The twenty-third and final report of this series is the business plan. We usually associate a business plan with entrepreneurs. But employees of profit and nonprofit organizations with an entrepreneurial spirit should understand the business plan's function and strategy because they cross over to many business activities.
A business plan is a detailed strategic tool stating the rationale and approach for achieving business goals. The author could be an individual, business unit, or company. The intended readers could be internal or external: management, staff, potential funders, clients, or the general public. Business plans can examine for executives the feasibility of a strategy, announce to staff a multiyear operational approach to staff, or seek from funders financing to underwrite operations, among other purposes.
In the planning stage of composing the business plan, the authors conduct either or both of these analyses:
- SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) of the internal strengths and weaknesses of the company, as well as the external opportunities and threats toward achieving its goals
- 5 C analysis of one internal factor (company) and four external ones (customers, competitors, collaborators, and climate), urging a SWOT analysis of all 5 C's.
Internal business plans to management usually have these parts:
- executive summary, providing an overview of all the content
- situation analysis, reviewing the SWOT/5C
- operational plan, describing the promotional, sales, or operational approach
- management team, detailing the qualification and responsibilities of the team
- financial plan, covering the resources needed and return on investment
External business plans to funding sources might discuss a similar executive summary, operational plan management team, and financial plans. But it substitutes the situation analysis for two other parts:
- business description, listing the company's vision and mission statement as well as the market opportunity
- market analysis, explaining what makes the company's approach advantageously different from the competitors' approach, and what the company's needs
Other reports in this series:
- Meeting Reports
- Incident Reports
- Investigation Reports
- Inspection Reports
- Procedural Reports
- Scopes of Work
- Test Reports
- Course Reviews
- Conference Reviews
- Contractor Appraisals
- Staff Appraisals
- Self-Appraisals
- Audit Reports
- Root-Cause Reports
- Business Forecasts
- Project Plans
- Project Status Reports
- Project Completion Reports
- Internal Proposals
- Justification Reports
- Business Cases
- External Proposals
