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A business plan is a written description of the future of your business and more importantly, how you are going to get there. It is a document that explains what you are going to do to make your company profitable and how you are going to achieve this. It defines both your business model and your strategies to make this business model work and more importantly profitable.Normally when a business idea arises, you know what resources and capabilities you have at the start of your business and where you want to go in a certain period, usually in 3 or 5 years. But what is the way to reach that goal? Where to start? How to arouse investor interest? Even, how to get your business off the ground? Everything seems so easy when you have the great money winning idea and concept. It is how you are going to achieve these dreams and get enough money to keep the business going for many years to come.Writing a business plan is to build a map that will guide you to where you start making money with your initial business idea. At is very basic structure, your business plan is a mixture of strategies and plans. It involves financials, marketing, staffing and products. Think of it as the foundation to your new business.WHAT are the reasons that I might need one?
• To look for investors.
• To apply for a loan.
• To establish the viability of your business idea.
• To make improvements to your current business.
• To expand your current business.All of these types have different emphasises and a different structure.WHAT is a business plan?
It is a tool or document that describes a business opportunity or idea, the work team, the operational and marketing execution strategies, the business risks and the economic viability of your business. A well written document guides you to turn an idea into a viable business.It can also be defined in another context in that the business plan becomes a fundamental tool within the analysis of a new business opportunity, a diversification plan, an internationalisation project, the acquisition of a company or an external business unit, or even the launch of a new product or service within the current business.To summarise, both for the development or launch of a startup and for the analysis of new business investments, the business plan becomes an indispensable tool. So even though you have an established business, you will still need a business plan as you expand and improve that business.A business plan is never finished and should be reviewed from time to time at least annually but certainly when large changes to an existing company are anticipated. This implies that every plan must adapt effectively and efficiently to the changes, helping the project to continue.WHAT is the point of a business plan?
Many entrepreneurs think they only need a business plan when they are seeking investment or when the bank asks for one. However the act of business planning, when completed correctly, enables the entrepreneur to carry out an extensive market study that will provide the information required to design the best possible business model that will be both profitable and efficient.Additionally, the business plan will develop the strategic measures for all functional areas that will enable them achieve the objectives for the new business.
Once written, the business plan will serve as an internal tool to assess the management of the company and its deviations from the planned scenario. Proposing, if necessary, adaptations to the agreed business model in order to obtain updated information for the daily management of the company. This will include preparation of the required changes and processes to bring the business back on track.So lets dive into the concepts behind business planning a bit more.The WHY of The Business Plan
• Why do you want your business plan?
• Why are you writing the plan now?The WHAT of the Business Plan
• What is the purpose of developing a specific plan?
• In what period do you consider it possible to carry out your projects?
• What is your business model?
• What is your Value Proposition?
• What are your products or services to be offered?
• What positioning do you plan to develop to compete?
• What are your measurements of success?
• What markets do you plan to penetrate?
• What market percentage do you estimate to obtain?
• What margins do you consider possible?
• What income do you consider you will receive?
• What are the costs of expansion?
• What are the costs of obtaining new customers?
• What do you want to do with your business?
• What strategies do you want to undertake – financial, marketing and planningThe WHERE of the Business Activity
• Where will your products be sold from? Shop, office, website, social media, road side, party planning,
• Where are you based? Locally, centrally, virtually etc.
• Where are your products produced?
• Where are your distribution channels?
• Where are they going to be sold?
• Where is your market?
• Where will your staff need to be based?The WHEN of your business planning activities
• When will you need to start your new activities?
• When will they end?
• When will your investor need to invest?
• When will your investor get their money back?
• When will you have enough staff to carry out your new changes?
• When will your products and services be available?
• When will your products need to be updated and/or improved?
• When is the best time to attract new customers?WHO do you present your plan to?
• Bank for loan purposes and they will take a charge over a property usually.
• Investor to join your company as a shareholder.
• Angle Investor to join as a shareholder but also be involved in the running of your company.
• Management team so they know what is expected of them.
• Suppliers who will be offering credit.
• Director level hires so that they are encouraged to join your company.
• Believe it or not the entrepreneur should also refer back on a regular basis.As you can see there are a lot of Ws involved with a business plan – the biggest W is why should you write a business plan and the answer is – because it is such a great business tool.

Research on over 25,000 consultancy projects has shown that about one third deliver what was promised and the other two thirds end in embarrassing and expensive failure. Yet it is not difficult to get truly high value from consultants. But for this to happen, all of the following nine conditions must be met. Too many clients embark on costly consulting and IT systems projects without checking that these commonsense elements are in place.1. Your people cannot solve the issue
If you are thinking of buying consultancy to redesign your processes, develop a new organisation structure or whatever, you must ensure that nobody in your organisation is capable of doing the job and establish exactly how much consultancy help you need. Would it be enough just to buy one or two experts’ time to help guide your own staff? If so, then you should not let the consultancy sell you an army of “warm bodies”. Firstly, because this will be a huge waste of money. And secondly, because employees are more likely to accept changes to which they themselves have contributed and are more inclined to reject changes forced upon them by young inexperienced consultants who will not be around to bear the consequences of the changes they are proposing.2. Your management team has correctly identified that issue
The next question to ask is whether you and your management team could in any way be responsible for the situation with which you want your consultants to help you. It is unusual for an organisation to have a problem that is not in some degree related to the way management leads the place. If you are able to make a reasonably honest and objective assessment of your own role in creating a situation where you believe you need consultants’ help, you are much more likely to buy the correct consultancy.3. Your consultancy is selling a solution and not a product
Before hiring a consultancy, you need to be aware of what they can and cannot offer. In particular you need to assess whether they are genuinely trying to provide a customised solution to your situation or whether they are trying to foist some pre-made service on you. And if your consultants are in any way connected with an IT systems house, all the warning bells should be sounding. It is probable that they will be under great pressure to flog you some IT – make really sure you need it before they convince you to buy it.4. Your consultancy has the right skills
When a consultancy shows interest in working for you, there is nothing wrong with insisting on seeing the CVs of the consultants who will be running riot in your organisation. Many consultancies will resist this request – if they do, they are probably not the kind of consultancy you would want to work with anyway.5. The consultants with the right skills will work for you
When your consultancy is trying to sell to you, they will probably give you loads of face time with their experts with the skills relevant to your situation. Too often, once you have signed the contract, the experts become scarce and you’re left mostly with inexperienced “billing fodder”. You should demand that the consultancy includes in your contract a firm written commitment as to how many days per week the experts will be on site working on your project. And you should not ever accept bland assurances that their experts will always be available on the phone to help your “billing fodder” out and give them guidance when necessary.6. Your consultancy agrees to a fixed timeframe and fixed budget
Look closely at the contract your consultancy offers you. In particular, check whether the total fees they plan to charge you are fixed and whether they clearly commit to how long your project will take. Many consultancy contracts, especially those including some IT systems work, may at first look like they are offering a defined service for a fixed price within a fixed timeframe. But if you look in the small print, you will often find several “get out of jail free” clauses that allow the consultancy to charge an awful lot more and take considerably longer than they initially promise.7. Your consultancy agrees to base part of their fees on results
There are few consultancies that will risk basing any significant part of their fees on the results they achieve. They will normally give all kinds of excuses – they cannot be responsible for external events in the market, the economic situation might suddenly change, one of your major customers might move to another supplier, a competitor might implement a new more aggressive strategy affecting your profits and so on. While there is some validity to all these excuses, you should still be able to find some performance measures that will indicate whether your consultancy delivered the dreams they promised. If they do refuse to base at least thirty percent of their fees on their results, you should consider giving the business to someone else.8. Your consultancy charges ‘reasonable’ fees and expenses
Your consultancy will probably try not to tell you how much they pay their staff and they will attempt to give you an overall price for your project rather than revealing what each consultant will actually cost you. However, you can reckon that a junior consultant is getting paid somewhere between £30,000 and £50,000 a year, an experienced consultant £60,000 to £80,000 a year and a project manager £100,000 to £150,000 per year. So if your consultancy are paying a junior consultant less than £1,000 a week and yet appear to be charging you £8,000 a week for their time, then this 800% gross profit margin may be excessive. Likewise, if they are paying an experienced expert around £2,000 per week and you are forking out £15,000 a week for them. Then look out for extra administration charges, excessive travel expenses and only pay for consultants’ time spent working on your project.9. Try adapting existing IT systems before deciding to build new ones
If you think you may need to improve your IT systems, most IT consultants will recommend you build a completely new system. Their argument will be that your needs are unique, so to give you the best solution, they need to design something exactly matching your needs. It may be true that overall the system they propose is different from other systems in existence. However, if you split your required system up into its individual elements, you will probably find that most of these already exist in other organisations. You will save many millions and huge organisational effort by thinking creatively about how existing systems can be adapted to serve your needs. And always ask yourself the question: with over 700 million people living in the developed world, is it really possible that your organisation is so unique that there is no other organisation in existence that has similar IT system needs to yours?