Typical Business Plan Content
Executive Summary
The executive summary is a succinct or concise overview of your business plan.
As this is a summary, it should be written in the first page after your cover page (one page should be sufficient). While the summary must be concise, it is important that it gets the reader's attention. The executive summary should in essence be exciting, enthusiastic, professional, complete and concise. The idea behind the executive summary is to provide the person or organization you are submitting the plan to with an overview that covers all the important aspects of your document without them having to read through your entire business plan which might be anything from twenty to thirty pages, for more information info@bbkbusiness.co.za
Also your executive summary must include the followings:
Having a well set out vision will help you determine the strategy you will use and the strategic relationships that you will develop to drive you towards achieving your business goals and objectives.
The mission statement
The mission is a statement that defines the purpose of your business. It is a statement highlighting the special task your business is destined to perform. It should ideally take into consideration all the stakeholders of your business.
Value and Principles
Values and principles are the qualities or attributes that your business bases its actions on. They are regarded as desirable, important, highly thought of an esteemed. The values and principles constitute the essence of the personality and identity of your business. Values and principles may include the following:
Company Summary
This section of your business plan encompasses describing your business entity. Essentially, it addresses key areas such as who you are and where you operate. This section of your business plan needs to be as interesting as possible. Include as many facts about your business and describe it with a reasonable number of adjectives and nouns.
In the case of an existing business, provide an account of where you have come from, where you are now and where you are going. The contents of your business description should include the name of your business (include the trading name where applicable), the registration number, date registered, contact details and details pertaining to the business owners.
In addition, state the legal form of ownership of your business. When it was formally established or registered? Is it a Close Corporation, Private Company, Public Company, Trust, Not for profit organization, Sole Proprietorship or Partnership.
External Environment Analysis
This section of your business plan involves assessing and analysing the external changes in the industry as well as the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legislative and Ecological or Environmental based changes. This is based on an information gathering process which focuses on the External Environment of your business. The main reason behind analysing the External Environment of your business is to identify opportunities relating to your area of business or core competencies. This will enable you to strategise as to how your business can capitalize on the identified opportunities. An analysis of the External Environment also helps you identify threats that are external to your business. You may not be able to directly change the threats but you might be able to mitigate the identified threats.
The Internal Environment Analysis
The internal environment assessment and analysis is conducted after the external environment analysis. While the external environment analysis seeks to identify opportunities and threats in the external environment, the internal environment analysis seeks to identify the strengths and weakness in your business. Note that it focuses on factors that are internal to your business, some of which can be easily changed or improved upon. The 7's model is particularly useful when identifying internal factors in your business. It looks at the following:
SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis forms part of the strategic planning process or strategic review of a business. It primarily involves scanning the internal environment in light of identifying and understanding the internal Strengths and Weaknesses of a business. This is coupled with a scan of the external environment ? scanning the external environment enables a business to identify and understand the opportunities and threats. It is important to conduct a SWOT analysis for your business plan. The SWOT analysis is a summary of the external and internal environment analysis. You can also consider it to be a corporate appraisal.
Strengths
These are the internal strong points about your business?they primarily include your core skills, competencies and expertise. They reflect the capabilities of your business and provide a good foundation for your business strategy.
Weaknesses
This refers to internal factors that are lacking in your business. Weaknesses need to be comprehensively assessed in order to correct them or strategically turn them into positive strengths.
Opportunities
Opportunities are the likely benefits to your business resulting from changes in the external environment.
Threats
Threats pertain to the possible pitfalls or dangers resulting from changes in the external environment. These are likely to have an adverse or detrimental effect to your business.
Market Analysis
The main focus of your market analysis should be to determine the size, growth potential, risks, trends, seasonality and other factors regarding the market. Investors and lending providers want to know the exact or close to exact size of your market. A research on the market is therefore important before developing any final marketing oriented plans or strategies.
Is there a market for your product or service offering? Who are the customers and what are their needs and preferences? Do you have any orders on hand? What about signed contracts to deliver? What market share are you going to strive to get?
Production Plan
This section of your business plan serves to describe the features and components of the product or service offering(s) of your business. It encompasses details such as the research and development conducted in terms of the time remaining (in the case of products manufactured by the business). It also covers important areas such as how the product (s) or service (s) will be manufactured or produced (covered in depth in the operational plan) as well as their associated costs. Moreover, it covers the important activities such as quality control and after-service, regulatory considerations with regard to the products may also be addressed. Market and Sales Strategy Plan
Your marketing and sales strategy should cover the following factors: (Remember to keep your marketing goals and objectives in mind and relate the factors listed below to your target market - this is all about devising a suitable marketing mix for your target market)
Sales and distribution strategy or place
There are many marketing avenues that you may use for your business to achieve its marketing objectives. These include the following:
Human Resources Plan
The human resource or staffing plan is coverage of aspects relating to personnel or the human resource asset of your entity. It encompasses the number of employees, type of labour (skilled, unskilled and professional), recruitment and selection procedures, skills development, pay structure and other remuneration considerations, roles and responsibilities, job descriptions amongst other human resource related aspects.
Risk and Contingencies Plan
Where business opportunities have been identified, risks are usually associated with capitalizing those identified business opportunities. It is important to identify any risks associated with setting up a business. This also applies in the case of an existing business that intends to expand, diversify or grow. The identification of risks helps you come up with contingencies to mitigate the risks. Risks include financial risks, market risks, operational risks, human resource risks, economic risks, technological risks and other risks
Financial Plan
This section of your business plan is imperative to your success particularly if you are seeking funds from potential investors, banking institutions and other lending or finance providers. While there are many advanced software programs and excel spreadsheet solutions designed to help you prepare the projected financial statements and other financial considerations, it is important that you understand the various statements and information to be included in the financial section of your business plan. Moreover, it is important to illustrate and articulate the current and projected financial status of your business in this section and provide an account of your entity?s need for funding by means of a loan, grant award, in-kind support or other tangible or intangible contribution. Once again, it is important to understand key sections that are to be included in your financial plan.