Contents of the company's business plan and the procedure for its development

Planning is a very important process in the daily life of modern society. Everything begins with the arrangement of tasks for the current day and continues in the future for a month, a year, a five-year plan or longer. In building business, planning also plays a key role. If you want to successfully implement a conceived idea, it is necessary to compose a clear instruction for action. In addition, it is necessary not only for the businessman himself, but also for his partners, investors, banks. In this article we will analyze what is, why, the content of the business plan, the main provisions, the order and development stages.

The essence of the business plan

So, what is and what should be the content of the business plan? You are thinking about creating your own business, but do not know where to start? Any undertaking should not be based on a thoughtless impulse. You should develop a strategy of behavior, learn all about the industries in which you are going to work, arrange monitoring of the market and competitors, calculate possible risks and profits. All these items represent the contents of the business plan in a short version. At its core, this is a document from which any deliberate business begins, on its basis large companies and successful entrepreneurs are born. This document has its own standards, although, of course, it does not have a mandatory normative form. But recommendations on its structure should be listened to, since it is useful many times in the life of an economic entity.

Why you need a business plan

First of all, the content of the business plan will allow the entrepreneur to act clearly and consistently. Not having instructions at hand, making transactions and transactions in a chaotic order and without preliminary calculations, you can make a lot of mistakes, than in the near future to destroy all your works. Planning should be based on the fullest available information. This approach to the case will make it possible to calculate the possible consequences a few steps forward, avoid negative incidents and find additional ways to solve the emerging issues. The content of the business plan will allow you to push yourself to action, as all people are afraid of the unknown, waiting at the next step, and here it seems like everything becomes open and understandable.

The second reason for this document is to attract additional partner programs, invest in the project from external sources, and gain access to large amounts of lending. Any self-respecting partner, especially large organizations, does not want to get involved in projects of questionable profitability and viability. But the structure and content of the business plan may well convince prestigious and secured organizations to invest their money in the development of a new project. The contribution should pay off, and therefore it is necessary to provide analytical information on the forthcoming case, which will clearly outline the benefits of this kind of financial injections into the newcomer on the market. Correctly drawn up structure and content of the business plan will open doors for the entrepreneur to large bank loans on favorable terms, state support and subsidies, commercial investments from well-known companies. Such support in the period of the beginning of activity will ensure a successful and fast start-up, and in the future will strengthen the position in the chosen industry.

Who are investment intermediaries?

At the stage of deliberation of the business plan, it is very important not to overestimate your own abilities to foresight and ability to foresee the twists and turns of events. The ability to analyze situations and to identify, on the basis of the data obtained, the nearest and long-lasting prospect of market behavior comes with experience. Here, neither education nor natural wit will help. Some things can be done only after many times having passed through a visual representation. Therefore, many start-up entrepreneurs do not risk taking on themselves even for the main provisions of the business plan, and even to go deeper into analytical work especially.

Young entrepreneurs prefer to appeal to so-called investment intermediaries. These are companies that commit themselves to the execution of this document. Their tasks include many points and processes, but they also charge a fee for their efforts that are palpable, often in the form of prepayment. Usually the size is determined by the interest rate on the size of the desired investment in the project from outside organizations. Such companies employ experienced financial analysts, specialists in various economic sectors, theorists and practice of building a successful project, which constitute the approximate content of the business plan. A sample is provided to you for review, decision-making, correction of inaccuracies. All details are repeatedly discussed and clarified, there is a mass of meetings and re-registration of the first version of the plan, before it finds its final form.

The choice of an investment intermediary is a very important matter. A loud name can be the result of only the skillful work of a PR company. And you can get a standardized and tailored business plan for the ears. In the development of this document there can be no cliches and cliches, each project is developed strictly individually with a full understanding of the essence of the case being built. Therefore, at the stage of signing the contract, discuss all the details with your investment intermediary so that you do not get into an undesirable situation with the prospective investors.

What is dangerous is a wrongly drawn up business plan

The content of the business plan, a sample of its correct structure, is not just invented. It would seem, why should it be aggravated in certain definite forms, if the document does not have regulatory requirements for filling in from the state, tax authorities and other supervisory authorities? You can make things much easier and faster. To see the first content of the business plan, an example of which is found on the Internet, to fit the wording to the meaning of its direction - and everything is ready.

Maybe for your own use this option will work. And then, from it will be much more problems than good. But such an instrument does not attract any third-party investment. First of all, investors check the situation on the market and the correspondence of your data to them. Only one self-respecting organization will rely solely on unprofessional statements of the absolute beginner. No bank will provide a loan for such a business plan, no commercial figure will see a gold mine in your project. As a result, all the funds spent at the first stage will be irretrievably lost. And for a beginning entrepreneur, these are significant amounts that can delay the creation of a business project for a long time or completely deprive hopes of opening a business sometime in the future.

General requirements for the document

The contents of the business plan at the request of UNIDO should be developed according to several fundamental rules. Without taking them into account, the document turns into a set of completely useless information.

So, rule one refers to the joint work of project initiators and drafters. The initiators make up a technical assignment, transfer it to the developers, then in the process of drawing up all the accuracy and omissions are discussed. It is necessary to conduct a full analysis of the market to accurately formulate the forecast for losses and revenues.

An important aspect is the drawing up of a client's portrait. It is necessary to clearly understand who the product is aimed at. Many entrepreneurs, inventing a completely innovative product, rely on "the right of the first idea". In this case, do not forget that the most competitive and strong organizations can reproduce this product very quickly and at a lower cost. It is necessary to adequately assess their weaknesses, as well as objectives. For creditors, it is important to provide information about the process of refund and the expected timing. The content of the business plan of the enterprise and the procedure for its development must be completely under the control of the initiator.

The second rule refers to the volume and concreteness of the document. The structure and content of the sections of the business plan should be clearly formulated, do not contain water, too fuzzy and thoroughly deciphered processes of technical production. The size of the document usually ranges from eight to twelve pages of printed text (on both sides). In some cases, the volume may be up to twenty-five pages of double-sided printed text. The content of the project business plan should be simple and complete. The document should present an honest analysis based on real events. It should specify the risks of the company.

Contents of the business plan: an example

As a standard structure of the business plan, the following sequence of information items about the project is mainly used:

• Title page;
• summary;
• Description of the enterprise and industry;
• Product description;
• Marketing analysis, strategy and sales;
• production plan;
• Management and organizational plan ;
• financial plan;
• Direction and efficiency of the project;
• Risks and guarantees;
• Annexes (accompanying documents).

Company and product description

The title page should contain the following data: name, legal structure, phone numbers and addresses of the organization, status, telephones, names and addresses of its owners, confidentiality of reporting, the date and year of the business plan, and the names of its drafters.

A resume is a card of your organization. It is exactly the summary of the business plan and its peculiar outcome. Here you can find information in a condensed form about the company, the uniqueness of its project, financial needs for implementing the idea, features of the sales market, guarantees and profitability forecasts. The investor should decide to familiarize himself with the business plan in full by reading the resume. Since respected companies receive dozens of such projects per week, not all of them will be read, which means that the summary should contain maximum specifics and seductiveness of the project.

The description of the enterprise and the industry requires the presentation of the history of the company, its status for today and future plans. This section highlights the financial results of economic activities, the staff and management staff, what activities, achievements and merits in the industry are directed at, the prospects for the industry and company's economy, ties with partners and activity in the social environment.

The description of products and services necessarily requires the content of the business plan of the enterprise. Also requires a description of production technology. For each type of product is discussed separately, in addition, it is best to provide a visual sample or, at worst, a photograph. Describe what technical innovations are required to successfully implement the intended competitors with similar products, technology patents, the reasons why you chose your product, technology or service.

Marketing, Production and Management

Marketing analysis is the most important part. The content of the business plan of the investment project requires a particularly careful approach to the description of this section. If possible, we should address to truthful, interrelated factors in the analysis. This section should show the investor how successful the probability of the product entering the sales market. Should be taken into account wholesale and retail sellers, as well as end-users. The portrait of the end user, his age, sex, place of residence, geographic and regional peculiarities of the implied part of the population should be presented. Here, the consumer characteristics of the product itself are distinguished: the type, purpose, price, expiry date or use, safety and so on. The approximate structure of the section implies the existence of an item about the consumer's requirements for the goods and the item on competition in the market.

The structure and content of the main sections of the business plan requires an item on the production plan. In this paragraph it is necessary to talk about the production capacities involved in production and planned for implementation in the future. It is necessary to calculate the volume of production covering the costs of functioning, to calculate direct and indirect expenses, raw materials and so on. The most complete cost estimate should be presented here.

The business plan should reflect the list of the staff of the organization. The managerial staff, the role of each specialist in economic activity and production should be specifically described. In addition, the costs for salaries and bonuses are indicated. Potential lenders are closely studying the management team, whose efforts and professionalism are going to invest their money.

Finance, focus and efficiency

The content and procedure for developing a business plan requires that all financial information on the project being prepared be reflected. In the financial planning section , you should specify the amounts that you need to spend for the preparatory and current phase, calculate the profit from the project, clarify the costs for lending, taxes, other items, and so on. In this section it is desirable to indicate the total amount of funds requested, the financial request to the investor, the schedule by which the debt will be returned, in what amounts and by what numbers. It is necessary to specify, for what purposes the allocated means and in what percentage ratio will be used. The structure of the existing capital is indicated, as well as the efficiency of the use of funds in stock.

In the section it is necessary to indicate the direction, sensitivity to market changes, volatility, materiality for society.

Risks and guarantees

In this section, it is necessary to take into account all possible entrepreneurial risks and circumstances equivalent to force majeure. The creditor must be sure that in any circumstances his investment will be returned to him, at least in the amount of the deposit. It is usually considered a period of two to five years of work of the organization. The main risks are the reactions of competing organizations, possible weaknesses of personnel or specialists. The risk may relate to the functioning of the technical equipment of the organization and competitors. Even if there are no risky situations, in the business plan they should be specified in detail. The lender and the investor should see that the organization is aware of the riskiness of any business and is ready to bear responsibility for its actions.

Apps

For each business plan, it is recommended to attach the documents on the basis of which it is drawn up. The constituent documents of the organization (legal entity) are also attached here. Such applications include a certificate of registration, articles of association and an institution agreement, documents confirming data on certification, patents, licensing, diplomas and reference information on the formation of key personnel, excerpts from press articles on the activities of the organization.

To applications include product photos, market research data, cost estimates and tables. It is desirable to include photographs of production and retail outlets, a map of the organization, some contracts with partners, a summary of the administrative apparatus, and analytical results of third-party organizations in these materials.

As an appendix to the item on risks and guarantees, warranty coupons, letters, the composition and value of the pledge, contracts, extracts from legislative and regulatory materials should be attached. The more complete the sections will describe the current and planned situation, the current market situation and forecasts for the demand for offered goods and services in the future, the higher the probability of receiving a subsidy, credit, investment for an entrepreneur both beginner and functioning on the market for a long time.