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What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a written document that highlights in detail how business, usually a new one, is going to achieve its goals. It usually lays out a written plan from a financial, operational, and most importantly marketing point of view.

1. Clarify Directions

The primary purpose of a business plan is to explain what the business is or what it intends to achieve in the future. Clarifying the purpose of your business allows you to understand the direction of the forward movement. It should include a simple idea about your business, the product services, and the detailed description of what you expect from the customers as well.

2. To obtain financing

A business plan is always necessary if you wish to secure funding, whether you are operating a new plan or want to seek a bank loan or venture capital. But why do investors want to see your business plan? For understanding this, you have to look it through a different perspective.

Let’s suppose you are going to loan someone $1,000 or more for their business. With the hope of getting the money back and seeing a return on your investment, you would want to know exactly how the money would be used, who is going to be in charge, what makes them qualified to succeed, what are their valuable assets, liabilities, and profits look like? Of course, you would want to know the details.

3. To maintain your organization

A business plan ensures that the organizational structure of your business is well developed. It includes the entitlement of your directors, officers, and specific duties. Thus, it can act as a management tool that can regularly be consulted to ensure the organization is on track and the goals are being pursued efficiently.

4. Vision for the future

For most of the companies, business evolves over time, and factoring future growth into your business plan can prove very crucial to coping with the changes in the markets.

Thus it helps you to envision your future and things you can to safeguard it

  • Executive Summary

  • Mission Statement

  • Company Background

  • Product/Service Description

  • Marketing Plan

  • Competitor analysis

  • SWOT Analysis

  • Operations

  • Financial Planning

  • Timeline