Both successful businesspersons and inexperienced MBA students need to know how to create a well-organized business plan. This document is supposed to demonstrate the current condition of the definite firm and its future possibilities. The main idea of an academic business plan is to make your enterprise logically and professionally. It should contain the methods and strategies that will be utilized for the development of your company. In addition, this document requires broad knowledge about the financial condition of the market whereas your firm exists within the other companies that can offer the same goods and services. Your task is to brainstorm the best way to compete with them and win. So, how a good business plan should be made?
Tip #1 – Prepare for Writing
- Study the Market. Before you start writing your business plan, you ought to think about the type of your enterprise. What are you going to produce? Will it be demanded by your potential customers? Therefore, you should study the market attentively. What do modern consumers need? Can you provide them with this product? The best way to study the market is to use the Internet. Most often, both satisfied and frustrated customers share their points of view about various companies and their products in the social networking websites. You can read their feedback and get to know about the goods and services that require improvement. Moreover, you will learn about the products that do not exist at all but they are required passionately. As you see, the Internet provides you with the unlimited opportunities. Bear in mind that corporations pay billions to study the market. You can conduct this primary research yourself.
- Describe Your Business. Your following action is to describe the concept of your own firm. If you already know the approximate situation on the market, you can imagine the idea of your business. Make a scheme of the major goods and services that will be offered by your company. Think about its finance, staff, investors, marketing, etc. Of course, you should take into account the fact whether your firm is already active or not. If you need to reorganize your business, your business plan will be a bit different. For instance, you will need to imagine new products that will improve the condition of your firm or focus on the new strategies that will contribute into its development.
Tip #2 – Start Writing
- Describe the current condition of your business. If you want to reorganize your old company, you should think about the new products and new methods of development. Firstly, describe its current condition. What does it produce? How many employees do you have? What is the company’s budget? Is your marketing successful? Evaluate the quality of human resource management, income, expenses, etc. If you write about a brand new firm, this step can be omitted.
- Describe your expectations. Without question, the major goal of business plan writing is the successful result of your entrepreneurship. Everyone expects to make his firm profitable; thereof, a good business plan is the best way to fulfill this project well. What do you expect from your company? Do you want to earn a lot? Do you expect to occupy the leading position on the market? Are you going to expand? In simple words, you need to describe the final version of your future company on the paper. How will it look?
- Conduct competitive analysis. It is impossible to make your business profitable if you do not know your strengths and weaknesses. When you study the market, you will need to define the advantages of the rival firms. What makes them so successful? It is useful to borrow the experience of other companies to build your own one. Study as much information as possible about the structure, management and marketing strategies. At the same time, find the barriers that prevent you from making profit. Do you have any odd or out-of-date elements in your management style? What should be done to get rid of them? Finally, you can find the weak sides in the rival firms. It will help you avoid their mistakes.
Tip #3 – Create Your Design and Development Plan
- Focus on the product. Your primary duty is to attract money into the development of your business. You need investors. How is it possible to attract fresh cash? You ought to brainstorm the best product and present it in the best light to your potential investors. Bear in mind that you will need to work on its design, functions and marketing.
- Describe the structure of your business. This section is very considerable whereas it demonstrates the management of your company on a continuing basis. You should write about the structure of your firm, its staff, the duties of your employees, human resource management, marketing strategies, logistics, etc. You ought to show how your company works every day. In what way will you attract clients? How will you organize the process of production? In the end, you should insert the financial data into your written academic business plan to show the specific numbers to your investors.
