Starting a Business Business Plan
Planning to succeed? Don’t forget, if you fail to plan – you plan to fail!!
One of the most important steps you can take when starting a business is to
do a business plan. This is the roadmap for your exciting journey into the business
arena. If you don’t set goals and targets you will loose focus, and if
you don’t plan ahead you can find yourself making ‘crisis management’
decisions without enough time to consider the alternatives.
All business plans are different and yours will be unique to your business. Some are long and full of information, while others are short and to the point. It will depend largely on what you want to achieve with your finished product.
If you’re using your business plan to support an application for finance you will need a very strong financial strategy. If you’re using it for marketing purposes to convince a potential client that they should deal with your business then your market research will need to be thorough. Maybe you’ve decided to bring in a new partner to strengthen and expand your business, then your business plan would need to clearly outline the expansion process and your long term goals. These are just a few examples.
To make your task easier the SBDC’s 2 hour “Intro to business planning” workshop will provide a good start and you get the excellent “Step-by-step business plan” publication for free. This is written in a question and answer format, so as you answer the questions, you’re writing your business plan.
Here is the Table of Contents to help get you started.
Model Business Plan
Table of Contents
- Front cover
- Statement of purpose
- Summary
- Table of contents
- The business
Business objectives
Name, address, contact details and ABN
Business activity, commencement date,
commencement capital and business structure
Competitive advantage
Owners' profiles
Major clients
Licences and registrations
Business advisors
Current performance - Industry analysis
ANZSIC category, political/economic, social,
technological, industry and competition
Key success factors
- Product and services
Product range analysis
Competitor analysis
SWOT analysis
- Marketing plan
Target market
Marketing objectives
Marketing strategy – product, price, promotion and place
- Operational strategy
Location and premises
Plant and equipment
Inventory
Human resources
Environmental strategy
- Financial strategy
Financial objectives
Capital structure
Statements of financial performance and financial
position (Income statement and balance sheet)
Cashflow forecasts
Sales and collections from debtors forecasts
Purchases and payments to creditors forecasts
Breakeven analysis
- Appendices
Financial statements
Legal documents, leases, contacts, letters of intent
Research documents, patents, trademarks
