Business Plan Development

This is the first course of the Business Planning Series.

There are four main benefits of preparing a business plan. It helps you clarify what developments your business should focus on. It also gives you a framework within which to develop your business strategies.

Planning for the future is crucial for any successful organization, and business plans play an important part in that process. Without a business plan, your organization or department could easily become directionless.

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How do strategic plans and business plans differ? Strategic plans are longer than business plans, the former covering a period of up to ten years with the latter covering one or two years.

Use this follow-on activity to organize your thoughts for your business plan.

Preparation is of great importance when developing a business plan. Prepare for the development by discussing, thinking, researching, and analyzing your business ideas.

When creating a business plan, success largely depends on how much preparation you put in. The vast majority of the work in an effective business plan is typically done in the preparatory stages.

The second step in preparing to develop your business plan is to do research. Initially, you should identify critical issues – for example, potential sources of internal funding and resource allocation.

Having completed the research for your business plan, you then establish your goals. This is the third step in the preparato ry process for developing a business plan.

Identifying the strategies you'll use to fulfill your goals is the fourth step you'll take when preparing to develop your business plan.

Once you've identified the strategies you'll use, you then assess the resources available to you to fulfill your business plan. This is the fifth step in the preparatory process.

Use this job aid to help you prepare for developing a business plan.

Your business plan will vary depending on its purpose. It typically comprises four major parts.

Business plans vary significantly depending on their primary purpose. When you've collected all the information you need to create a plan, you should then tailor the plan to its intended audience.

Use this job aid detailing the different parts of a business plan when you're preparing your own plan.

When a business plan is being presented to an audience, many issues may arise and affect how the audience responds. For example, Matthew, Heidi, and Omar are senior executives at a camping equipment company.

By following certain guidelines, you can create an effective business plan that should capture your target audience's attention and, ultimately, likely get their approval. The first of the guidelines is keep it short.

Use this job aid to guide you as you create an effective business plan.

Congratulations! You just finished the Preparing a Business Plan Course.

This is the second course of the Business Planning Series.

A business plan will typically include an executive summary, information on market opportunities, the implementation details of the plan, and any necessary contingencies due to unexpected changes in market conditions.

People develop business plans for many reasons – it could be to seek funding for a project, evaluate future growth potential, or perhaps establish a new business partnership.

A robust situational analysis will include an internal analysis to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your company. It'll also include an external analysis to identify the external opportunities and threats to your company.

There are four steps you can take when conducting an internal analysis – although the steps don't need to be carried out in any particular order.

Another step in an internal analysis is assessing your company's resources. You need to identify the resources most important to the business, such as research and development employees, or top-of-the-line equipment.

Another key step is to evaluate the organizational and management strategies. During this phase of your analysis, you need to review the organizational structure of your company and its subunits.

Evaluating your organization's financial position is a fundamental step in undertaking any new initiative.

Use the table to help identify the strengths and weakness in your company.

Use the table to identify the strengths and weakness in your company.

An external analysis of a business environment includes careful consideration of political, economic, societal, and technological factors – otherwise known as a PEST analysis.

Organizations don't operate in isolation. Their success or failure can be affected by external factors such as economic downturns.

As part of an external analysis, you may use scenario planning. Scenario planning can help you visualize the future environment for your business.

Use this job aid to consider factors in the external environment.

After scenario planning for the broader political, economic, societal, and technological considerations, you can consider the market relevant to your business.

When conducting business planning, the third area to consider is the competition.

When writing a business plan, you also examine your industry. Industry information is readily available through sources such as government statistics or industry associations.

Use this job aid to consider factors in a market analysis that may impact your business plan.

A SWOT analysis uses information from your internal and external analyses to define strategies to maximize competitive advantage.

An important step in developing a successful business plan is to identify opportunities and threats.

You begin your SWOT analysis by listing important opportunities and threats in the context of your company's strengths and weaknesses.

A SWOT analysis is a glimpse at your company's competitive position and can be used to generate possible strategies for your business plan.

Use this learning aid to review Blazerfire's SWOT.

This is the second course of the Business Planning Series.

This is the third course of the Business Planning Series

You should view the planning, implementation, and control phases of a business plan as part of a continuous strategic process. This should help you implement it successfully and achieve real benefits.

Many managers are involved in creating business plans in their organizations. A business plan outlines a set of business goals and how those goals can be achieved. Once a business plan has been created and communicated, it needs to be implemented. It also needs to be continuously reviewed and controlled to ensure it's being carried out effectively.

When it comes to implementing your business plan, you'll want to carry out the process in a smooth, effective way. However, you may encounter difficulties during implementation. It's important to overcome such challenges when they occur and get your plan back on track as quickly as possible.

As a manager, you'll be able to gain real benefits by implementing your business plans successfully. For one thing, you'll be able to introduce your strategies and ideas smoothly, causing a minimum amount of disruption to your employees. Your team can then focus on making the necessary changes and on reconciling new and emerging strategies with existing ones.

To implement a business plan successfully, you need to coordinate and manage all implementation- related activities in an effective way. You also need to promote implementation-centered behavior, decision making, and problem solving among your employees.

Purpose: Use this job aid to help you coordinate the implementation activities of a business plan.

You can follow a number of steps to help you coordinate the implementation phase of a business plan.

When implementing a business plan, the first step is to develop action plans. To create an action plan, first clarify the outcomes you want to achieve. For each outcome, list the activities necessary to achieve it. Then put the activities in order.

Without careful action planning, the strategies you'd like to implement in your organization are unlikely to become reality. So when coordinating the implementation phase of a business plan, the first step is to develop targeted action plans. An action plan is a series of tasks that need to be completed in order to accomplish a particular objective.

Some organizations undertake action planning at the same time as strategic business planning. This is usually a mistake. Business planning involves considering the bigger picture. But with action planning, you're focusing on the detail. So it's usually better to do action planning afterwards.

You can follow seven steps to help you create the main sections of an action plan. First, clarify the outcomes you want to achieve. For each outcome, list the activities necessary to achieve it. Then put the activities in order. The fourth step is to assign responsibilities for completing each activity among your employees. Then determine the resources you need to implement your plan. And determine the likely costs of implementing it. Finally, create a schedule showing the timelines involved.

When creating an action plan, the fourth step is to assign responsibilities for completing each activity among your team members. Unless you specifically assign responsibility for carrying out a task, it probably won't get done. So your action plan should make it clear who has responsibility – and authority – for ensuring that each activity is completed. You should also identify the individuals, groups, or units who are involved in carrying out each activity.

After developing an action plan, it's important to ensure you can actually implement it. To do this, you should ensure the current organizational infrastructure can support the plan.

Use this follow-on activity to help you coordinate the implementation of your own business plan.

It's important to make sure your business plan can be measured and controlled. You can create a management reporting system to help you do this.

After you've developed an action plan – and ensured its implementation can be supported in your organization – you need to determine how your business plan can be measured and controlled. You can create a management reporting system to help you do this. A proper reporting system can help you monitor progress in relation to targets and outcomes. And it can confirm whether or not your business plan is on track.

Effective implementation of your business plan involves more than reporting information in a well- designed format. You also need to put a system in place so you can use your reports for control purposes.

Despite the best planning and preparation, your business plan can go off track. It's important to react quickly and decisively in this situation by modifying your original plans and taking the necessary corrective action.

The environment your organization operates in is likely to evolve over time. This makes developing a business plan an uncertain process. For instance, legislative changes or other external developments might impact your original plans. Internal developments, such as losing a key employee to a competitor, might also have to be factored in. So when implementing a business plan, you need to have clear procedures in place for modifying your action plans and strategies when necessary.

This is the third course of the Business Planning Series.

You think knowing stuff changes the game? You think sitting in a library, stacking up facts like you’re building a Jenga tower, is gonna make you a winner? Man, that’s cute. But life ain't a trivia night. Information alone? It’s worthless. It’s like having a Lamborghini in your garage but you never learned how to drive. You just sit in it, making engine noises. Vroom vroom. People walk by, they see the car, but they also see you ain't going nowhere. You got all this knowledge, all these textbooks, but when life throws a punch, you’re still looking up the definition of "duck." It’s what you *do* with that information that actually matters. Don't be the person with the shiny car and no keys.