| So, what is a Business Plan? |
Let us first define what is a Business Plan. You will hear this
term quiet often in your office or in the bank if you are applying
for a loan. The business plan is a coin that is used to describe:
Business strategy
Marketing strategy
Strategic business planning
Sales planning
So, what is important really is what is the content of the
business plan.
You will need a business plan to start a new line of business or
business in general. You would use this plan to describe what
needs to be done to address the financials of the product or
project, challenges, how to tackle them, the opportunities, and
the final goal of the project whether its sales to just
announcing the product to the public in the case of non profit
organizations.
Please note that a Marketing plan is bit different to the
business plan described above. By a marketing plan, we refer
to the plan that details the sales of a product or products, the
market segment it is supposed to sell to, who will sell it, how
much is the price.
A sales plan could be a subset of a marketing plan in which you
state who will sell (the channel), when, how much will be sold
(quota). Depending on the organization, the sales plan could be
the marketing plan or even the business plan if the business is
to sell more or less.
The above should convince you that you can your plan
according to what it contains. Do get stuck too much on the coin
or name of the plan, focus on the content to suit your needs
and goals of the plan.
The business plan, sales plan, or marketing plan should have
one goal which is to explain the Return on Investment or ROI.
The investment is the money of the share holders or owners of
the company that was invested to start the business. This
investment was meant to generate more money. Part of the
profit or revenue usually becomes re-investment by itself, and
the other part becomes profit for the entity owners or investors
or shareholders.
Below is a business plan structure or content. It should be used
as a guide rather than a rigid format that you have to comply
with. Each of the items below are listed on a separate page or
pages.
Title: Mention the name of the plan, the date it was written, the
author, the company name and the version number.
Control: In this page, have a table that has three columns:
Version, changes made, who made them. This helps you control
the progress of the business plan and who is progressing it.
Table of Content: Lists all the headings, tables, references,
appendixes
Introduction: Outlines the purpose of the plan, who should read
it, and how to send the feedback.
Executive summary: This is usually the most useful to any
executive in an entity because it means that one page is ready
that summarizes a business plan that could span 30-200 pages.
Main body of the business plan: sections and headings as
required.
Reference and sources: this should preserve any copyright
issues by listing where you got your material in the main body if
you are not the author.
Appendices: usually used to list memos, spreadsheets,
photocopy of contracts ...etc.
Return to the Business Articles from the Business Plan page
term quiet often in your office or in the bank if you are applying
for a loan. The business plan is a coin that is used to describe:
Business strategy
Marketing strategy
Strategic business planning
Sales planning
So, what is important really is what is the content of the
business plan.
You will need a business plan to start a new line of business or
business in general. You would use this plan to describe what
needs to be done to address the financials of the product or
project, challenges, how to tackle them, the opportunities, and
the final goal of the project whether its sales to just
announcing the product to the public in the case of non profit
organizations.
Please note that a Marketing plan is bit different to the
business plan described above. By a marketing plan, we refer
to the plan that details the sales of a product or products, the
market segment it is supposed to sell to, who will sell it, how
much is the price.
A sales plan could be a subset of a marketing plan in which you
state who will sell (the channel), when, how much will be sold
(quota). Depending on the organization, the sales plan could be
the marketing plan or even the business plan if the business is
to sell more or less.
The above should convince you that you can your plan
according to what it contains. Do get stuck too much on the coin
or name of the plan, focus on the content to suit your needs
and goals of the plan.
The business plan, sales plan, or marketing plan should have
one goal which is to explain the Return on Investment or ROI.
The investment is the money of the share holders or owners of
the company that was invested to start the business. This
investment was meant to generate more money. Part of the
profit or revenue usually becomes re-investment by itself, and
the other part becomes profit for the entity owners or investors
or shareholders.
Below is a business plan structure or content. It should be used
as a guide rather than a rigid format that you have to comply
with. Each of the items below are listed on a separate page or
pages.
Title: Mention the name of the plan, the date it was written, the
author, the company name and the version number.
Control: In this page, have a table that has three columns:
Version, changes made, who made them. This helps you control
the progress of the business plan and who is progressing it.
Table of Content: Lists all the headings, tables, references,
appendixes
Introduction: Outlines the purpose of the plan, who should read
it, and how to send the feedback.
Executive summary: This is usually the most useful to any
executive in an entity because it means that one page is ready
that summarizes a business plan that could span 30-200 pages.
Main body of the business plan: sections and headings as
required.
Reference and sources: this should preserve any copyright
issues by listing where you got your material in the main body if
you are not the author.
Appendices: usually used to list memos, spreadsheets,
photocopy of contracts ...etc.
Return to the Business Articles from the Business Plan page
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