Business planning [in my own words and little Plagiarized ]

It is a plan….when it comes to business it is called as a business plan…
A business plan is similar to our time table or curriculum through which we set our goals to achieve our academic requirements….similarly business plan is one such thing used to carry out a fine business which is error free and successful. It serves a s a blue print…

Defining business plan….can be done like this…..

What is a business plan?
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals.

And as a plan or curriculum varies from university to university a business plan also varies from organization to organization….

When and why do we need a business plan?

Business planning is often conducted when:

• Starting a new venture (organization, product or service)
• Expanding a current organization, product or service
• Buying a current organization, product or service
• Working to improve the management of a current organization, product or service

Lets speak elaborately about above stated categories….

Starting a new venture: let me put up with an example, you are ambidextrous at making handicrafts,and already there are plenty of boutiques in california, so when u want to start up your own boutique it should have some uniqueness, ur quality of products may be classic and good, while others too have the same stuff…so now we make a plan, to start up a success ful one.
1. survey has to be done for number of sales of handicrafts.
2. how many boutiques and what are the famous brands.
3. then location of the boutique.
4. then hwo are u going to rate the price for ur handicrafts, if u make it cheap people wont buy cheap stuff if u make higher rates people wont neither.. ur business will sustain but not flourish
5. like this it goes on…………

with the help of this u can do SWOT [strength weakness opportunity threats]analysis.

Expanding a current organization, product or service: now let us assume that we have got ur own boutique and its running successfully and now u want to branch out…

Steps:
1. where do u want to branch out.[u cant branch out to India where there is abundance of handicrafts is there ]
2. bcoz of branching out are u going to get benefited.
3. can u manage the burden of work.
4. can u maintain the quality…

all these things can be checked.

Buying a current organization, product or service: now after establishing urself as a successful business organization now u want to expand urself more…and uwant to acquire an organization that makes handicrafts in Africa.

Things that u have to consider are:

1. is that a new one.
2. how much strength it has got.
3. what are the export import charges that my organization have to pay.
4. is that company free from legal litigations

and it goes on………….again……

Working to improve the management of a current organization, product or service:
Now, stabilized and got lot of market and lot of business. Now,

Steps:
1. u want to have a management culture.
2. u want to implement concepts like JIT(toyota)[just in time: where raw materials are supplied to just in time to avoid storage],
3. group techonlgy [where similar things are grouped together],
4. integrating computers into the company to get profits and to avoid time wastage which is called CIM computer integrated manufacturing…
5. and the new technique where in reality u don’t have an office u may be manufacturing a product some where in germany getting the desing from India and selling it in Africa and virtually maintaining a big office I ur laptop while there exists zero office space. To implement such things u need to plan again…

Support serveices: things that help u to make the business plan
1. consultancies
2. electronic planning templates (software )
3. face to face help: mentoring programs, training courses.

Analysis: analysis can be done by one of the tool called:-

Porter's 5 forces analysis is a framework for industry analysis and business strategy development developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 of Harvard Business School. It uses concepts developed in Industrial Organization (IO) economics to derive 5 forces that determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market. Porter referred to these forces as the microenvironment, to contrast it with the more general term macro-environment. They consist of those forces close to a company that affect its ability to serve its customers and make a profit. A change in any of the forces normally requires a company to re-assess the marketplace.

How business plans are used:

• business plan contests - provides a way for venture capitals to find promising projects
• venture capital assessment of business plans - focus on qualitative factors such as team

Total quality managemnt,
Strategic planning,
For more information check:
Dilbert.com
Wikipedia.org
Managementhelp.org
And intrested students can go thru this site about how open source business plans are made as bsiness plans are usually open to limited audience but due to open source concepts even business plans are made open and for more detaisl check: http://www.neda.com/