outlines the route a company intends to take to grow revenues.
- http://www.forbes.com/sites/davelavinsky/2014/01/30/how-to-write-a-business-plan
- QUOTE: Your business plan is essentially your answers to a comprehensive list of questions. The first and most important question is this: where do you want your business to go? Stated differently, what do you want your business to look like in three, five or even 10 or more years? What level of revenues and profits do you have at that time? How many employees? How many locations? And so on.
Likewise, your business plan should answer these questions for a shorter time period, particularly one year. That is, what are your business’ goals for the current year, and what must you accomplish to make the year a success.
In answering these big business planning questions, you naturally have to answer questions pertaining to each of the core business plan sections as follows:
- Company Analysis: what products and/or services do you offer now and/or what will you develop and offer in the future?
- Industry Analysis: how big is/are your market(s) and how are they changing? What trends are affecting them and do these trends bode well for your future success?
- [[Competitive Analysis: who are your competitors and what are each of their key strengths and weaknesses? In what areas will you have or gain competitive advantage? How?
- Customer Analysis: who are your target customers? What are their demographic and/or psychographic profiles? What are their needs?
- Marketing Plan: how will your reach your target customers? What promotional tactics and marketing channels will you use? How will you price your products and/or services? What brand positioning do you desire for each?
- Management Team: who comprises your current team and what key hires must you make in order to execute on the opportunity in front of you. Will you build a Board of Advisors or Directors, and if so, who will you seek?
- Operations Plan: what is your action plan? What are the milestones you must accomplish to go from where you are now to where you want to be at year’s end? At the end of five years?
- Financial Plan: how much external funding (if applicable) do you need to build your company? In what areas will these funds be invested? What are your projected revenues and profits over the next one to five years? What assets must you acquire?
- QUOTE: Your business plan is essentially your answers to a comprehensive list of questions. The first and most important question is this: where do you want your business to go? Stated differently, what do you want your business to look like in three, five or even 10 or more years? What level of revenues and profits do you have at that time? How many employees? How many locations? And so on.