L.12 - Preliminary Business Plan

Synergy of business Plan.: This refers to the mutually reinforcing action of the separate Marketing Plan, Design Plan, Production Plan, Finance Plan and other such plans , which together will produce a Business Plan of effect that is greater than that of all of the component plans acting separately.

Importance of business Plan. : Some benefits of producing a Business Plan include: - It will help you think practically about your business. - It will help you to examine various options. - It will help you look objectively at opportunities and risks. - It will help you to test the thoughts in your mind. - You can identify the cash needs in your enterprise. - It can be used to raise finances from bankers, investors and others. - It provides you a benchmark against which to compare the progress and performance of your business.

Enterprise Skills:

The student 'Activities' in each lesson are designed to clarify the ENTERPRISE CONCEPTS of the lesson and develop some ENTERPRISE SKILLS (E.SKILLS). The E.SKILLS included in a lesson may not be exhaustive, but are indicative.

E.SKILLS stated in a lesson elsewhere may also get addressed through the activities of a particular lesson.

Some useful E.SKILLS are dealt with below:

Confidence.: The belief that you can do what you set out to do.

Drive.: The desire to work hard to accomplish one's goal.

Strategic thinking.: Strategic Thinking is a way of thinking about the central purpose of an enterprise and the basic way of how this purpose will be fulfilled. It also deals with the major plan to deal with elements of competition, cooperation with other businesses, changing circumstances and other factors.

Musical skill.:An entrepreneur may need to have some familiarity with music & related fields like rhyme, melody etc. to help prepare advertising & promotion,jingles or songs for his product/service

Acoustic skills.: An entrepreneur may need to record advertising & promotion jingles.

For this he should have some acoustic skills related to the science of sound viz phonetic, sound fidelity, reverberations etc.

Activities:

Activity - CONVERTING DREAMS TO PRELIMINARY BUSINESS PLAN.

Instruction To Students

• Prepare a ‘Preliminary Business Plan’ (PBP) for a realistic enterprise. You will find it useful to review your earlier Modules and worksheets of Marketing Plan, Design Plan. Production Plan, Finance Plan.

• Review also the flow charts of the above plans.

• Now decide on a IDEA and answer the questions here.

• Make graphs, charts, transparencies to make an effective presentation to the class.

• Rest of the class should role play that they are investors with money to invest or loan. They should ask questions to the group that presents their PBP as a banker/investor would do.

• Use extra sheet if required.

• After completing the activity, each group should present and share its main discussion points with the rest of the class.

Work Sheet:

1. IDEA: What is the IDEA behind your product/service? Why is it unique?

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2. MARKETING PLAN

2.1 Who will be interested in buying your goods or service? Why?

2.2 What marketing plan will you draw up?

Use the 4 Ps to draw up a Marketing Plan.

o Product

o Price

o Place

o Promotion

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3. DESIGN PLAN

What will be your design plan? Use the 2 As to draw up a Design Plan. Is your design Appropriate and Achievable?

o Appropriate

o Achievable

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4. PRODUCTION PLAN

How will you produce your product/service? What resources will you need?

Use the 3 Ms to draw a Production Plan.

o Men

o Machines

o Materials

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5. FINANCE PLAN

How will you get the money you need? Use the Ds & Es to answer this.

D=Debt

E=Equity

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6. COSTING

What kind of profit will you make? Do you need to do costing of your product? How will market competition effect you?

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7. OTHER QUESTIONS.

List here any other questions relevant to your product/service and work out an answer in your group.

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