Service Business

Characteristics of the enterprise in the business plan - basic information about the company

During the initial phase of creating a document that is so important to the success of a company or venture as a business plan, you should focus primarily on gaining the addressee's interest. The executive summary and the company's characteristics are the most important part of the involvement of potential investors, who openly admit that they read the executive summary first, then go straight to the financial information. If they evaluate these two parts positively, they move on to reading the others.

General characteristics of the enterprise

The part also known as the summary, as mentioned earlier, is the most important part when writing a business plan. It should be created at the end, when all the elements are buttoned up. It should be factual, understandable and clearly present the most important information. Whether the audience reads the rest of the business plan often depends on the content at the very beginning and whether it is interesting. In order to properly present the company, the content of the summary should include, among others:

defining the mission, vision and basic goals of business activity,
defining the name and presenting the company logo,
determination of the organizational and legal form,
a short presentation of data about the owners of the business,
indication of the location, subject and area of its operation

It is known that the characteristics of an existing enterprise will look slightly different from the description of a new, just emerging company. The difference will be manifested, for example, in the fact that an operating enterprise usually creates a business plan in order to expand its offer with a new product or service.

A company existing on the market - describes its current activity, including a short history. It is enough to indicate without unnecessary details what the company is doing, on which market it offers its services or products, and to what extent the current position among competitors will contribute to the success of the undertaking that is the subject of the business plan.

New enterprise - in this part it does not describe its history or activity, but focuses on emphasizing what has already been obtained or achieved in the initial stages of establishing a company, e.g. obtained permits, acquired premises for the needs of the business. In a situation where the business plan is created at a very early stage - this moment can be omitted, as all the necessary information is included in the further parts of the document.

Mission, vision and goals of the company

One of the first steps when planning a new venture is certainly to formulate the mission that the enterprise will perform in a concise and synthetic manner. It is the so-called the company's mission and the role it plays in the environment among recipients. Then, the image of the company in the future should be defined - that is, a vision that should also be created concisely and synthetically.

Once the entrepreneur has a formulated mission and a vision of the activities conducted by him, he already has a basis for setting goals to which the company will pursue. When defining the main goals, the company may adopt:

economic - profit, profitability,
financial - financial liquidity, creditworthiness, self-financing, capital structure,
market - turnover, market share, market positions, new markets,
social - safety, job satisfaction, social integration, ensuring staff development,
related to power and prestige - independence, image, prestige, social and political influence.

The main goal of the company, most often mentioned in the literature, but also occurring in practice, is to maximize profit by acquiring customers and building their loyalty to the organization.

Company name and logo

An additional advantage proving deep thought and planning of the project will certainly be the presentation of the company name and logotype, as well as determining the factors that should be taken into account when creating them.

The name is a very important element in business and its functioning on the market. The right choice of name determines whether it will attract or discourage customers to use the services or purchase products. It is worth paying attention mainly to the following:

the name sounded good, was not too long, and had no difficult words. It should be associated with something pleasant, familiar, catchy and easy to remember,
was associated with the company's business profile or its features,
take into account the scope of the market, local or national (in the case of a local enterprise, it is worth thinking about regional traditions),
the name was original, one of a kind,
was easy to use in advertising slogans,
the name was available when creating the company's internet domain.

The corporate identity of the company is nowadays one of the basic tools for building an image. This is related to creating a symbol that allows you to stand out from the competition. A well-chosen logo conveys the main information about the company and defines its character.

Organizational and legal form

There are many organizational and legal forms of running your own enterprise in Poland. These include: individual business activities of natural persons, a civil partnership, a general partnership, a partnership, a limited partnership, a limited joint-stock partnership, a joint-stock company and a limited liability company. The choice that an entrepreneur has to make in this matter is so important because it has consequences at the beginning and also in the later stages of running a business. For different types of forms, there are different conditions that must be met when setting up a company.

When choosing the organizational and legal form, one should be guided by the size and profile of the business activity. For micro and small enterprises, the most suitable form are limited liability companies, general partnerships or sole proprietorship.

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Ownership structure - a few words about the owners

When presenting the ownership structure, first of all, it is necessary to indicate the connections between the owners, along with their short description of education and professional experience, and possible connections with other economic entities. Important information in this section is information on the distribution of shares, the amount of capital contributed by individual members, as well as the scope of duties and responsibilities.

On this point, too, the new company has a different description from the existing one.

A company existing on the market - should describe the management in detail, showing professional experience, education, skills and achievements that are crucial for the success of a new venture. It is important here to indicate the ability to use the acquired knowledge to achieve the intended goals.

Start-up - Must focus on accurately describing all the skills possessed by the owners and management. It is known that the better the management, the better the company's performance. In this case, what matters most is the scope of knowledge that the people responsible for running the company have and the knowledge of the industry.

Description of the project

The characteristics of the company must be extremely precisely described and at this point it is also necessary to emphasize the competitive advantage, innovation, and additional benefits offered to the customer. It is worth demonstrating the impact of the above factors on the increase in profitability. You should focus on the company's advantages that will allow you to achieve success in connection with the planned project. It is worth showing the uniqueness or competitiveness of an idea, service or product. An additional advantage will also be innovations and new technologies that are planned to be implemented. The order of the project description should be as follows:

Product / service description - what and why will be the company's offer. It is important to emphasize the individual character and range of functionalities represented by a given product or service. Will it be better, cheaper and better available than competitors' products? It is worth indicating information about obtained permits and concessions, when they are required. All information in this area should be factual and specific, and at the same time convincing the investor.
Realization - that is, how we will achieve the intended idea. For the product: how will it be produced? Where will it be sold? Who will it be offered to?

Location and area of operation

At this stage, you should describe the place of business, its specifics and indicate whether it meets the established standards. Relevant information is primarily the address of the company's seat and place of business. You should also specify the area in which the company will offer its services, the territorial scope after taking into account the location and recipients (customers' origin). Depending on the scale of the company, it may operate on the local, national or international market.