Business plan

Types of Plans

Business plans can be divided roughly into four separate types. They require very different amounts of labour and not always with proportionately different results.

* The Miniplan. A miniplan may consist of one to 10 pages and should include at least cursory attention to such key matters as business concept, financing needs, marketing plan and financial statements, especially cash flow, income projection and balance sheet. It's a great way to quickly test a business concept or measure the interest of a potential partner or minor investor. It can also serve as a valuable prelude to a full-length plan later on.

* The Working Plan. A working plan is a tool to be used to operate the business. It has to be long on detail but may be short on presentation. As with a miniplan, one can probably afford a somewhat higher degree of candor and informality when preparing a working plan.

* The Presentation Plan. If a working plan is twisted to boost the amount of attention paid to its looks, it will become a presentation plan. This plan is suitable for showing to bankers, investors and others outside the company.

* The Electronic Plan. The majority of business plans are composed on a computer of some kind, then printed out and presented in hard copy. But more and more business information that once was transferred between parties only on paper is now sent electronically. An electronic plan can be handy for presentations to a group using a computer-driven overhead projector, for example, or for satisfying the demands of a discriminating investor who wants to be able to delve deeply into the underpinnings of complex spreadsheets.

Advantages

A solid strategic plan delivers the following benefits:

    * You focus your time and energy on activities that are most likely to achieve your goals.

    * You know how to allocate resources.

    * You put a solid strategy in place to set your business apart from the competition.

    * You can communicate your plan to employees, and hold them accountable for results.

    * You can track the results of your efforts and make mid-course corrections to get back on track if you need to.

    * You can adapt your plan to create a second business plan to raise investment capital or get a business loan.

Business Planning Process

For an effective business plan, the following steps can be followed:

    * Idea Generation

    * Environment Scanning

    * Feasibility Analysis

    * Drawing up a Functional Plan

    * Project Report Preparation

    * Evaluation, Control & Review

Copyright 2008 - France BtoB from Wikipédia