Business plan - signpost for the company
Business plan - definition and goals
Derived from English, the concept of a business plan is simply a business plan. It is built in order to rationally and reliably evaluate the success of planned activities within the enterprise. A properly prepared business plan should contain both extensive information on the status quo, i.e. the current condition of the company, and a plan for future ventures. It analyzes opportunities, threats and the state of finances - current and planned. Business plans differ in terms of scope - it all depends, of course, on the size of the enterprise and the length of the period for which you work. A professional business plan should take into account only strictly selected data - important from the point of view of the overall analysis.
The basic goal for which a business plan is created is, of course, precise planning of undertakings that are going to be implemented in the future. A business plan is also necessary if you need to prove to an external party - for example a bank that grants a loan - that the company has a bright future ahead. The same applies to applying for funding from public entities.
Business plan - who creates it?
The task of drawing up a business plan may be assigned to the entrepreneur himself, one of his employees or an external company. Creating a business plan on your own is a good solution in the sense that it is not someone else, but the owner of the company, who knows it best. On the other hand, the fact that an enterprise professionally engaged in marketing planning has the necessary knowledge and experience should not be underestimated. In addition, outsourcing this task may make the business plan itself more objective - the external company will look at the enterprise with the necessary distance.
Business plan - basic principles of creation
A properly prepared business plan should contain information about the current status of the enterprise, plans, methods of their implementation and expected results. Below is a summary of the main rules that must be followed when creating a business plan:
- comprehensiveness - the point is that the document should cover all existing aspects of the company's operation;
- long-term - a business plan should cover longer slices of time - years rather than months;
- adequacy - a business plan should be adapted in terms of form and content to the intended goal and needs of the recipient;
- legibility - information must be transparent, it is good to decorate it with visualizations in the form of charts or drawings;
- reliability of assumptions and credibility of data - you should rely only on verified information, do not get carried away by fantasies or your own ideas;
- variants - more than one way of implementing assumptions is the basis;
- flexibility - the business plan should be easily modifiable;
- participation of management staff - an external team of experts is not everything, the company's authorities must contribute to the creation of a business plan;
- confidentiality - as the business plan contains key information on the condition and intentions of the enterprise, care should be taken to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
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Business plan - for whom?
The answer to the question of who the recipients of the business plan are is very simple - usually they are banks and public institutions (central and local). A business plan can also be created for potential investors, partners or the management themselves who want to have clearly defined goals written in one place. As you can see, a business plan is an extremely important document, the creation of which can bring real benefits.
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