Why a Business Plan is important

sunandaC

New member
Why a Business Plan is important ?

The Success of your business depends largely upon the decisions you make. A business plan allocates resources and measures the results of your actions, helping you set realistic goals and make decisions.

A good business plan is one of the best things you can do to ensure success. By itself, your business plan will not make your products better, your customers more enthused, your sales greater, or your bank account fatter.

What your plan will do is to make you THINK through your ideas. You will make fewer errors if your actions are based upon research and analysis.

You may have asked yourself, Why should I spend my time and energy drawing up a business plan? Remember, first and foremost, that lack of planning leaves you poorly equipped to anticipate future decisions and actions you must make or take to run your business Successfully. On the other hand, a sound plan can act as:

• A reality check. The process of putting a business plan together, including the thought you put in before you begin to write it, forces you to take an objective, critical, unemotional look at your business project in its entirety.

• A performance tool. Your written business plan is an operating tool which, when properly used, will help you manage your business and work effectively towards its Success.

Your business plan will allow you to set realistic goals and objectives for your company's performance, and, if maintained, will also provide a basis for evaluating and controlling the company's performance in the future.

It can help make the future what you want it to be, with goals and action steps to guide your business through turbulent economic cycles.

• A message sender. The completed business plan communicates your company's ideas and message to employees, outside directors, lenders, and potential investors. outside your company. A business plan helps you do that in an organised, credible manner.

The business plan provides a way to communicate your operations, goals, and business philosophy to personnel, suppliers and your other business contacts. Also, the process of planning helps you determine if your vision is realistic, and tells you what you need to do in order to achieve it.


• A motivation tool. The development of your business plan is one of the best ways for you to communicate how well you understand your business and describe your vision of your business. Without proper planning, it becomes impossible for you to get all of your employees reading off the same page of the book and generating energy through high levels of team work.

It is impossible to motivate people when they do not know where they are going or what they are trying to achieve.


• A management development tool. Putting together your business plan will help you develop as a manager because it can give you practice in thinking and figuring out problems about competitive conditions, promotional opportunities, and situations that are or may be beneficial or harmful to your business.


• A road map. Your business plan, once it is completed, will give you and your employees goals and direction: a roadmap to follow in guiding your business through good and bad times.

The preparation of a written business plan is not the end-result of the planning process. The realisation of that plan is the ultimate goal. However, the writing of the plan is an important intermediate stage.

For an established business it demonstrates that careful consideration has been given to the business's development, and for a start-up it shows that the entrepreneur has done his or her homework.

A formal business plan is just as important for an established business, irrespective of its size, as it is for a start-up.

It serves four critical functions as follows:

• Helps management or an entrepreneur to clarify, focus and research their business's or project's development and prospects.

• Provides a considered and logical framework within which a business can develop and pursue business strategies over the next three to five years.

• Serves as a basis for discussion with third parties such as shareholders, agencies, banks, investors etc.

• Offers a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured and reviewed.

Just as no two businesses are alike, so also with business plans.

As some issues in a plan will be more relevant to some businesses than to others, it is important to tailor a plan's contents to suit individual circumstances.

Nonetheless, most plans follow a well-tried and tested structure and general advice on preparing a plan is universally applicable.

A business plan should be a realistic view of the expectations and long-term objectives for an established business or new venture. It provides the framework within which it must operate and, ultimately, succeed or fail.

For management or entrepreneurs seeking external support, the plan is the most important sales document that they are ever likely to produce as it could be the key to raising finance etc.

Preparation of a comprehensive plan will not guarantee success in raising funds or mobilising support, but lack of a sound plan will, almost certainly, ensure failure.

Preparing a satisfactory business plan is a painful but essential exercise.

The planning process forces managers or entrepreneurs to understand more clearly what they want to achieve, and how and when they can do it.

Even if no external support is needed, a business plan can play a vital role in helping to avoid mistakes or recognise hidden opportunities. It is much easier to fold a sheet of paper than a business.

For many, many entrepreneurs and planners, the process of planning (thinking, discussing, researching and analysing) is just as, or even more, useful than the final plan.

So, even if you don't need a formal plan, think carefully about going through the planning process. It could be enormously beneficial to your business.

Anticipate many weeks of hard work and several drafts of the emerging plan to get the job right. A clearly written and attractively packaged business plan will make it easier to interest possible supporters, investors etc.

A well-prepared business plan will demonstrate that the managers or entrepreneurs know the business and that they have thought through its development in terms of products, management, finances, and most importantly, markets and competition.

Three things a Business Plan must provide. More than anything else, a business plan must clearly communicate your ideas and plans. To accomplish this, a plan should include:

1. Evidence of focus. What one thing (or several things) do you do exceptionally well?

2. Understanding of who your target customers are. Define or list your target customers.

3. An appreciation of investor or lender needs. What are some of the needs of the lender? Of an investor?

A business plan is for a business, what that flight plan is for an airplane en route to that distant destination.

The fact is, the more experienced the pilot, the more certain you can be that he/she will not make that flight without a detailed, well researched flight plan.
 
From my point of view business plans are significant to the achievements of any startup company. I think that business owners should spend time to develop them, no matter if you%u2019re looking for investors. Business plans function as the structure for your company and deliver expectations to see if you%u2019re hitting your goals.
 

bhautik.kawa

New member
Why a Business Plan is important ?

The Success of your business depends largely upon the decisions you make. A business plan allocates resources and measures the results of your actions, helping you set realistic goals and make decisions.

A good business plan is one of the best things you can do to ensure success. By itself, your business plan will not make your products better, your customers more enthused, your sales greater, or your bank account fatter.

What your plan will do is to make you THINK through your ideas. You will make fewer errors if your actions are based upon research and analysis.

You may have asked yourself, Why should I spend my time and energy drawing up a business plan? Remember, first and foremost, that lack of planning leaves you poorly equipped to anticipate future decisions and actions you must make or take to run your business Successfully. On the other hand, a sound plan can act as:

• A reality check. The process of putting a business plan together, including the thought you put in before you begin to write it, forces you to take an objective, critical, unemotional look at your business project in its entirety.

• A performance tool. Your written business plan is an operating tool which, when properly used, will help you manage your business and work effectively towards its Success.

Your business plan will allow you to set realistic goals and objectives for your company's performance, and, if maintained, will also provide a basis for evaluating and controlling the company's performance in the future.

It can help make the future what you want it to be, with goals and action steps to guide your business through turbulent economic cycles.

• A message sender. The completed business plan communicates your company's ideas and message to employees, outside directors, lenders, and potential investors. outside your company. A business plan helps you do that in an organised, credible manner.

The business plan provides a way to communicate your operations, goals, and business philosophy to personnel, suppliers and your other business contacts. Also, the process of planning helps you determine if your vision is realistic, and tells you what you need to do in order to achieve it.


• A motivation tool. The development of your business plan is one of the best ways for you to communicate how well you understand your business and describe your vision of your business. Without proper planning, it becomes impossible for you to get all of your employees reading off the same page of the book and generating energy through high levels of team work.

It is impossible to motivate people when they do not know where they are going or what they are trying to achieve.


• A management development tool. Putting together your business plan will help you develop as a manager because it can give you practice in thinking and figuring out problems about competitive conditions, promotional opportunities, and situations that are or may be beneficial or harmful to your business.


• A road map. Your business plan, once it is completed, will give you and your employees goals and direction: a roadmap to follow in guiding your business through good and bad times.

The preparation of a written business plan is not the end-result of the planning process. The realisation of that plan is the ultimate goal. However, the writing of the plan is an important intermediate stage.

For an established business it demonstrates that careful consideration has been given to the business's development, and for a start-up it shows that the entrepreneur has done his or her homework.

A formal business plan is just as important for an established business, irrespective of its size, as it is for a start-up.

It serves four critical functions as follows:

• Helps management or an entrepreneur to clarify, focus and research their business's or project's development and prospects.

• Provides a considered and logical framework within which a business can develop and pursue business strategies over the next three to five years.

• Serves as a basis for discussion with third parties such as shareholders, agencies, banks, investors etc.

• Offers a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured and reviewed.

Just as no two businesses are alike, so also with business plans.

As some issues in a plan will be more relevant to some businesses than to others, it is important to tailor a plan's contents to suit individual circumstances.

Nonetheless, most plans follow a well-tried and tested structure and general advice on preparing a plan is universally applicable.

A business plan should be a realistic view of the expectations and long-term objectives for an established business or new venture. It provides the framework within which it must operate and, ultimately, succeed or fail.

For management or entrepreneurs seeking external support, the plan is the most important sales document that they are ever likely to produce as it could be the key to raising finance etc.

Preparation of a comprehensive plan will not guarantee success in raising funds or mobilising support, but lack of a sound plan will, almost certainly, ensure failure.

Preparing a satisfactory business plan is a painful but essential exercise.

The planning process forces managers or entrepreneurs to understand more clearly what they want to achieve, and how and when they can do it.

Even if no external support is needed, a business plan can play a vital role in helping to avoid mistakes or recognise hidden opportunities. It is much easier to fold a sheet of paper than a business.

For many, many entrepreneurs and planners, the process of planning (thinking, discussing, researching and analysing) is just as, or even more, useful than the final plan.

So, even if you don't need a formal plan, think carefully about going through the planning process. It could be enormously beneficial to your business.

Anticipate many weeks of hard work and several drafts of the emerging plan to get the job right. A clearly written and attractively packaged business plan will make it easier to interest possible supporters, investors etc.

A well-prepared business plan will demonstrate that the managers or entrepreneurs know the business and that they have thought through its development in terms of products, management, finances, and most importantly, markets and competition.

Three things a Business Plan must provide. More than anything else, a business plan must clearly communicate your ideas and plans. To accomplish this, a plan should include:

1. Evidence of focus. What one thing (or several things) do you do exceptionally well?

2. Understanding of who your target customers are. Define or list your target customers.

3. An appreciation of investor or lender needs. What are some of the needs of the lender? Of an investor?

A business plan is for a business, what that flight plan is for an airplane en route to that distant destination.

The fact is, the more experienced the pilot, the more certain you can be that he/she will not make that flight without a detailed, well researched flight plan.

Hey sunanda,

Great article your share with us, Well, i found some important information Business Plan Outline and wanna share it with you and other's. So please download and check it.
 

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