What are the essentials of writing a good business plan?

Essential elements of writing a good  business plan

When writing a business plan remember that "Form follows function", so your plan has to fit your exact business needs. The emphasis should change depending on whether it's a plan for starting a company, raising investment money, supporting a business loan or managing an existing business. In general the following sections are essential for a complete business plan. Others may recommend less but the contents are essentially the same.

1.       Executive Summary

The executive summary gives the outline of the plan’s key sections like your company’s mission and vision, brand profile, target markets, product and services, competition, marketing strategy and financial aspects. Your executive summary will determine if your business plan will be read or tossed away in the trash pin.

2.       Company Description

 Provide the profile of your company, its history, its drivers, what it does and how it operates. Give  the company’s mission being brief and concise.

3.       Target Market

Identify the market for the brands and products your company intends to make. Answer the following questions: Who are your customers? What value you offer to them? How are you going to help them achieve such value?

4.       The Competition

Another important element of a good business plan is the competition analysis. Identify the competition of the business. Use SWOT, PESTEL, PORTER FIVE FORCES etc.  to analyze the market. Identify primary and secondary competitors; compare the value propositions of your company to other companies and list its competitive advantages and disadvantages.

5.       Marketing Strategies

Your Marketing strategy is another component of a business plan that addresses the five P’s of marketing; product, price, person, place and promotion. You need to outline an effective marketing strategy.

6.       Process and Operations

Describe the overall work flow of the business without details.

7.       Management and Organizational Structure

 Identify the organizational structure of the company including key managers. This part is very important especially if you are seeking finance because investors will be interested in the background of the company’s management team and their corresponding salary scale.

8.       Strategic plans

Strategic long term plans is another critical component of a business plan. It shows in detail, the long term plans of your company by considering its future profits and growth. It provides a timetable for these plans as well as the sensitivity or risk factors. This part of the plan provides visual graphs of what the business will be like one, three, five or more years from now.

9.       Financial Aspect

The last element of a business plan is the financials. This part provides a view of the financial projections of the company for the first few years of the business. It includes costs, income statements, cash flow, break-even analysis, and anticipated profits

10 components:

• Mission statement and/or vision statement so you articulate what you’re trying to create;
• Description of your company and product or service;
• Description of how your product or service is different;
• Market analysis that discusses the market you’re trying to enter, competitors, where you fit, and what type of market share you believe you can secure;
• Description of your management team, including the experience of key team members and previous successes;
• How you plan to market the product or service;
• Analysis of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threat, which will show that you’re realistic and have considered opportunities and challenges;
• Develop a cash flow statement so you understand what your needs are now and will be in the future (a cash flow statement also can help you consider how cash flow could impact growth);
• Revenue projections; and
• Summary/conclusion that wraps everything together (this also could be an executive summary at the beginning of the plan).

The business plan is any tactic that required to draw the road map for achieving the goals are visioned. The most essential in business plan is :-

1- PESTEL analysis to see the opportuinty and threats might face the business in the future

2- study very well the compitors to address their strongness and weekness

3- Vision, Mission 

4- The description of the products needed to wrk with 

5- The uniqeness of the coroporate that you need to work with to make you sucessfull

6- the recuitement paln and HR 

7- Cashflow and demand of investment capital and working capital

8- Risk Assesment 

A business plan conveys the organisational structure of the business and it acts as a a management tool in ensuring the business in course with achieving goals and operational milestones.

The Essentials in a Good Business Plan is as follows:

1. The Company. A plan for a startup must describe the  strategy for creating the legal entity and how the initial ownership will be divided among the founders. It should also include a table that lists startup costs and initial funding. A plan for an ongoing or already existing company should describe the legal form of the business, the company history and the business's past performance.

2. What You Sell. Describe the products or services you offer. Emphasize why buyers purchase those things, what benefits they get, and what pain points they have before they buy. Show how much it costs to deliver what you're selling.

3. Your Market. Describe the target market, including market demographics, market growth and trends. Include a table that shows a market forecast. Describe the nature of your industry and the competition you have.

4. Strategy and Implementation. Strategy is all about focus. So focus on certain target market segments, certain products or services, and specific distribution avenues. Forecast your sales and the cost of sales. Define your milestones with dates, budgets and specific responsibilities.

5. Management Team.

Names and description of the key members on your team. Include a table that shows personnel costs. List the gaps in the management team--if any--and show how they're being addressed.

7. Financial Projections. Describe the financial strategy and how it supports your projected growth. Include a break-even analysis that shows risk as a matter of fixed vs. variable costs. Include projected profit or loss, cash flow and balance sheets.

1. The Executive Summary. The final summary at last, which will contain the highlights of the plan. Assuming the  important readers will read only this section.

Executive Summary - Actual Situation Analysis - Goals Definition - Strategy Design - Operation Tree - Financial Budget - Business Structure - Diferenciators - Communication

• Company Description.
• Executive Summary.
• Market Analysis.
• Management and Organization.
• Marketing and Sales Management.
• Product or Service Line.
• Funding or capital requirement.
• Financials.

The most essential component of writing a good business plan is the attitude of the entrepreneur.  His Passion and love for the business covers SWOT analysis and finally when that is time bound then it makes the best business plan. 

Structure the plan to be conducted in blocks in a structural way to help thinking and visualising the strategy and how the business plan will help the action of implementing it as if its like writing about a dream.

The dream of achieving the target and a goal. In a well planned manner, including enough details and data analysed with all strategic tools and strategic analysis to help supporting to show the imagination how its going to achieve the goal it was actually planned for.

The financials, how you evaluate things, market analysis, market dynamics and market research. Also how your strenghts and weakness corresponds to the market situation and business envireonment.

In brief:

1. Clear objective.

2. Clear communication.

3. Market knowledge. 

4. Analytic process is preferred.

5. Professional proofing of the final BP structure and outcome.