Guidelines to Write a Strong Business Plan

Posted by David Harper on November 11th, 2017

You know the benefits of writing a business plan, and you have done some homework and research to understand the kind of business you intend to start.  Now it is time to gather all the necessary information about the industry to which your business belongs, and more market research to help you set off in writing a solid business plan. Therefore, you are ready to put everything concerning your business idea on paper, and here you will find the description of the essential sections of a business plan in detail. You are also going to find all the guidelines that you need, as well as additional resources for writing a business plan.

•    Executive Summary

The executive summary comes after the title page and provides the overall outline of your business plan. The executive summary should provide your audience the fundamental aspects of your business idea, and state what you are asking for from your readers about your business idea.

•    Business Description

This section starts by providing a brief description of the industry, and you should state the current industry outlook in addition to the prospects. You also need to give information on the overall market situation within the industry, as well as include any new products or developments that you hope will benefit or harmfully affect your business.

•    Market Strategies

Your market strategy pertains to the information of the careful market analysis, which forces you into becoming completely familiar with every aspect of the market. Your market strategies for the target market should, therefore, define how your business will get positioned to grow its sales and increase your market share.

•    Competitive Analysis

This section aims to help in the determination of your business’ strengths and weaknesses of your competitors in your external business environment.  The purpose of your market analysis comes in handy that will provide you with a competitive advantage where you can develop barriers to beat off the competition from gaining entry into your market.  You can also identify competitors’ weaknesses that you can exploit within your product development cycle.

•    Development Plan

The aim of the design and development describes to the investors with a detailed description of the design of your products. Therefore, this section is concerned with charting your product development within the production context, marketing, and the business itself, as well as the creation of budget development plan that will push the business to attain its goals.

•    Operations and Management Plan

This section describes the business functions on a continuing basis, where the operations plan highlights the business logistics including roles and tasks of the management team. It also describes the tasks assigned to each division of the business, as well as capital and expenditure requirements as they relate to your business operations.

•    Financial Factors

Financial data is the backbone of your business plan, and it is essential to provide a detailed analysis of your financial plan. The financial data should include various projections such as cash flow, and profit projections. Finally, strong and perfect business plan will create a successful business.