Importance of a Business Plan

If you start a business, your expectation is that it will be successful and profitable. Writing a business plan allows you to focus on the strategies that will make your business a successful one. That is why learning how to write a plan is so important for new businesses or established businesses that might be looking at new avenues for growth.  The business consultants at Corporate Business Solutions can help business leaders create and / or update a business plan to allow for maximum success. 

Business plans are written with an audience in mind. Internal business plans are written for a company’s management team to use as an operational guide. It can also be written with a specific project in mind to allow owners and managers to evaluate the feasibility and profitability of the project. These types of plans might include projections about profitability and growth ten or more years into the future.

External plans are written for the benefit of an audience located outside of the company. Prospective investors or venture capitalists and lending institutions are examples of the types of audiences for which external business plans are created. These types of plans are created to answer a question or address a particular problem. For instance, prospective investors want a business plan that demonstrates future growth and profitability of the company to generate a return on their capital investment.

Business plans come in all shapes and sizes, so what you choose to include in your business plan will depend upon your audience, the question it seeks to answer or the problem it seeks to resolve, and your personal preferences. The most frequently included elements of a business plan are the following:

• Executive summary
• Business description
• Business environment analysis
• Industry analysis
• Competitive analysis
• Market analysis
• Marketing plan
• Operations plan
• Team and management plan
• Financial projections
• Appendix

To learn more and / or to schedule your complimentary appointment with the business experts at Corporate Business Solutions, call us at 877-357-9366.