Task:
Part A – The Executive Summary
The Executive Summary is typically completed last, after you have finalized each element. The purpose of the Executive Summary is to give you a snap shot of the entire business plan.
Ensure that your Executive Summary also includes a brief description of the type of the business you have chosen (this could be a real business or a hypothetical one). Your business could be:
- An indoor or outdoorfacility
- A sportscomplex
- A personal trainingbusiness
- A community recreationcentre
- A fitnesscentre
- A specific sport or recreationservice
Your Executive Summary should include:
- Vision
- Legalstructure
- The products and services you willoffer
- Your customer (targetmarket)
- Your unique selling point and positioning in the market (i.e. what makes you different fromyour competitors)
- Financialprojections
- Goals and plans for thefuture
Part B – Products and Services
In this section, you will provide an outline of the products and services you plan to offer. In your outline you will describe:
- Features
- Benefits
- Cost and saleprice
- Substitutes in theindustry
Part C – Market Analysis
Complete a market analysis that identifies factors impacting on the direction and performance of the business. Ensure that you include the following:
If you are completing a business plan for an existing business, you should also
Evaluate the effectiveness of previous business planning to identify lessons learned
- Analyse current key products or services and major markets for strengths, weaknesses, opportunitiesand threats
- Evaluate performance against previous objectives, targets to identify critical success factors, andareas for improvement
Part D – Marketing Plan
The marketing plan is an essential component of your business plan. You can use your existing Marketing Plan for this section, however, because it is part of the business plan you will need to summarise key elements rather than submit the full detail. The items you will need to address are:
- Target Market
- Pricing
- Promotional strategies
- Distribution methods/location ofbusiness
- Sales plan including targets and forecast sales (http://www.business.qld.gov.au/business/support-tools-grants/tools/business-planning-kit p13 has a useful tool for this purpose)
Part E – Operations
Operations plans differ greatly from one business to the next. For the purposes of this plan, your operational plan needs to include the following:
- Physical resource requirements and plans foracquisition
- Human resource requirements and plans foracquisition
- Consultation plans to ensure operational planning is conducted smoothly (i.e. who do you have to share information with)
- Production processes (ifapplicable)
- Plant and equipment ifnecessary
- Stock and inventoryrequirements
Part F – Financial Plan
Your financial plan explains not only how you will finance your business, but also how you plan to keep it running. You will need to develop a financial plan which includes the following:
- Start-up finance
- Running costs
- Projections including break even and profit
A good tool to help you do this can be found on page 6 of the Business Victoria business plan template at http://www.business.vic.gov.au/operating-a-business/how-to-start/business-planning
Part G – Control and Evaluation
In this section, you are required to:
1. Explain how you will monitor and control performance
Some of the ways you can monitor and control performance are:
2. Outline how you will measure your performance
Outline how you plan measure performance and the tools you will use in your evaluation. You will need to incorporate appropriate metrics to review performance against objectives.
Develop performance objectives and measures for your business. These may include:
- efficiencymeasures
- input measures such as staff time or dollarsallocated
- outcomesmeasures
- qualitative indicators such as feedback from customers, effect on the wider market orcompetitors, staff reports
- quantitative indicators, such as numbers produced and sold, turnover, customer satisfactionranking, lower staff turnover
Depending on the business type you are planning and the objectives you set, your productivity and performance targets could be related to:
- community awareness orbranding
- environmentalimpact
- governance ormanagement
- quality
- sales
- triple bottomline
- workforce
Ensure that you provide a clear explanation of why you have chosen these measures for your business. You will need to explain how you will compare actual and planned results.
3. Develop a risk management strategy to identify risks and manage contingencies
You should also consider contingency planning and risk management. There are a number of possible risks to your business. Outline what these risks are and how you plan to manage them.