The business plan includes the goals, mission and vision of the business/company. It also defines the different strategic directions and the ways to achieve the organisational goals.
The business plan should start with an executive summary, as there may be businesses that are new to the market or are waiting for investment from investors.
In the executive summary, the entrepreneur presents his vision and mission, sharing the aspects he considers important to present his business and its concept.
It is useful to mention some financial data, such as revenue from the sale of services or products, what percentage of profit is expected, and how long it will take to recoup the investment made at the start-up or later. A strong executive summary will attract the attention of financial investors!
Next comes the presentation of the business model: where the elements of the model are explained (target group, value proposition, channels, partnerships, partners, etc.). It is also important to look at the functioning of the market, including an industry analysis. The Michael Porter’s 5 forces model is a practical tool to map the functioning of the industry itself along 5 aspects. The combined effect of the 5 factors determines the intensity of competition in an industry.
Source: Chikán, 2020 & Porter, M. E., 2008
After the market analysis, it is important to talk about the marketing strategy of the company, what its target market is, how it is positioning itself, how it is applying the marketing mix, including how it is defining its product in the market, what its pricing strategy is, how it is getting its product to the consumer and how it wants to be visible to consumers. The next step is the breakdown of the financial plan, including the profit content by type of service/product sales, finally summarised. The cash-flow, or cash flow statement, is a way of showing the income and expenditure over the operating time horizon of the organisation, broken down by month, and how turnover and investments will develop in each month.
Finally, it is worthwhile to identify potential risks, assess them in terms of strength and weakness in the course of operations and define a methodology for managing them (Chikán, 2020).
Social enterprises are able to think in this structure, but, as in the business model, the plan is extended with social elements (scope of segments, social value creation, method of intervention, generation and measurement of social impact, purpose of profit recycling).
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