business plans

• Business plan 


  forecast of business operations, including statement of business objectives, a cash flow forecast, a plan of staffing needs and marketing methods
• components of a business plan 


  marketing plan, operational plan, financial plan, human resources plan, executive plan
• marketing plan 


  market research, long term plan for achieving objectives
• operational plan


  how product will be produced and delivered to customers in target market
• financial plan 


  prediction of business income from sales and expenditure from costs over a period of time
• human resources plan 


  predict staff needs, including skills, number needed, prediction of staff turnover and managers required to supervise employees
• executive plan 


  short summary of the main points from the detailed plan. such as key objectives, key staff and financial information
• importance of a business plan 1


  investors and lenders of finance - want to see detailed forecast of how the business is predicted to perform over time as they will then be able to assess the risks of their potential investment in terms of the ability of the business to pay it back.

  The benefit to the business is that reducing the risk to investors may mean that they may be able to pay lower interest rates on loans or giver smaller shares to venture capitalists, keeping costs to a minimum while keeping as much ownership as possible
• importance of a business plan 2

  helps business look methodically and logically at steps needed to achieve aims and objectives
• importance of a business plan 3


  can be compared to actual progress to see if deadlines, costs and profit are as predicted
• importance of a business plan 4


  measure performance in achieving the plan and identify any issues and address before major ones occur
• importance of a business plan - evaluation

  plan alone is of little use to the business and can be set unrealistically and therefore failed to follow
• importance of a business plan - evaluation


  should be regularly attended to allow for unexpected problems such as changes in cost or significantly more demand than can be produced
• Main sources of information available to entrepreneurs 


  Government organisations such as GOV.UK offer free advice through websites and/or courses on a range of issues from legal requirements of setting up a business to workshops on how to create a business plan - govs keen to support entrepreneurs as they understand that SMEs may become large businesses

  also offer grants and loans

  there are also privately run organisations that support businesses such as the federation of small businesses