Briefing Paper
No 5a
How to Write a Community Enterprise Business
Plan: Background
What is a Business Plan?
A business plan is a plan that helps a business to look ahead, allocate
resources, focus on key aims and prepare for problems/opportunities.
They are vital for running a community business, helping the growth
and development of the enterprise according to its priorities. However,
business plans aren't really about ideas, analysis, or presentation;
they are about results. A good plan is full of specifics that can be
measured and tracked because tracking produces results - no matter how
well researched, beautifully written, or excellently presented, what
makes a difference is how it impacts on the "results" of the
community business.
Why do I need a Business Plan?
Most investors and funders will only back new social entrepreneurs
with a business plan. A poor quality plan is most likely to result in
failed application for funds, but also remember that business plans
don't sell new businesses to funders - funders invest in people and
ideas. Business plans are not only useful when starting a company, applying
for a loan or finding investors - they help organise in a clear and
logical way all of the important aspects of a community business.
Business plans can be used to:
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Support a loan application
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Define and fix objectives,
and programs to achieve those objectives
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Create regular business review
and course correction
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Define agreements between stakeholders
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Set a value on a business for
sale or legal purposes
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Evaluate a new product line,
promotion, or expansion
What Makes a Good Plan?
A business plan will be hard to implement unless it is simple, specific,
realistic and complete. Even if it is all these things, a good plan
will need someone to follow up and check on it.
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Is the plan simple? Is it easy
to understand and to act on? Does it communicate its contents easily
and practically?
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Is the plan specific? Are its
objectives concrete and measurable? Does it include specific actions
and activities, each with specific dates of completion, specific persons
responsible and specific budgets? ·Is the plan realistic? Are
the sales goals, expense budgets, and milestone dates realistic? Nothing
stifles implementation like unrealistic goals.
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Is the plan complete? Does
it include all the necessary elements? Requirements of a business
plan vary, depending on the context. There is no guarantee, however,
that the plan will work if it doesn't cover the main bases.
Keys to Better Business Plans
These key concepts will help your enterprise to produce better plans:
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Set concrete goals, responsibilities,
and deadlines to guide you
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Good business plans are practical
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Assign tasks to people or departments,
set milestones and deadlines for tracking implementation
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Include ten parts implementation
for every one part strategy! ·Provide a forum for regular review
and course corrections
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Don't use a business plan to
show how much you know about community business!
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Nobody reads long-winded business plans…once
people were favorably impressed by long plans, now 50 pages are acceptable!
What's Most Important in a Plan?
Usually it's the cash flow analysis and specific implementation
details.
1. Cash flow because it is both vital to a company
and hard to follow. Cash is usually misunderstood as profits, but they
are different. Profits don't guarantee cash in the bank.
2. Implementation details make things happen. Your brilliant strategies
and beautifully formatted planning documents are just theory unless
you assign responsibilities, with dates and budgets, and lots of following
up and tracking results!
Further Reading
Creating Business Plans for Dummies - Paul Tiffany, Steven
Peterson ISBN: 1568848684
Business Plans Kit for Dummies - Peter E. Jaret, Peter Jaret ISBN: 0764553658
Business Plans for Startups - Roger C Rule ISBN: 1555715192
Successful Business Plans in a Week - Iain Maitland ISBN: 034071199X
Alpha Teach Yourself Business Plans in 24 Hours - Michael Miller ISBN:
0028642163
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briefing index -
1 - 2 - 3
- 4 - 5a,
b, c - 6
- 7 - 8a,
b - 9 - 10
- top
a network of community enterprises, workers co-op
& not-for-profits working in progressive ways to make our city
greener, healthier and more equitable
Network Co-ordinator : Andy Wynne
MPEN, Bridge 5 Mill, 22a Beswick Street, Manchester,
M4 7HR
mpen@bridge-5.org
tel - 0161 273 1736
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Grey progress.....
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