business plan template word

business plan template word

Business Plan Template: A Persuasive Guide to Success

1. Introduction

It forces business management to think through the specific steps. This planning the what you are going to do to turn the plan from vision into reality is a type of qualification testing an important one. Many a time the business has assumed that the path of turning a vision into a reality is a simple one only to run into a wall. In bridge building the southern approach to a new bridge in St. Louis ran into an unexpected and costly foundations of houses and a hotel. A good plan identifies the milestones of progress and can be used as a measure for the degree of success. This is very important. Life in a small growing company is very busy and it is an easy way to spend a year never quite advancing the state of the company toward the desired end. A plan with specified mid term goals and a process for monitoring those goals will guide the allocation of resources and provide a way of comparing actual results with expected results. Finally and most important of all a well formulated business plan gives a clear picture of the what is success for the business. Keep this definition and it’s abstract you’ll understand it in context. Required information to understand the what is success might not be common and will be scattered through the section for using the plan. At each such instance ask is this part still achieving the goals of the plan and is it doing so to a measurement of success. Success for the plan has been achieved if the answer to each of these is yes.

Why do you need a small business plan to succeed in business? Understand the definition a business plan is a precise set of goals the business will accomplish. A good plan is designed to build a bridge between your present state and your vision of the business for the future. A well formulated business plan helps achieve the following results. Build a bridge between business goals and possibilities. A good plan helps the company attain its goals by forcing its attention on the future. This is it the opportunity for good things to happen next year. Without this a company can get caught up in events always prepared and only capable of acting today. And even if tomorrow turns out to be very different from what we expected today will have been shaped by today’s action or inaction. In this case a default to not all that common question for this is a strategy company opt to not decide anything that requires a commitment of resources.

This is the Business Plan Template. The template consists of a narrative (body) and financial worksheets. Work through the sections in any order that you like, except for the Executive Summary, which should be done last. Skip any questions that do not apply to your type of business. When you are finished writing your first draft, you’ll have a collection of small essays on the various topics of the business plan. Then you’ll want to edit them into a smooth flowing narrative.

2. Executive Summary

We seek funding of $10 million to take advantage of a window of opportunity for a food home delivery service, by expanding the Mosaic Foods service offering into new territories, and adding new products and services to our menu. We seek to invest to set up a central kitchen. This funding decision is based on the limited window of opportunity, to move quickly before competitors remove the available market share. Given these funding requirements, a liquidity event in the form of sale of the business is anticipated to provide venture capitalists an exit on their investment. Various means of the company are considered when analyzing the funding options available for such an investment. An investor would support all of the finance methods feasible given the reasoning behind the specific percentages for the equity and debt used, and the decision to lease the property. Funding would be allocated in a stage fashion and the exact allocation based on the different alternatives will be determined further after a comprehensive risk analysis. Given the estimated cost of capital, WACC is calculated, a weighted average rate of return will be achieved. An after-tax rate of return consistent with the WACC will be deemed acceptable given the level of risk associated with a full meal replacement incurring debt.

3. Business Description

The business has now been operating on a full-time basis for 6 years from the Perth based ABC’s home office room. Utilising the features of a virtual office, ABC liaises with clients at their chosen location, servicing an extensive range of industries. With recent cloud technology implementations, work is now easily done offsite whilst still maintaining a secure and reliable connection to client data. This recent environment has been incredibly successful in reducing clients’ ongoing costs, thus contributing to a competitive business, industry and freeing up client resources to increase productivity.

History: If it is an existing business, provide a brief history of the company. Make sure to include what your role is in the business and how you are able to affect outcomes. E.g. if you are a subsidiary, your actions may not directly affect the success of the company.

Legal establishment: Location Where is the business going to be situated? If you are a client-oriented business, area is vitally important. Detail why you have selected this location. What advantages does it give? E.g. if you are in a service industry, being close to the city may provide you with a larger market of clients.

Business type: Detail what type of business it is. Is it a partnership, corporation, or sole proprietorship? Discuss why you have selected this form. If you are a corporation, detail when (P/L, P/L on Disposal, Income from all Sources) and how often you will receive dividends and if you will be taking a salary. Also detail percentage of paid share capital that will be paid to shareholders. If you are a partnership, detail the type of partnership. I.e. is it a limited liability partnership etc.

4. Market Analysis

Bargaining power of suppliers: There is a high power of bargaining with the suppliers as most of them have exclusive representation of a brand and we’ll have to use their product as a cost to differentiate similar products of client competitors. This results in a need to maintain a good relationship with the supplier and at times a monetary investment to stick to a particular supplier. Due to the current economic climate, some brand name products will look to cut costs or pull out of the market resulting in difficulty to find a similar product in the case where a product is doing well and requires a high inventory reorder.

Bargaining power of buyers: At the consumer level, there is a high power for bargaining. Buyers want the best deal and are willing to put time into researching a better price for the same product. This results in many cases in lower profit margins for companies while attempting to negotiate a volume of purchases from the buyer. This is usually the case in a B2B situation where the buyer is another firm who is our potential client.

Pressure from substitute products: There are a large number of substitute products from different brands. Sometimes the newer models of a related product may be considered a substitute as it is a high end product. High end products are also sometimes considered in the realms of low end products of a higher quality. In any case, the result is that there is a cut in sales and a lower ROI for marketing expenses of a particular product.

Rivalry among competing firms: There is an extremely high level of competition in this industry. Sales channels are sometimes exploited and it is not uncommon for a rival company to attempt to usurp the market share of others. This tends to occur mainly in the lower end products market where margins are not as high. This makes companies reluctant to use higher end products as they may be difficult to sell and will result in inventory being tied up. Many of the firms will be our potential clients who are attempting to use products as a differentiating factor, resulting in a change in our target market.

Threat of new entrants: There are very high barriers to easy entry of this industry with costs of setting up a business being very high. It will be a challenge for a new entrant to acquire a distributor of a popular brand as most have exclusive representation and the smaller ones do not have the resources to properly market the product. Given the recent global credit crunch, many small businesses and local consumers have less disposable income and the market has become extremely price sensitive. Due to the amount of competition and market saturation, it would not be easy to acquire distribution rights of a popular brand of products.

Porter’s 5 Competitive Forces

Technological: Dubai is becoming a major hub of new technology and innovations in the Middle East. With quick adoption of new technological improvements, it has become a key feature of ensuring business success in the market.

Social: Dubai has a growing population of around 1.67 million people as of 2005, in comparison to the last 4 decades when it was considerably smaller. It’s now a mature market and society.

Economic: It has been forecasted by Dubai Economic Department that the economy is on the upturn and will benefit from 40% growth in the next upcoming years.

Political & Legal: Recent Dubai laws and business laws have made it easier for investors to have 100% ownership of their business in specific sectors, such as in a free trade zone. No personal or corporate taxes are levied and custom duties are low in the region. There are intra-gulf custom duties but most of the Dubai import duties are low.

PEST Analysis

Below is a summary of the market study conducted:

5. Financial Projections

In this section, our first focus will be on forecasting sales. Paul Graham says, “Initially it’s usually better to do something you have a lot of passion for. Ideally this will be a derivative of your current job. You know the field, the players and what would turn you on about doing a startup.” His humble advice steers us toward a high-tech startup which happens to be the area where the author prevails. Although Graham didn’t refer directly to a cleaning business, the advice is still the same. Knowing the field, the players and what turns us on is a simple definition of clarity. The more we know and how what we are doing related to the task at hand, the most successful we will be. Setting up a cleaning business is a relatively low-tech, to say the least. Therefore, the area where we will thrive the most is the basic residential cleaning. As the owner and operator for a simple cleaning business Clear, most experience is in the particulars of apartment make-readies. This type of work is closely related to residential cleaning, but there is a greater volume of work due to the swiftness of which it is to be done. Pricing is based on an hourly rate and it is easy for us to crew up. So from here we will base our projection in a hypothetical situation where we have landed a large maintenance contract with a complex. Having our knowledge of the work and the fact that it is not too difficult, backbreaking nor mentally draining, we have actually done this type of work just to increase our hourly wages. At the time, we were employees of a janitorial company. Now, wanting to escape the mire of low paying manual labor, we project our wages in the same situation at $15/hr per person. This wage is a good starting point for employee wages in this type of work and considering that we still have all the knowledge and necessary equipment, our work will be easier and more profitable than ever. With a crew of two, the first step is determining how many hours this team will work on this cleaning job. The best way to do this is to overestimate on time so that the job is done very thoroughly. Usually, we always had the opportunity to earn extra pay due to great efficiency. So for overestimation’s sake, we will allot 10 total hours to the job. $15 x 10 = $150, two people $150 = $300.