The Marketplace can be attributed to unchartered waters, and a company requires a sound business plan to navigate it successfully. This article will help you understand the various components of a successful business model, allowing you and your Company to grow.
Confidentiality Statement
Every business has a unique character that distinguishes it from its industry competitors. Protecting what makes your business unique, i.e. safeguarding your plan from any potential intellectual property theft, is of prime importance. This is where a confidentiality clause in your business plan might assist you in protecting your resources. Both parties acknowledge that they will not disclose any information discussed in the business plans when a confidentiality agreement is signed. The contract should also include information about the consequences of breaking the agreement.
Disclaimer (Vision and Mission)
An overview of the Company and what it stands for is essential for a basic understanding of its practices. The foremost driving factor behind a company’s goodwill and reputation amongst its consumers is its Vision, Mission, and Core values. The Vision statement elucidates what the Company aims to achieve down the line, whereas the Mission statement provides sustainable methods of achieving the Company’s Vision. An Example of a Vision and Mission Statement is as follows:
Vision: To build better lives and thriving communities
At Kodem Law, we aim to build better lives and thriving communities. We aspire to help communities thrive by engaging with them in a meaningful and sustainable way. Our actions in terms of volunteering programs, mindful utilization of resources, assisting our vendors and customers, engagement with like-minded partners and supporting relevant causes in our neighborhoods will help build thriving communities – one step at a time.
Mission: Passionately growing and innovating every day
To be the most reliable global network for customers and suppliers that delivers value through products and services and to be a responsible value creator for all our stakeholders.
The Core Values are essentially the principles integrated into the Company’s everyday business practices. They usually include emotional attributes that positively impact the human psyche, such as Empathy, Integrity, Flexibility, Excellence, Leadership, and so on.
Executive Summary
The Vision and Mission of your Company are only the base layers of the entire picture. To supplement this, a business plan must contain details of your Company’s facets. What your enterprise stands for must resonate throughout the business models and practices. An executive summary is typically used to provide stakeholders, such as investors, with a brief review of critical information in a business plan, such as the company description, market analysis, and financial data.
A brief company history is a great way to begin an executive summary. Your roots and the journey you’ve undertaken speak volumes to investors. If you pitch your Company to undertake a particular project, show them why you’re the right team to take on the project. Back this up with sound Revenue Projections and Business Goals, ensuring they align with the investors’ needs.
The method of telling clients how one’s brand or product is superior to competitors is known in marketing as the unique selling proposition or USP. Use this to your advantage and show potential clients how your USP is precisely what they are looking for. In addition, make sure that the benefits that clients gain are highlighted in your proposition.
Enterprise Summary
The Enterprise Summary is an addendum to the Executive Summary wherein the former focuses more on the qualitative aspect of your Company, whereas the latter is more functional in nature. This entails the proper documentation and disclosure of the managerial structure of your Company and the hierarchy of positions, along with the requisite departmental divisions and resource allocations. This summary will show investors a “bird’s eye” view of the logistical functioning of your Company.
Operational Strategy
A sound plan to ensure the smooth distribution of the product from the manufacturing facility to the consumer is necessary for a successful business. This must be done by keeping in mind the Sustainable Development Goals that aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The SDGs can also be tied into a company’s CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) practices that help increase trust and, thereby, the Company’s goodwill.
Market Analysis
A business plan is typically centered around a diversified product portfolio with sound analytics and financial planning. One must know their strengths and weaknesses relative to various products in their portfolio. A simple SWOT Analysis can go a long way in helping you understand the consumers that you are catering to. Pay attention to various market trends vis a vis your products and compare them with what other players in the market are doing to take advantage of the same.
Management Summary
The Company’s operational and legal structure is necessary to understand its management better. Flow Charts are your friends; they help simplify complex data and effectively communicate information to your target audience. Emphasize the strengths of each Key Managerial Person in your Company and highlight how they can help grow the enterprise.
Financial Plan
Financial Statements, such as income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements, would be a great addition to a business plan. Considering the primary goal is to secure funding, a detailed financial statement will do wonders. Costs associated with the operations of a product-centric company include, but are not limited to, Land Investments, Warehousing, Machinery, Distributional Channels and Maintenance. Projecting your finances for the coming years would make securing the required funding much more accessible.
Disclosures – Revenues, Tax Returns, etc.
The Law requires Companies to mandatorily disclose certain documents to the public and, in this case, your potential investors or clients. Documents such as your Audit Statements, Statements of Profit or Loss and Annual Turnover, Tax Receipts and Returns must be disclosed to maintain transparency in your enterprise’s functioning, thereby gaining your investors’ trust.
Marketing
A strong marketing plan must be used with all of the aforementioned tactics. Find a marketing strategy that works for your goods out of the many available options. These tactics must adapt as well to satisfy customer preferences. Product, pricing, promotion, and site are the four primary themes in a company strategy’s marketing section. You may assess your marketing strategy’s effectiveness in relation to your business’s value proposition by establishing your key performance indicators (KPIs). For instance, you can monitor social media and website traffic if you want to interact with a specific demographic in a particular area.
Identify the nature of the consumers whom you are pitching your product. Delving into their psyche will provide a clearer understanding of their needs helping you fine-tune your product to match or, better so, surpass their expectations. Finally, maintaining flexibility is critical. Based on the outcomes of the respective forms of analytics, a marketing plan may be modified at any time. The budget for a campaign can be changed to fund a higher-performing platform, for instance, if digital advertising is performing better than anticipated, or the business can establish a new budget. Marketing executives’ difficulty is ensuring that each channel has enough time to produce results.
Conclusion
One must consider the consumer-centric approach necessary to maintain a successful business model. Instead of writing your company strategies from the inside out, consider the opposite. Doing this will save precious time and effort and raise your chances of attracting investors and clients. Use constructive feedback, suggestions and any other input provided by third parties. This will help you gain a broader insight into the market and its demands, thereby helping you grow your business in the most effective way possible.