What is included in a business plan? Expanded explanation:
a. Executive Summary of the overall opportunity (written last)
b. Everything proposed about the business – Including:
i. Objectives
ii. Management and Leadership – experiences from the owners and managers. Industry
experience? Business ownership experience? Length in business or industry?
Transferrable skills? Bookkeeping skills?
iii. Skills matrix
iv. Legal requirements
v. OHS requirements
vi. Industry standards
vii. Staffing requirements – staff rosters, staff skills, certificates etc
viii. Products and services to be offered
ix. Possible risks and their mitigants – injury? environmental? theft?
x. Insurance requirements – however for Australian laws, we do not advise on this but
highly recommend and encourage insurances to be analysed by a qualified advisor
(business and personal insurances)
xi. Innovations – Can your idea for the product or services be innovated or can it change
with the times, technology and so forth? Can it be cross utilised? Or other uses be created
for your product or service?
xii. Areas for possible expansion or exits? It is important for you to identify worst case
scenario possibilities, for the reason that it provides you with the understanding that
things can and do go wrong. Brainstorming the possible ways it can go wrong allows you
to implement measures to reduce the chance these scenarios will happen, or if they do
happen, you can identify it early on and minimises the impact.
xiii. Market research – What does your market have on offer, what is demanded? What is
currently supplied? Are there any gaps? Can you supply an already demanded product or
service with a competitive advantage? Is the market saturated?
xiv. Customer profiles/personas – Who is your customer? What are their interests, hobbies,
what are their preferences for luxury/substitutes/necessities? What are their ages,
locations, family composition, job titles/roles, what is important/not important to them
etc?
xv. Economic outlook – Inflation, Wages, Discretionary Income,
Employment/unemployment rates, Interest Rates, competition, etc.
xvi. S.W.O.T. analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
xvii. Marketing/Advertising – 5P’s – Product, Price, Promotion, Place and People.
xviii. Sales/Distribution – 5P’s – Product, Price, Promotion, Place and People.
xix. Financials – these can as a minimum include a Cash Flow Forecast, Start Up Cost
Calculator, Profit and Loss projections. Typically 2 years are the desired minimum of
projections.
There are many other items you can include. Please see our link for the best resources on
the internet to help guide you in writing your own business plan. If you want us to write it
for you, we glady can assist with that too. Link for the resources is:
https://pathwaystobusiness.com.au/blog-resources/businessplanresources/
