Your New Business – Business Plan
Like so many
others before you, you have decided
to set up your own business.
Having investigated various options, you have concluded
that your ‘idea’ is viable, it suits
you and can be developed to be an interesting enterprise with rewarding
financial results. Your project can
be as small or as big as you want to. Similarly, your ‘idea’ does not have to be ’unique’.
In fact you might consider bringing an established service or product to a new market
or develop an existing concept to a new application. It is advisable that you
select a business that is not totally fictitious or imaginary. The closest you are to reality, the easier it will be for you to think your project through properly
and present it to others. Ideally, you want to present something that you are genuinely considering as an alternative for your future.
Who knows? Maybe it will happen
one day!
To get your new business started, you need to
approach financiers / lenders / investors to
help you raise the necessary capital for your purposes. You therefore
need to put together a business
proposal (else known as a Business Plan (BP)) which will include
a comprehensive description of the new business and any
other additional material that will convince your audience to back you up. You should be clear in how much funding
you need, for how long and how you are going to pay back in a way that will be worthwhile for your supporters. The structure of a good plan has been discussed in class (Please
check Topic 4: Business
Plan on Moodle).
Please take use Topic
4 as template for your report.
It is important
that your Business
Plan adequately covers what you plan to achieve, in a way that
it generates interest and confidence in your arguments. It is worth keeping in
mind at all times the golden rule:
you + idea + (money/credit + facilities/people) = Product/service +
marketing = Money/credit = Profit
