Do you know what you want from your company in 5 years? Do you have a revenue forecast, new investments, or possible financing to be done? Do you know your customers well? And your competitors?
Often, the answer to all these questions is no, and this can be a risk for your company. A manager must know their future to plan upcoming business investments, make decisions, and remain competitive in the market. As a consequence, the risks involved in operating the enterprise become much more significant.
To avoid this type of situation, the company must know how to create a business plan, the business plan for an enterprise. It is an essential step to maintain intelligent and precise planning for the company’s future.
Carry Out A Complete Market Analysis
Carrying out a market study is perhaps the most crucial point — and the starting point — when figuring out how to create a business plan. From there, it becomes simpler to define financial goals and understand the expenses that will be necessary, the target audience of your marketing plan, and the capacity (or potential) that your enterprise has.
The importance of market analysis is directly linked to the role it plays for the company. Done correctly, it gives the manager a complete view of the area in which he intends to invest: possible risks, most significant competitors, and the number of potential business opportunities are just some of the factors that a good market analysis can identify.
There are several ways to carry out this analysis, but they all aim to seek some crucial and strategic answers to questions that involve factors such as:
- the number of people willing to consume your product or service;
- purchasing power or the price they could pay for the product;
- the age group of most significant interest;
- the age groups that did not show interest in the business’s services and products;
- what is the primary reason for the previous items to occur?
What defines the quality of a market analysis is the primary data to be collected. Therefore, make a plan and set goals according to what the enterprise seeks. This way, you can direct your analysis so that it can obtain the best possible results.
Analyze The Company’s Strategy
After knowing how the market behaves, the company must objectively define the niche in which it intends to enter, making it clear which slice of the market it wants to reach and using data from potential customers in the market as a basis.
In the strategic analysis, the scope of products and services that will be sold can be made, as well as an analysis of their production costs, taxes, and possible market rates.
This is a crucial procedure. Through it, the manager will be able to set up a well-aligned operational chain with few ineffective processes. Furthermore, waste will be avoided more frequently since all investments made to create the business will be aligned with the market in which the company will operate.
Have A Continuous Benchmarking Process
Another critical piece of market information is your company’s potential competitors. The analysis of competitors — their respective niches, the price, and the quality of the product — must be done together with the strategic analysis so that you can guarantee that the market share stipulated in your business plan is realistic.
It is essential to understand who really competes with your company in the market so that you can position your product or service in the most effective way possible.
Knowing all the characteristics of your competitors, you will be able to identify their strengths, vulnerabilities, and most famous market strategies. This data, in the long term, allows the company to plan to reach increasingly more significant shares of the market safely.
Just like competitor analysis, analyzing potential partners is essential. Service providers available and accessible to your company and manufacturers of vital products in the development of your service must be present in the plan, being useful for the institution’s financial forecast.
Define A Marketing And Sales Plan
With the customer, product, and competitors defined, it is possible to develop a marketing and sales plan. It must contain which vehicles will be used for the service, how much will be spent on each form of marketing, what human resources will be needed — both for marketing and sales — and what the expected return should be over the next five years.
A company’s sales strategies must be created according to its area, profile, and target audience. A good sales campaign is capable of combining all these factors across multiple channels, maximizing the chances of reaching and converting potential customers into new buyers.
Furthermore, it needs to retain existing consumers through strategies that bring them back to the business.
Have A Financial And Investment Return Plan
The financial plan must encompass the structure necessary for the company to produce everything proposed. It prevents the company from experiencing losses or having difficulties in obtaining revenue for new investments. Therefore, the financial plan involves factors such as:
- additional production structures;
- the raw material necessary for the operation of the business;
- suppliers;
- hired employees;
- the taxes paid in each tax period;
- inventory costs (defined based on the number of customers and products to be produced);
- expenditure on marketing and sales policies;
- future investments.
In addition to the financial plan, the company must prepare a return on investment, revenue, profit, and cash flow plan. It can predict what the available future budget will be and, therefore, provide more security for the business.
A well-designed financial plan helps to attract external investment but to do so, you need to make it very clear that it is worth investing in your business.
This way, you can compare the return on investment that a potential investor would have in your company to the result of standard investment centers, such as savings or CDB. Proving the profitability of your enterprise in numbers is essential, as is providing a short return on investment.
Also Read: Integrated Business Planning And Evolution Of S&OP