| 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
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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