Writing a Business Plan: A Template (Part 5)

We now continue with the ongoing series of articles on writing an effective business plan.

At this point we are already more than halfway into completing the business plan, we have already discussed the following and their related subsections:

Objectives
Executive Summary
The business idea and the product and/or service
The market and the competition
Marketing and Sales

The next section that we will now write and discuss is the section on Management and Workforce.

In this section your task is to clearly outline the structure of your company, your management team, and your workforce.

One effective way to make this section clearer for your target readers would be to make a Company Analysis.

Company Analysis

This subsection would act like a short presentation of your company as well as its strengths and capabilities. In this section you can include your company history, vision, mission, installations, personnel, a short financial overview, and available resources.

The main points that are going to be highlighted are:

Company history. Write a short “biography” of your company. Talk about the reasons behind the decision to start your company, the parties involved in its formation, etc.

The management team. Give details about each member of your team. Cite their experience and background. Enumerate their important skills and strengths and try to point out how these strengths can benefit the business. Remember that prospective investors will have to also trust your team as much as you when it comes to their investments to your company.

Technical capabilities. Talk about the technical attributes of the business. Discuss how these capabilities will help in fulfilling your business targets. It would also help if you can discuss how everything will work together and how your set up can successfully deliver the product volumes that you are committed to output.

Products and/or Services. Give a short overview of the products and/or services that you are going to offer to the market.

Company strengths and weaknesses. As much as possible emphasize your major strengths and give possible solutions and workarounds to the weaknesses that you will mention.

Strategic objectives. Outline the initial goals of the company, citing how you intend to address key areas of the business, like sales and finance.

Resources (Infrastructure, offices, transport). Enumerate the resources that are available to you and your company, putting emphasis on those that can directly benefit the business.

As part of this subsection you can also begin writing about your most important resource – your workforce. Enumerate how many people you have as well as any plans for workforce expansions. Enumerate in which departments you plan to deploy your employees. Don’t forget to also give details of any future plans that you may have in developing your workforce’s skills through recruitment and training.

Business Issues
Business Plan
Countries
Finance
Marketing
Start up
Strategies
Taxation
Technology


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