Business Plans

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A business plan is a comprehensive plan of what the business is setting out to achieve, how it will go about achieving it and by when. The depth of detail required will depend on the main purpose and intended recipients/ audience for the plan but it will cover all the most important aspects such as the Vision/ Mission, strategy, explanation of the products/ services, customer information, marketing plan, operating plan, financial plan and budget.

The plan can provide various benefits such as:

- establish the feasibility of a new business idea,

- establish a plan of action to be followed for the management

- provide foresight by identifying challenges to be overcome as well as opportunities to be maximised 

- access funding

A business plan will often be required by investors/ lenders before providing funding because they need to assess the risk and return profile of your business in making their funding decision. In order to do this they will look at various sources of information including historic information such as previous/ current accounts but they will also want to look at the future prospects for the company. The business plan will give a good overview of the potential of the business and how it may perform financially.