The starting point for any successful business is a properly formulated business plan. Without a business plan, the business is just like a body roaming around without a head. The successful business plan will take into consideration all the points of the business and plan accordingly.
A typical business plan includes the following sections
1) Executive summary: The brief about the entire business plan which is about the length of a page or half.
2) Company Description: This includes the details about the company, its nature of business, industry description in brief and the nature of products that it intends to cater to.
3) Market analysis: This part has a detailed description of the market, its need, the potential for growth in the near future along with other players in the existing market.
4) Organization and management: It will include a summary of the management and primary departments required for the functioning of the company. It also explains the future requirement of manpower and the expansion strategy in brief. The vision and mission statement may also be included here incase of a new organization.
5) Marketing and Sales: This is the very essential part of the business plan in which investors will be interested in. The sales part should cover return on investments over a period of time and the marketing part should include approximate expenses for execution of a marketing strategy for strong inception of the business.
6) Funding request: Some projects like online businesses require very fewer finances while others require a substantial investment. This section covers the same with a request to the funding, in a comprehensive manner.
7) Appendix and Glossary: The final part which contains the references for the data along with research reports, if any, are contained in this part.
The types of Business plans are categorized according to their needs for different businesses. Following are a few types of business plans
Table of Contents
6 Types of Business Plans
1) Internal Business Plan :
As the name suggests the internal business plan is for internal stakeholders of the business. These types of business plan help to evaluate projects which are specific and they keep the team up to speed about the current status of the company. The company has more chances of success everyone in the team is entirely on board and that is why the internal business plan has opted so that they target stakeholders within the organization instead of external stakeholders.
Is the company growing or declining? Does the working pattern need change, improvement or modification? These are the type of questions which internal business plans answer. The primary purpose of the internal business plan is not to show the balance sheet of the financial position of the company to the external stakeholders but it is to run the business as smoothly as possible. It contains strategies and ways to improve the current business working and suggests a new pattern for growth.
2) Strategic business plans :
Strategic business plans are embedded in internal business plans that means they are a part of it. The primary purpose of the strategic business plan is to carve the way to go ahead and answer the questions like What are you going to get and How do you intend to go about it. These answers are nothing but the strategy that the team must execute in order to achieve the targets and this includes the strengths weaknesses and the opportunities.
These plans have more exhaustive financial data and milestones which are important for investors. Internal efficiency is achieved because of strategic business plans so that the team gets the best results. The strategic business plan also comprises business vision, mission statement, strategies for achieving objectives, success factors and implementation schedules.
3) Operational Business Plan :
It is also termed as Annual Business plan and write the name suggests that plan is for the annual purpose. These types of business plans are more important for startups rather than the standard than business plans. The reason their cut down is because they have only a years’ worth of information.
They do not intend to elaborate the investors about the profit plan for 5 years but they contain a strategic plan for the next 365 days. The annual plan can also be considered as an internal business plan. There also used to attract the initial investors at the very beginning of the business. These types of business plans are suitable for companies that ensure monumental changes in little time.
4) Growth Business Plan :
Growth business plan is also known as an expansion business plan because it involves the expansion of a new location or launching a certain product thereby expanding the product portfolio. These types of business plans are hyper-focused and they are lean in nature but are not necessarily the only for startups.
Primary growth plans are divided into two categories that are internal and external growth plans depending on the nature of the audience. These types of business plans are generally used when the funding has done internally or the product is being launched new within the company. Since the funding is already known and the product line is already established there should be no need for an explanation about the product internally Radha the focus should be on estimating the sales and expenses. For the expansion plan which involves investor funding, the strategy is to use a piece of different information which may be quite elaborate in nature.
This plan considers Bank investor and all other factors that a new business plan would consider. The plan is made in such a way that the investor does not know anything about the product and hence everything has to be explained in the business plan which makes it much more exhaustive. It is treated like a startup which includes additional details about growth and expansion and it is considered as one plan with two important sub business plans.
This business plans will also include market growth financial projections funding request she is estimates and expenses. It is to be taken care that the importance of the business is established clearly in the project so as to answer the question of why to go for a particular business and why not for any other business. Competitor data forms a crucial part of this business plan.
For example, if you are launching a new brand of mobile phone then the project must explain how is it different from existing phones, what are unique features in it which makes it better than iPhone, boy dress public need this phone when so many phones exist and such other detailed information.
5) Feasibility Business Plan :
These types of business plans determine who will purchase the service or product of the company and the business venture can be made profitable. These types of business plans also include sections which describe the need for a product or service including the target demographics and the financials required to start the business. The final part of feasibility business plan is recommendations for the future.
6) Startup Business Plan :
These types of Business plans are used for newly launched companies. The startup business plans contain an exhaustive approach for starting and growing the business. It is different from all other business plans because of its then nature and the details are taken into consideration right from the inception of till the growth along with the vision of at least five years mentioned in the.
Startup business plans are also used by established companies to launch a new product line or to cater an entirely new business segment in the market. Conglomerates use this plan if they are launching a new business. But this plan will not come in handy if the Conglomerates plan to acquire an existing business rather a concise startup business plan is required in those cases to study the already established industry vis-a-vis the competition in the market.
Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Business
