Strategic Business Planning Article
An Overview Of Writing a Business Plan
A business plan is something very essential when it comes to starting up a business. Among all the plans you can make, one of the most important ones would be the financial statement, beside all other equally important ones such as mission statement, company name, organization chart and plan, competition evaluation, market analysis, company goals, and many more.
However this financial part only comes at the end of your business planning normally, because after all the evaluation and analysis you have done, you will come to realize how marketable your business idea is, and the possibility of investors committing into your business.
A financial statement is very simple, but it necessarily contains every element related to the business. Among the elements, the most important one would be the income statement, the cash flow projection, and the balance sheet. These will basically show you the inflow and outflow of money through your business. An optional part of the statement would be to explain or analyze all these. In this statement also, you have to put in expenses the will occur. There are basically two different types, which are start-up expenses and operating expenses.
Start up costs refer to the money that you pay for your business registration, licensing, permits, and might also include starting inventory, operating equipment costs, and rent or property purchase deposits.
Operational costs on the other hand refers to expenses such as employee salaries and benefits, utility and service payments, rent or mortgage payments, maintenance payments, and cost of raw materials and office supplies. Unlike start up expenses, this payment section will increase rapidly as your needs of business change. In that case, calculate the expenses and put down a statement on a long term basis, usually around 3 to 5 years’ time.
Else than the ones above, you also need to state the scope of the industry your business will be a part of, and the business’ position in the particular industry. You will need to estimate an amount of sales within your industry in the past 2 years, as well as the size of the industry, which grows day by day. Besides that, you will also need to put down the national and economic trends that will affect the industry. Also, by giving an outlook of the industry, basically you would be determining the rate of your success in the industry.
After the basic financial statement, let’s look at something else. Your business plan is not complete without listing down the demographics of your potential buyers. You would have to foresee the different groups of people who will contribute to your business, in the sense of age, sex, lifestyle, income level, and education. A step future, you will also need to explain on the living of these groups of people, and how their time spending habit can affect your business. If you are selling something that is related to equipments that they have, then you would have to find out thoroughly about this.
Take for example; you are selling memory cards for digital cameras. In such a case, you will have to perform a simple analysis to find out the amount of people owning the cameras. You can do this by several methods, such as conducting surveys, viewing past market surveys reports and estimating, and so on. When you do this survey or research, you will have a clear-cut picture as well as proof of your business’s success. If you’re looking for further funds in your business, this would be very handy. Also, you and your investors can now confidently be assured of your income return after looking at this report. Remember, your investors committed themselves because they believed in you!
After looking at the buyers, now you shall begin to look at your enemies, that is your competition in the market. You should basically include a thorough evaluation of your competition in the industry, which will help you through the barriers of starting up and running the business. For that, you have put down your ways of promoting and advertising your products or services. A detailed explanation of the products and services would be really good as well.
Last but not least, don’t forget your operation and management goals. A good business and company must always have a very good foundation, which starts from the management. A layout of the business structure organization should be included, besides other important company details such as legal aspects of the business, physical location and accessibility, and others. If you think you have more things to put in to make sure your business sells, feel free to do it!
Nonetheless nobody expects you to come out with a superb business plans. If you think you can’t, just seek for professional advice. You can hire some professional to do it for you, or you can seek those non-profit organizations that help booming new businesses. It would be better if you have any acquaintances or associates who are well versed in the business field, and help you come up with a real good business plan.
