How to start compiling a business plan for a food industry enterprise

For the independent development of a competent business plan you need to have a logical mindset, sufficient knowledge and professional training in the economic and related fields of activity, willingness to invest some time and effort in solving the task. If all this is available, you can proceed to the study of the enterprise itself, as well as the market conditions in which it operates or is going to work.

Initially, in the course of business planning, the market or market segment in which the food industry enterprise operates is often defined. It can be, for example, the production, processing, canning of meat, seafood, vegetables and fruits, dairy products, the production of vegetable oils, products of the flour-grinding industry, sugar and many other food products and beverages. Once the boundaries of the market are outlined, you can proceed to assess its capacity, highlight the features and algorithms of fluctuations in supply and demand. The study of these and many other market factors, incl. Consumer behavior, segmentation and positioning, is engaged in a widely disseminated marketing discipline. The main tools used to systematize information about the market and the subjects of economic relations acting on it are desk and field marketing research. They are quite a lot of species, very different in nature: for some, you need a lot of financial resources, for others it will be enough to have quality aggregated secondary information obtained from open sources. However, after organizing interviews, interviews, focus groups, or thoughtful work with secondary sources of information, you can collect the necessary structured material for marketing analysis that characterizes the current market situation in a particular industry: data on competitors and their advertising activity, consumer opinions, Parameters of supply and demand. In the future, this marketing information is used in the segmentation of consumers of products and services according to their preferences, age, status, income level and other factors, with the allocation of the total mass of groups, combined by a combination of several parameters. On the basis of positioning, in turn, a strategy can be developed to promote the product or service of this enterprise and create a unique proposal that is attractive to segments or clusters of consumers selected in the process of segmentation. These developments and economic models eventually form the marketing section of the business plan of the enterprise or firm.

When considering the strengths and weaknesses of the enterprise itself, it is advisable to use a system of indicators adopted in this segment of the food industry. To assess the organization's labor supply and labor productivity, indicators of the coefficient of use of intrafirm labor resources (as the ratio of the average duration of work to the maximum possible value) can be applied, the firm's labor supply (as a ratio of the current demand for the workforce to the actual number of employees) Duration of working time per 1 employee. In order to assess the organization's security with fixed assets, it is possible to use the indicators of the fund's provision, the degree of depreciation of fixed assets, the assets ratio, the retirement and renewal ratio, and the pre and post-tax profit per 1 ruble of fixed assets.

It should be noted that the described algorithm of action is purely recommendatory in nature and represents just one of the options for compiling the initial part of the business plan for a food industry enterprise. We also note that today there is no single, uniform for all branches of the business planning algorithm, but there are a number of domestic and international methods that are considered generally accepted and can be used as a basis for the development of any business plan.