...Business Planning I. Introduction A business plan is a formal document indicating a set of company goals, the plan for achieving those set goals and a description why the management believe that those goals are attainable and etc. Its primary value is to evaluate the viability of the potential projects and to analyze the business prospects. It may also contain background information about the company such as mission, vision and how suitable and feasible the project is, to the company. Business plans may also target changes in perception and branding by the customer, client, taxpayer, or larger community. A business plan will be useful to a company in many ways. Firstly it will clearly identify and focus the company objectives using suitable information and analysis. Also it can be used as a selling tool when dealing with lenders, investors and banks. A business plan is also a road map that provides directions so a business can plan its future and helps it avoid bumps in the road. The time you spend making your business plan thorough and accurate, and keeping it up-to-date, is an investment that pays big dividends in the long term. Business planning is very significant because it is the first step toward success in your business venture. From obtaining funding to hiring employees to planning for expansion, a business plan can be your guide to keeping your business on track. Your business plan can keep you focused on your goals and keep you moving forward. ...
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...Business Plan Background Jane and John had a good idea, a good sense of their market, and a good location. They were great salespeople, and yet they were not making a profit. The reason was that they did not plan their business all the way through. When you are serious about your business or when a lot of money of your own or someone else's is at stake, creating a business plan is perhaps the most critical activity you can undertake. The plan is important, but what is even more important is the understanding you get from the planning process. The following pages will help you understand the thinking behind business plans and how to make and present your own. A business plan is a document designed to detail the major characteristics of a firm--its product or service, its industry, its market, its manner of operating (production, marketing, management), and its financial outcomes with an emphasis on the firm's present and future. There are two circumstances under which creating a business plan is absolutely necessary. One is when outsiders expect it. This is called external legitimacy. Creating a business plan is the acknowledged best way to build external legitimacy for your firm. When you are seeking outside support--whether financial or expert--you do a business plan to signal your professionalism and how serious you are about the business. Investors, whether they are venture capitalists, informal investors (called angels), bankers, or your two great aunts, are going to expect...
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...Ten things to ask yourself before you start a business Step One: The Idea Before you start a business, you need a good idea…Let's face it, the single most important step in creating a business is the idea. After all, a good idea can make a company millions or even billions of dollars, while a bad idea can lead it to bankruptcy. And without an idea, you can't create a business. So it's time to start brainstorming. Think up that next million-dollar idea. If you're stuck and can't think of anything, here are some questions to ask yourself to help you out a little: What are my interests? Get out a sheet of paper and start writing down some things that interest you. Are you good at sports? Do you like managing other people's money? Are you good with computers? Do you like pets? It always helps if you start a business in a field that interests you. That way when you're spending your time working on it, you'll have so much fun that you don't even think of it as work. For example, I enjoy money-related stuff. But once a week, I'm required to mow our lawn since I'm the "man of the house". Some of the neighbours need their lawns mowed too. However, because it doesn't interest me, I probably shouldn't start my own lawn-mowing business. If I had some money, what would I buy? Try to think of something that you think would be cool to buy. It helps if there isn't already something similar out there. If you think something is cool, there is always a chance that...
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...essential book to help entrepreneurs.” DALLAS MORNING NEWS How to Write a O RM D S ON C Business Plan THE LEADING BUSINESS PLAN BOOK FOR • Write a winning proposal • Prepare cash flow and profit & loss forecasts • Get backers to invest 25 YEARS Mike McKeever Free Legal Updates at Nolo.com R OM - AL L L F F e Story Dear friends, Founded in 1971, and based in an old clock factory in Berkeley, California, Nolo has always strived to offer clear legal information and solutions. Today we are proud to offer a full range of plain-English law books, legal forms, software and an award-winning website. Everything we publish is relentlessly researched and tested by a dedicated group of in-house legal editors, who together have more than 150 years’ experience. And when legal changes occur after publication, we promptly post free updates at Nolo.com. Tens of millions of Americans have looked to Nolo to help solve their legal and business problems. We work every day to be worthy of this trust. Ralph Warner Nolo co-founder Emma Cofod Products Books & Software & Services Get in-depth information. Nolo publishes hundreds of great books and software programs for consumers and business owners. ey’re all available in print or as downloads at Nolo.com. Legal Encyclopedia Free at Nolo.com. Here are more than 1,400 free articles and answers to common questions about everyday legal issues including wills, bankruptcy, small business formation...
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...Talent Management The process of determining staffing levels aims to identify the numbers and types of employees needed to be successful in solidifying the business plans and strategies for an organization. Organizations apply several different techniques to accomplish this task. However, there are ways to implement fundamental building blocks to set a baseline for success; but due to numerous variables, a step-by-step concrete solution for determining staffing levels cannot exist. Consistent within any stage of strategic staffing, it is crucial to understand the overall plans and strategies of the business and what factors are driving staffing. As discussed by Heneman, “organization effectiveness and staffing systems exist, and should be used, to contribute to the attainment of organizational goals such as survival, profitability, and growth. A macro view of staffing like this is often lost or ignored because most of the day-to-day operations of staffing systems involve micro activities that are procedural, transactional, and routine in nature. While these micro activities are essential for staffing systems, they must be viewed within the broader macro context of the positive impacts staffing can have on organization effectiveness” (6). Managers and Human Resources must share a common understanding of the business needs and react through implementing corresponding staffing levels. Only with a common perspective between management and human resources can staffing levels...
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...Marketing Plan- Your T-Shirt! Every business must start at the bottom before they become successful. One of the first ways a business must work on becoming successful is coming up with a business plan. By preparing a business plan, a company will not only have an outline as to knowing who their target audience will be and what kind of funds will be needed for the business, but it will help the business keep track of the progress they made with the building of an empire. According to the journal entitled Starting a Business from Home, it discusses why it is important to have a business plan. The article states “As most businesses start without a business plan you could be forgiven for believing that preparing one is a luxury you can live without. Time is short and it surely more important to find some customers and get selling. Beguiling though this may sound the statistics is against you. According to research carried out at Cranfield School of Management, over 70 percent of the fastest-growing and most successful businesses started out with a written business plan.” (Barrow, 2008). This business entitled Your T-Shirt! A business plan must be created in order for the business to become successful. Your T-Shirt! Is a new business venture which allows people to design a t-shirt any way they would like. The customer can design the front and back of the shirt. Your T-Shirt! Not only provides the experience of designing your own shirt, but it also allows the customers...
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...20 Reasons Why You Need a Business Plan Written by Pete Kennedy Categories: * Business Planning 1. To prove that you’re serious about your business. A formal business plan is necessary to show all interested parties -- employees, investors, partners and yourself -- that you are committed to building the business. 2. To establish business milestones. The business plan should clearly lay out the long-term milestones that are most important to the success of your business. To paraphrase Guy Kawasaki, a milestone is something significant enough to come home and tell your spouse about (without boring him or her to death). Would you tell your spouse that you tweaked the company brochure? Probably not. But you'd certainly share the news that you launched your new website or reached $1M in annual revenues. 3. To better understand your competition. Creating the business plan forces you to analyze the competition. All companies have competition in the form of either direct or indirect competitors, and it is critical to understand your company's competitive advantages. 4. To better understand your customer. Why do they buy when they buy? Why don’t they when they don't? An in-depth customer analysis is essential to an effective business plan and to a successful business. 5. To enunciate previously unstated assumptions. The process of actually writing the business plan helps to bring previously "hidden" assumptions to the foreground. By writing them down and assessing...
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...Business Case Research Paper IST 7020 Analysis, Modeling and Design Wilmington University Business Case Research Paper Business Case A business case is a document which is used to help in starting a task or a project. It can be in any format of text, presentation or a discussion. A basic justification to implement the given task can also be called as a Business Case. Typically, a Business Case would be documented for future reference or sometimes stated orally for better understanding. It usually depends on the business ideology and its practical implementation(TechTarget, n.d.). Before thinking of building a business case, an individual should understand thoroughly the core of the project. It may take huge efforts in achieving this goal but a rough estimate of the same would be beneficiary(TechTarget, n.d.). Example: If the manager of a sunglasses store notices that the business is very slow in the winter, he can tell the owner by preparing a business case for store renovation in winter with winter stuff along with the sunglasses. It might create some good business(TechTarget, n.d.). Method in developing business case: * Complete Overview and Thorough Analysis: While submitting a business case, the analysis done should be covered all around in order to achieve a better result of the Project and a feasible Solution to overcome the same(TechTarget, n.d.). * Validating if the business case built is actually stating the exact problem and thereby resolving...
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...Business planning is essential for the success of any business. A business plan provides direction, keeps you on track and is usually a requirement when you seek finance. Read Why do I need a business plan to find out how writing a business plan can assist your business. Once you've read Before starting a business plan and conducted research into the feasibility of your new business you're ready to write your plan. We have a number of free templates and downloads to help you get started. This section is based on our free business template and guide and steps through the various areas and information you need to include in your business plan. Your business plan may vary from this depending on the type and structure of your business. Tips when writing your business plan When writing your business plan and before you start using it, consider the following: Do your research - You will need to make quite a few decisions about your business including structure, marketing strategies and finances before you can complete your plan. By having the right information to hand you also can be more accurate in your forecasts and analysis. Determine who the plan is for - Does it have more than one purpose? Will it be used internally or will third parties be involved? Deciding the purpose of the plan can help you target your answers. If third parties are involved, what are they interested in? Although don't assume they are just interested in the finance part of your business. They will...
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...final semester in the MBA program at Harvard Business School (HBS), and things were not going as expected. Spring break was about to start, but Henry, like many others in the class of 2002, was feeling the pain of the worst job market in over a decade. Henry recalled the troubled sentiment around campus: Going to business school during the aftermath of the Internet crash changed everything. Before the crash, the feeling was that if you graduated from HBS, you could take on the world. Now people were feeling a lot more insecurity. I was having some doubt about my own capabilities—about what I could accomplish on my own. Anxious to test his abilities and distinguish himself beyond the standard curriculum, Henry had decided to enter the School’s annual business plan contest. About six weeks earlier, in late January, Henry had teamed with HBS classmate Dana Soiman and the founders of start-up company Music Games International (MGI). The MGI founders—an HBS alumnus (MBA ’87) and two professional musicians—later brought two additional students from other institutions onto the team, creating a group composed of diverse views and talents. (See Exhibit 1 for team member bios.) The team was dynamic but very conflicted, and progress on the business plan had been slow. They had a promising product: a CD-ROM music game that children enjoyed playing while learning about music. The team could not agree, however, on a fundamental aspect of the plan—the target market for the product—which made...
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...Trend Setters Hair Studio Hair and Beauty Salon Business Plan PAGE Start your own business plan » (/create_your_business_plan.php?link=create_top-b) BLACK FRIDAY SALE: Save 62% on the #1 Business Planning Software Sign Up Now (http://www.liveplan.com/?pm=LIVEPLAN12MONTH_62AB) 1 (executive_summary_fc.php) « PREVIOUS PAGE () NEXT PAGE » (COMPANY_SUMMARY_FC.PHP) 2 (company_summary_fc.php) 3 (products_and_services_fc.php) 4 (strategy_and_implementation_summary_fc.php) 5 (management_summary_fc.php) 6 (financial_plan_fc.php) 7 (appendix_fc.php) Executive Summary Trend Setters is a full-service beauty salon dedicated to consistently providing high customer satisfaction by rendering excellent service, quality products, and furnishing an enjoyable atmosphere at an acceptable price/value relationship. We will also maintain a friendly, fair, and creative work environment, which respects diversity, ideas, and hard work. Our Mission: To supply services and products that enhance our clients' physical appearance and mental relaxation. Our Motto: "The Trend Begins Here!" The timing is right for starting this new venture. Patiently searching for six months for the perfect location, one was finally found. The demand from the owner's clients, as well as the ambitions of the owner to one day start her own salon, and the procurement of highly professional and qualified beauticians to support the salon, has made this business one of great potential. Curley Comb, co-owner with Roller Comb, Jr...
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...An executive summary summarizes, or reviews the main points of, a longer document or report for a reader that does not have time to read the entire report. An effective executive summary analyzes and summarizes the most important points in the paper or report, and will often make a recommendation based on the analysis. Executive summaries are “stand alone” documents that are almost always read independently of the reports they summarize. When preparing to write an executive summary, ask yourself the following questions: * Who will read your executive summary? Sometimes your executive summary may have an “intended” audience: your professor might require you to write it for a CEO, department head, or supervisor, for example. On other assignments, your audience won’t have a specific identity, but always keep in mind that the reader of an executive summary needs to know all of the important information in the main document without reading the actual document. Even if you know that your instructor will be reading everything that you submit, write the executive summary as a “stand alone” document. * What is the main document’s main topic, theme, or idea? Most reports have a “thesis” or central point that they are seeking to communicate. Try to sum this up in two or three sentences. If you are having trouble with this, imagine that someone has asked you, “what’s this report about?” and that you have to explain it in only a few sentences. Once you’re able to say what the main...
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...ITALIAN RESTAURANT BUSINESS PLAN HISTORY The location is only 1/4 of a mile away from Gravois Bluff's, the largest land moving project to put in a major shopping complex in the state of Missouri. The rent is half the retail shops in Gravois Bluff's, yet the location offers the same opportunity for sales. The recently completed highway 141 offers hundreds of thousands of local residents, shoppers from outside the area, and travelers that use this new highway. With this high concentration of customers there are no Italian restaurants in Fenton and a tremendous need for an upscale family restaurant that offers items for both the children and adults. This turnkey operation seats 170 customers and is the perfect size for a PHC family operation. With the current leasehold improvements and quality kitchen equipment it would take very little to upgrade this operation to the legendary PHC winning formula. The growth in numbers of high income families in the Fenton area is projected at over 30%. There is a need for a family fine dining restaurant in the Fenton area. PHC would be the perfect neighborhood restaurant in the perfect neighbourhood. The Pasta House Co. in Fenton will be the second location for Dennis Boldt, who has operated a successful franchise unit in High Ridge, Missouri for 20 years. The Pasta House Co. based out of St. Louis, and now has over 34 successful company and franchise locations in the United States and Mexico. PHC Fenton will have a prime location, great...
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...Starting Your Own Business Contents List of illustrations ix Preface xi 1 Getting Started 1 What's holding you back? 1 Learning to handle success 3 Overcoming the mental blocks 3 Fighting back 6 Checking your readiness 12 Case studies 13 Action points 15 2 Finding Ideas 16 Looking right in front of you 16 Cashing in on change 17 Carving a niche 18 Acquiring commercial skills 20 Working on your self-esteem 20 Choosing a trading name 21 Checking your readiness 24 Case studies 24 Action points 26 3 Creating a Winning Business Plan 27 Planning ahead 27 Making sure the plan is yours 30 Your blueprint for success 30 Getting help from the public sector 36 Getting help from the banks 36 Checklist 37 Constructing your 'blueprint for success' 38 Case studies 43 Exercises 45 4 Funding Your Enterprise 46 Getting your hands on some seed money 46 Start-up costs 46 Getting outside finance 49 Approaching the public sector 50 Approaching potential funders 54 The plan that will fix your funding 58 Presenting your case 61 Checklist 62 Case studies 63 Action points 65 5 Planning Ahead 66 Choosing a partner 66 Case studies: going into partnership 69 Measuring the competition 71 Competitive analysis 75 Finding the right premises 77 The systems you will need 79 Deciding your business status 80 Understanding the basics of taxation 81 Preparing to survive - and succeed 84 Case studies 85 Action points 87 6 Marketing Your Enterprise 89 Debunking...
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...Business Planning Name Institutional Affiliation Part A – Written or Oral Questions Q. 1 Skilled labour is an important element of any business. At Lifestyle Architects, Peter Drew, the owner of the business will poach a qualified human resource manager from competing firms to specialise in hiring of employees. Due to the stiff competition between Lifestyle architects and its competitors in terms of acquiring employees, our company will offer internship opportunities to college and university students. Afterwards, these students will be provided employment opportunities based on their commitment and skills in the company. Fresh graduates will be beneficial to our company because they are quick to learn and are innovative. Besides hiring our interns, the company will target to poach skilled employees from our competitors. These employees will bring to our company new ideas of doing business offering Lifestyle Architects a competitive edge over rival companies in the real estate sector. Q.2 The human resource manager using a competency model will test the performance management systems at Lifestyle Architects. The competency model is vital in articulating knowledge, behaviours and skills valuable for achieving the organisational objectives. In this regard, competency models will be used to assess our employees by utilising job analysis methods. These will include observing employees in their workplaces and interviewing employees before offering them jobs. Additionally, we will...
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