Effective Business Plans
The business plan must take the targeted audience into consideration so as to drive the right approach. For example, investors and banks focus on the commitment, skills, competencies and expertise of the owner and key management as well as a good understanding of the financial requirements and other related content of the business.
The business plan must have life. Treat it as a live document with a heart beat the business plan is the heart beat of your business particularly at start up phase. The business plan must demonstrate the competence, expertise, culture, direction and other related hallmarks pertaining to the business.
The business plan must be well written and have a clear business strategy. In essence, the strategic intent - in terms of the vision, mission, values and principles, objectives (long term, medium term and short term), must be aligned and well formulated. These must be ideally devised after having a thorough understanding of the Industry that your business operates in as well as the external changes (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legislative/ Regulatory) taking place in the environment.
Your business plan must ideally take the following into consideration: the key functional areas of your business such as marketing and sales, finance, operations, or production human resource and so on. All these functional areas must have well set out sound objectives and strategies. Quality is king, focus on excellent quality content as opposed to quantity that is usually confusing, obscure , questionable and sometimes vague. Lastly, a good understanding of the table of contents or information pertaining to your business plan is necessary.