© Copyright Bundaberg Business Brokers & Development Consultants 2008
© Copyright Bundaberg Business
Brokers & Development Consultants 2008
Business Plans are a requirement
of financial institutions should you
require their assistance. Accredited quality
assurance also requires that you constantly know and understand the position
of your business at any given time, and
that you are prepared for
contingencies
that may occur in the future. In broad terms, business plans are
the roadmap to your business's controlled growth and stability. Business Plans include the following information:
Business plans are highly regarded by Banks & other lending authorities. It was an unexpected contingency during the months leading up to and including the introduction of GST. People wanted to assess which way the market was going to turn before investing. Sales were down in all industries and many operators were not prepared for the downturn. Contingencies could be unexpected repairs & maintenance, new competition, catastrophic weather or industrial action; there's many more. All of those events are totally out of your control, but with detailed planning your business can easily survive the most critical of events. Business plans include cash flow forecasts. These are essential tools for formulating your customer credit policy and planned future investment activity, eg: expansion and diversification. Your plan identifies when and how you intend to establish the long term goals of the business and how they will be financed. Business plans also include the following elements:
1 = LEAN PD is a system developed by Toyota,
and supposedly being adopted around the world as a production method without
waste.
It is a lot easier to sell a business that has been managed under the guidance of a business plan. Why, because they show steady growth and stability, and assets and liabilities are balanced and secure. Their profits are reflective of planned decision making and staged development. Buyers are a lot more comfortable with stability; than the business that guesses it's way through un-informed spontaneous decision making. Business plans can be 40 to 200 pages, and usually employ a variety of research specialists. These are co-ordinated by the firm you engage to complete the exercise. It takes time to complete and they are expensive to produce. But like most tools of trade they are an investment. Costs: Cost is variable and the parameters could well be upwards from a few thousand dollars. Quotes are usually called prior to commencement. A quote would include:
State and Federal government departments are prepared to assist with the cost of a business plan should you meet the criteria set down by the department. Most lending authorities require a business plan prior to lending. It is for that reason financiers are also happy to assist with payment. It is essential you call for quotes before proceeding. Click here for more on business |
Authors
comment: Every diligent business manager is constantly fine tuning systems and procedures. It all comes
back to TQM, (Total Quality Management) and
QA, (Quality Assurance) or as one government
employee in development once said, "The assurance is that if you buy
10,000 pens that 9,995 are going to work". I hear
business people using the term
"Best Business Practice". To me that's nothing more than a statement
saying "we're doing our best". It may or may not be an acceptable
description to the customer and still comes back to buyer
beware! Declaring Best Practice is rather shallow
and means nothing unless it can be
supported by detailed systems analysis
with performance and compliance
registers.