What is a Business Plan?

 Introduction to Business Plan

Business plans are documents that summarize operational and business financial goals. This is a business map for success with a detailed and budget plan that shows how the business goals will be realized.

Keep reading to know more about business plans, how are they useful and what components are made of.

What is a Business Plan?

Business plans are guides for how an organization will complete its objectives. For anyone starting a business, making a plan is an important first step. Having these concrete milestones will help track business prosperity (or lack of). There are various plans for various purposes, and the best business plans are living reports that react to real-life factors as soon as possible.

In short, a business plan is a practice in due diligence. When it's done well, it will prevent start-ups from wasting ressources on something that will not work.

How Does a Business Plan Work?

If you have an idea for a new Start-up, a business plan can help you know if your idea is viable. It's not worth it to start a business if there is little or no profit to make. And a business plan will help you to figure out exactly that.

In a lot of cases, start-ups don't have the financial abilities to start the business they want. If business financing is required, you must have an "investor-ready" business plan to show potential investors that showcase how your business will be profitable.

You'll always have a leeway when crafting your business plan outline. It can be short or long, and it can include whatever detail you think will be useful. There are basic templates you can copy from, and you'll likely notice some common parts if you look up examples of business plans.

But, you will need to do two analysis while crafting your business plan :

Market Analysis

Market analysis will reveal whether there is enough demand for your product or service in your target market. If the market is saturated, your business model needs to be modified or even deleted.

Competitive Analysis

It will examine the strengths and weaknesses of your competition and will help lead your strategy for collecting a market share in your marketing plan. If the existing market is dominated by existing competitors, for example, you will need to make a marketing plan to attract customers from said concurrence (price reduction, best service, etc.).

Along with these analysis, you'll be doing your management, financial, and operating plans.

Management Plan

The management plan describes your structure, management and staff requirements of your business. If your start-up requires a specific expertise of employees and management, you will need a strategy to find and recruit qualified personnel and retain them.

Operating Plan

The operating plan outlines your facilities, equipment, inventory, and supply requirements. The location of the business and accessibility are essential for many start-ups.. If this is your case, you will need to scout potential sites. If your business needs parts or raw materials to produce goods to be sold to consumers, you will need to investigate potential supply chains.

Financial Plan

The financial plan is "THE" factor as to whether your business idea is likely to be a success or not. If funding is required, your financial plan will determine how likely you are to obtain start-up financing in the form of self-funding or debt financing from banks, crowdfunding, or venture capitalists. You can have a great idea for a business, along with excellent marketing, management, and operational plans, but if the financial plan shows that it will not be profitable enough, then the business model is not viable and there's no point in starting that business.

There is also a Marketing Plan to be made, but, as you are only at the initial step, the three plans above are the most crucial for you now.

You can start your first step to your Marketing plan by reading What is Marketing?

Business Plan and Investement Plan

A Business Plan can be extremly identical to an Investement Plan. Actually, an Investement Plan is often called an investor-ready Business Plan. In general, they both have the same content.

While the Business Plan is intended to guide the executives, managers, and employees decision making, the Investement Plan is designed for external agencies (investors). You can say an Investement plan is a Business plan with a different audience.

What to take?

* A business plan is a detailed road map that explains what the start-up's goals are and how it will achieve them.

* The exact details of a business plan depends on the intended audience and the nature of the business.

* It's a good idea to regularly revise your business plan so you know it's as accurate, realistic, and detailed as possible.

Finally, what are your thoughts about the Business plan? Do you also think it is as crucial as i said?