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 There are many important steps to consider when developing a
business plan for your company, but the first step is to
fully understand the main uses of a business-plan. The four
main uses of a business-plan are as follows:
* A Business Plan is a written document that you can use in
your search for external financing. * A Business Plan is a
tactical planning and management tool for your business. * A
Business Plan is a document showing the capacity of your
team to control and manage all the aspects of the company. *
A Business Plan brings you new ideas to refine your project
by checking and estimating the induced hypothesis.
The necessity of Business Plans
The drafting or update of your business-plan is essential to
the good management of your company. It can be used when
searching for a business partner, for obtaining external
financing, and for defining some stages of the development
of your company, such as:
* The creation of your company. * The launching of a new
product. * The establishment in a new market. * The
transfer, buy-out, or the structural development of your
company.
Should you call in a consultant or write the Business Plan
by yourself?
You should be the main (if not single) author of your
business-plan, because the Business Plan is, so to speak,
your own "baby", it is a reflection of your personality; it
is by this means that your investors will discover the
person with whom they collaborate.
But your project may be too important and you may want to
call in a consultant for help and consultation. Even so, you
should stay in control of its development!
Tips for developing a quality business-plan.
1. To be credible, a business-plan must be coherent and each
parameter in the Business Plan must be based on facts.
2. There are many methods to build Business Plans, but very
few can help you correctly carry out reliable financial
projections based on a preliminary commercial engineering
and market study.
Indeed, one frequent mistake when building Business Plan's
is to first define the target in terms of market share, and
then try to "find" the number of customers necessary to fill
these objectives! This process should be reversed.
3. In addition, one essential point in a Business Plan is to
define concrete policies and measures. This definition aims
to gain a reasonable number of customers, based on a
sufficient knowledge of the market. The quantitative
estimate of this gain must be calculated on realistic
monthly and annual increase rates. A well-founded pricing
policy then makes it possible to estimate the sales turnover
in the years ahead.
The calculation of the costs of the planned actions in your
Business Plan are essential and make overall financial
projections possible. In short, financial forecasts -
including those related to the financing of the project -
must be elaborated from the basic elements of the project.
They should be proceeded by a commercial engineering study
which projects a realistic estimate of sales.
4. In a Business Plan, the marketing plans as well as the
financial forecasts require a basic understanding of how
these important elements are calculated. You can use good
software - some of which is free - to faciliate the
development of your Business Plan.
5. The last point and certainly not the least significant: A
Business Plan is never ended "once and for all". A regular
follow-up and comparison between the theoretical Business
Plan and the reality of its execution are essential. You can
then modify your Business Plan and adapt it to improve
performance and achieve your goals.
Go to www.businessplansguide.co.za for more information.
About the author:
About the Author: This article was published by Hans
Hasselfors from http://www.SubmitYourN ewArticle.com. Visit
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Written By: Hans Hasselfors
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