You are an aspiring Entrepreneur and plan to develop a new business venture. Investors have heard about your new business idea and want to know more. You are required to produce a strategic business plan (with the inclusion of academic references) explaining the business venture.
Task 1 – Business Plan
The summary business plan will include the main elements of a plan as identified in Lessons 6 and 7 of the learning materials with the inclusion of academic references:
A. Executive summary:
This should include a short overview of the entire business plan. It should provide a busy reader with everything that needs to be known about the new veinture’s distinctive nature including summar ies of the problem/gap, solution, target market, competitor analysis, management expertise, sales forecasts , financial highlights and amount of finance needed.
B. The New Business Concept/Business Model:
This section should include a summary of the product/service, the vision and mission statements based on the market problem or gap and SMART overall business objectives in SMART terms. It must demonstrate how you meet the requirements for setting up sustainable business model operating within internal and external competitive environments .
C. Management Team’s Entrepreneurial Expertise:
Include a brief background profile (educational, industry experience and achievements) of the top management team demonstrating their entrepreneuria l capabilities and competences that justify their appointment.
Explain the role that you play as an entrepreneur and the skills you have to turn the business idea into practical applications. Discuss and justify the venture ownership structure.
D. Market and Competitive Industry Analyses:
This section should present highlights of your market research assessment of the external and competitive environments using appropriate tools. Highlight target market, segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy and competitor analysis.
E. Marketing Strategy for the new business venture:
Include overall marketing plan, positioning and differentiating propositions, marketing mix, market entry and sales process
F. Business Sales and Operations Strategy:
Keep this short and crisp; outline general approach to operations, sales plan, business location, facilities and equipment and key milestones . Discuss and justify the legal form of the business venture.
G. Business Financial Strategy and Risks:
This section should include highlights of start-up costs, sales forecasts , proforma financial statements (income statement, balance sheet and cashflow statement), sources of funds and financing sought and business risks.
H. Closing summary:
Summarise key parts of the business plan, draw conclusions from your business plan that are appealing to investors, make it interesting and demonstrate that the proposed business concept will make money.
Learning Outcomes:
After completing the module, you should be able to:
- Interpret the role of entrepreneurship in the evolution of various types of business enterprise
- Explain the requirements for setting up a sustainable business model in differing operational and competitive environments.
- Identify the entrepreneurial skills required to turn specific business ideas into practical applications, and choose how they might be sourced
- Produce and critically defend an effective business plan and debate its underlying business concepts and proposals.
