Exemplo De Previsão De Média Simples Em Movimento Simples

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Planos de negócios e estratégia de marketing planejamento de negócios e dicas de marketing, exemplos, exemplos e ferramentas - como escrever um plano de negócios, técnicas para escrever uma estratégia de marketing, planos de negócios estratégicos e planos de vendas Aqui estão dicas, exemplos, técnicas, ferramentas e um processo Para escrever planos de negócios para produzir resultados efetivos. Este guia on-line gratuito explica como escrever uma estratégia de marketing ou de negócios, um plano de negócios básico e um plano de vendas, usando modelos, ferramentas e exemplos gratuitos, como análise SWOT. Análise PEST. A Ansoff Matrix e a Boston Matrix. Separadamente, o guia de marketing oferece explicações e teorias e ferramentas mais específicas para estratégia de marketing e planejamento de marketing, incluindo técnicas e dicas para publicidade, relações públicas (PR), publicidade de imprensa e mídia, geração de leads de pesquisa de vendas, cópia de escrita publicitária, internet e site Marketing, etc. O guia de treinamento de vendas oferece teorias e métodos detalhados sobre planejamento e venda de vendas, estendendo-se a habilidades e técnicas de chamada e negociação em frio. Especialmente em relação à venda. Às vezes, as pessoas usam o termo plano de negócios quando se referem a um projeto. Pode ou não ser apropriado usar o termo planejamento de negócios para um projeto. Alguns projetos são muito substanciais e equivalem a uma atividade comercial autônoma (independente), caso em que um plano de negócios é inteiramente apropriado. Outros projetos são menores, talvez limitados a mudanças internas ou desenvolvimento, e são menos propensos a exigir um plano de negócios convencional, e são adequadamente planejados e gerenciados através de métodos de gerenciamento de projetos. A terminologia do planejamento de negócios pode ser confusa porque muito disso é usado muito vagamente, e pode significar coisas diferentes. Aqui está uma maneira de entendê-lo melhor: terminologia de planejamento de negócios .. A terminologia no planejamento de negócios é freqüentemente usada de forma muito frouxa. Quando as pessoas falam e escrevem sobre planejamento de negócios diferentes termos podem significar o mesmo, e um único termo pode significar coisas diferentes. O termo planejamento de negócios em si abrange todos os tipos de planos diferentes dentro de uma empresa, ou potencialmente dentro de uma organização não comercial. As palavras estratégia e estratégica surgem frequentemente no assunto do planejamento de negócios, embora não haja diferença real entre um plano de negócios e um plano de negócios estratégico. Todo plano de negócios é indiscutivelmente estratégico. Todos os envolvidos no planejamento adotam uma abordagem estratégica. A maioria dos negócios e planos são principalmente orientados ou determinados pelas necessidades e objetivos do mercado. Isso se aplica cada vez mais a muitas atividades não comerciais (serviços governamentais, educação, saúde, instituições de caridade, etc.), cujos processos de planejamento também podem ser descritos como planejamento de negócios, mesmo que tais organizações não sejam empresas da maneira que normalmente imaginamos. Em tais organizações não comerciais, o planejamento de negócios pode ser chamado de planejamento organizacional, planejamento operacional ou planejamento anual ou simplesmente planejamento. Essencialmente, todos esses termos significam o mesmo, e cada vez mais a tendência é que o planejamento empresarial se torne um termo genérico (geral) para se referir a eles. Devo esclarecer que o financiamento é, naturalmente, um aspecto importante e inevitável das atividades comerciais e organizacionais, mas em termos de planejamento, o financiamento é um fator limitante ou habilitador, o financiamento é um meio para um fim, ou um financiamento de restrição por si só não é uma base Para crescimento ou estratégia. Mercados de clientes, desenvolvimento de serviços de produtos e vendas, fornecem a única base verdadeira para que as empresas definam direção, desenvolvimento, crescimento, etc. e, portanto, estratégia e planejamento de negócios. O planejamento de negócios sempre começa ou revisa o objetivo básico ou precisa fornecer produtos ou serviços aos clientes - também chamado de mercado ou mercado. Consequentemente, os planos de negócios tendem a olhar para o exterior, em um mercado, antes de olhar para dentro, nas finanças e na produção, etc. Isso significa que a maioria dos planos de negócios são impulsionados pelo marketing, uma vez que o marketing é a função que aborda a oportunidade e necessidade de mercado e como Para cumpri-lo. O marketing nesse sentido também é chamado de estratégia de marketing - ou mais amplamente estratégia de negócios. Em muitas empresas tradicionais simples, pequenas e antigas, o marketing é muitas vezes visto em vez de vendas ou vendas (geralmente porque, em tais negócios, a venda é a única atividade de marketing), caso em que um plano de vendas pode ser o principal motor de estratégia e plano de negócios. Muitas pessoas usam as palavras vendas ou vendas e marketing para significar o mesmo - basicamente vendendo produtos ou serviços aos clientes, no sentido mais amplo. Na verdade, o marketing refere-se a questões muito mais amplas do que as vendas e vendas. O marketing envolve o planejamento estratégico de uma empresa (ou outro provedor organizacional) para todos os aspectos do envolvimento do cliente, incluindo o reserach de mercado, o desenvolvimento de produtos, branding, publicidade e promoção, métodos de venda, atendimento ao cliente e extensão à aquisição ou desenvolvimento de Novos negócios. A venda ou venda é uma atividade no mercado, referente aos métodos e processos de comunicação e concordância e conclusão da transação (venda) com o cliente. Dado tudo isso, espero ser mais fácil entender por que, dependendo do papel ou ponto de vista de uma pessoa ou do departamento em que trabalham, o planejamento de negócios pode ser encaminhado de várias maneiras, por exemplo, como planejamento de vendas, planejamento de marketing, planejamento estratégico , Etc. e que todos esses termos podem significar coisas ligeiramente diferentes, de acordo com a situação. Se houver uma definição tecnicamente correta de planejamento de negócios, talvez possamos afirmar que o planejamento de negócios refere-se ao plano da organização geral, ou a uma unidade ou divisão dentro de uma organização responsável por um comércio ou lucro. Um plano de negócios contém e reflete os planos individuais para as diferentes funções dentro de toda a operação, cada um dos quais pode ter seus próprios planos de negócios detalhados, que podem ser chamados planos de negócios, ou mais corretamente planos departamentais ou funcionais de acordo com a finalidade, Como um plano de marketing, plano de vendas, plano de produção, plano financeiro, etc. A ajuda adicional em termos de terminologia é oferecida pelas definições de planejamento de negócios abaixo. Outras definições e explicações são oferecidas no glossário de negócios. E nos glossários mais curtos das seções de vendas e marketing. A terminologia será explicada mais para esclarecer o significado e evitar confusão ao longo deste artigo. Introdução Abordou corretamente, escrever planos de negócios e estratégia de marketing geralmente é mais simples do que parece. O planejamento de negócios pode parecer complexo e assustador, mas principalmente é senso comum. Estratégia de marketing - que muitas vezes impulsiona os objetivos e a forma de um plano de negócios - também é de bom senso. Os planos de negócios e a estratégia que os impulsiona, são baseados em lógica ou causa e efeito. Eu quero alcançar um determinado resultado - então, o que fará com que isso aconteça. Mesmo o maior plano de negócios é efetivamente construído em uma coleção de muitas causas e efeitos. Um plano de negócios escrito fornece a narrativa (explicação) dos números contidos em uma planilha. Quando vemos muitos números em uma planilha de computador, podemos esquecer isso, mas os números são apenas um reflexo de escala e detalhes, e de cálculos e modelagem computadorizados, etc. De fato, muitas vezes, quando somos confrontados com uma planilha de planejamento complexa contendo milhares De números, o que realmente estamos sendo oferecidos é uma ferramenta de planejamento pré-fabricada. Em muitos casos, onde o planejamento de negócios é uma continuação de uma situação em andamento, as planilhas mais assustadoras podem fornecer um modelo muito fácil para planos futuros, especialmente com uma pequena ajuda de um colega no departamento de artesanato que entende como tudo funciona. Ironicamente, uma folha de papel em branco - em outras palavras, um novo arranque de negócios - geralmente é um ponto de partida muito mais desafiador. Geralmente, é mais difícil escrever um plano de negócios para um negócio de start-up (um novo negócio) do que para um negócio existente. Isso ocorre porque um negócio existente geralmente possui registros computadorizados dos resultados de atividades passadas e negociação (geralmente chamadas de contas). As planilhas estão geralmente disponíveis, apresentando planos de planos e resultados reais, que podem ser usados ​​como um modelo no qual novos planos podem ser facilmente superpostos. Escrever um novo plano de negócios para a continuação ou o desenvolvimento de tal situação existente, obviamente, permite que grande parte do planejamento se baseie em números existentes, índices, estatísticas, etc. Novas situações de criação de negócios por sua natureza tendem a não ter resultados anteriores, Então muitas vezes nos referimos a esse tipo de planejamento como começando com uma folha de papel em branco. Novas empresas iniciantes - especialmente se você é o proprietário ou empresário - apresentam maiores desafios de planejamento em alguns aspectos porque não temos registros anteriores para atuar como um guia, mas, em outros aspectos, eles oferecem oportunidades maravilhosas para criar princípios fundadores genuinamente inovadores e excitantes - sua própria filosofia empresarial - em que seus planos podem ser construídos e desenvolvidos. Nesta página, há orientações específicas para situações de start-up de empresas. Veja os princípios simples de criação de empresas. Dependendo das restrições que se aplicam no planejamento de atividades comerciais contínuas existentes, os princípios são muito semelhantes para o arranque e o planejamento de negócios existente. É essencialmente causa e efeito, e usa o computador para calcular os números. Uma versão um pouco mais detalhada está na página rápida do plano de negócios operacional. E começa com Para explorar a direção e a mudança pessoal (por exemplo, para o planejamento precoce do auto-emprego ou o início de uma nova empresa), veja o exercício e o modelo da paixão com fins lucrativos na página de exercícios do teambuilding. Veja também as notas simples sobre como iniciar seu próprio negócio. Que até certo ponto também se aplicam quando você está iniciando uma nova iniciativa de negócios ou desenvolvimento dentro de outra organização como um novo gerente de desenvolvimento de negócios, ou um papel similar. É uma ferramenta gratuita de planilha de planilha de contas de lucro e perda (xls) para incorporar esses fatores e financeiros em um plano de negociação de negócios mais formal, que também serve como uma ferramenta de previsão e relatórios de negócios. Adapte-o para se adequar aos seus propósitos. Este exemplo de plano também está disponível como PDF, veja o Exemplo de Plano de Negócios da Pequena Empresa (PampL) (PDF). Os números poderiam ser qualquer coisa: dez vezes menos, dez vezes mais, cem vezes mais - o princípio é o mesmo. No final deste artigo, há também um modelo simples para um estudo de viabilidade ou um relatório de justificação. Como pode ser necessário para ganhar financiamento, autorização ou aprovação para iniciar um projeto, ou a continuação de um projeto ou grupo, em uma situação comercial ou voluntária. Se você está iniciando um novo negócio, você também pode encontrar dicas e informações sobre como comprar um negócio de franquia para ser útil, pois cobrem muitos pontos básicos sobre a escolha da atividade comercial e o planejamento precoce. (Nota: algumas grafias entre o Reino Unido e os EUA e o inglês diferem, por exemplo, organização organizacional, corante. Se estiver usando esses materiais, adapte as grafias para se adequar à sua situação). Como escrever planos de marketing estratégicos, planos de negócios e planos de vendas. Pessoas usam vários termos Referindo-se ao processo de planejamento de negócios - planos de negócios, estratégia de negócios, estratégia de marketing, planejamento estratégico de negócios, planejamento de vendas - todos eles abrangem os mesmos princípios básicos. Quando confrontado com o planejamento de negócios ou a tarefa de desenvolvimento de estratégia, é importante esclarecer exatamente o que é necessário: esclarecer o que precisa ser feito em vez de assumir o objetivo da descrição que lhe é dada - os termos são confundidos e significam coisas diferentes para pessoas diferentes. Você verá a partir das definições abaixo como são flexíveis esses termos de planejamento de negócios. Definições de planejamento de negócios um plano - uma declaração de intenção - uma intenção calculada de organizar esforço e recursos para alcançar um resultado - neste contexto, um plano é escrito, incluindo explicação, justificação e dados estatísticos numéricos e financeiros relevantes. Em um contexto de negócios, os planos de dados numéricos - custos e receitas - são normalmente agendados ao longo de pelo menos um ano de negociação, discriminados semanalmente, mensalmente, trimestralmente e cumulativamente. Um negócio - uma atividade ou entidade, independentemente de tamanho e autonomia, que se dedica a uma atividade, normalmente a oferta de produtos e / ou serviços, para produzir ganho comercial, estendendo-se a organizações não comerciais cujo objetivo pode ou não ser lucro (daí Por que escolas e hospitais do setor de serviços públicos são neste contexto designados como empresas). Plano de negócios - este é agora um termo muito geral e flexível, aplicável às atividades e objetivos planejados de qualquer entidade, grupo ou organização individual onde o esforço está sendo convertido em resultados. Por exemplo: uma pequena empresa, uma grande empresa, uma loja de canto, uma empresa local de limpeza de janelas, uma empresa regional, uma corporação multinacional de vários milhões de libras, uma instituição de caridade, uma escola, um hospital, um conselho local, uma agência governamental ou um departamento, um empreendimento conjunto, um projeto Dentro de uma empresa ou departamento, uma unidade de negócios, divisão ou departamento dentro de outra organização ou empresa, um centro de lucro ou centro de custo dentro de uma organização ou empresa, a responsabilidade de uma equipe ou grupo ou um indivíduo. A entidade comercial também pode ser uma start-up proposta, um novo desenvolvimento de negócios dentro de uma organização existente, uma nova joint venture ou qualquer novo projeto organizacional ou comercial que vise converter a ação em resultados. A medida em que um plano de negócios inclui custos e despesas gerais de atividades e recursos (por exemplo, produção, pesquisa e desenvolvimento, armazém, armazenamento, transporte, distribuição, desperdício, encolhimento, sede, treinamento, dívidas incobráveis, etc.) depende das necessidades de O negócio e o propósito do plano. Grandes planos de negócios de nível executivo, portanto, parecem ser uma conta de perda e lucro preditiva, totalmente detalhada até a linha inferior. Os planos de negócios escritos em unidade de negócios ou nível de departamento geralmente não incluem dados financeiros fora do departamento em questão. A maioria dos planos de negócios são, de fato, planos de vendas ou planos de marketing ou planos departamentais, que constituem o principal viés deste guia. Estratégia - originalmente um termo militar, em um contexto de planejamento de negócios, os aspectos estrategicamente estratégicos perecem o porquê e como o plano funcionará. Em relação a todos os fatores de influência sobre a entidade e atividade comercial, particularmente incluindo concorrentes (assim, o uso de um termo combativo militar), clientes e dados demográficos, tecnologia e comunicações. Marketing - acreditado por muitos como o mesmo que publicidade ou promoção de vendas, o marketing realmente significa e abrange tudo, desde a cultura e posicionamento da empresa, através de pesquisa de mercado, desenvolvimento de novos negócios, publicidade e promoção, PR (relações publicpress) e, sem dúvida, todos os Funções de vendas também. O marketing é o processo pelo qual uma empresa decide o que venderá, a quem, quando e como, e depois o fará. Plano de marketing - logicamente um plano que detalha o que uma empresa irá vender, a quem, quando e como, implicitamente incluindo a estratégia de comercialização de negócios. A medida em que os dados numéricos financeiros e comerciais estão incluídos depende das necessidades do negócio. A medida em que isso detalha o plano de vendas também depende das necessidades do negócio. Vendas - as transações entre o negócio e seus clientes em que serviços e ou produtos são fornecidos em troca do pagamento. As vendas (equipe de departamento de vendas) também descrevem as atividades e recursos que permitem esse processo, e as vendas também descrevem as receitas que o negócio deriva das atividades de vendas. Plano de vendas - um plano descrevendo, quantificando e em fases ao longo do tempo, como as vendas serão feitas e para quem. Algumas organizações interpretam isso como sendo um plano de negócios ou um plano de marketing. Estratégia de negócios - ver estratégia - é o mesmo. Estratégia de marketing - veja a estratégia - é a mesma. Contrato de serviço - um documento formal geralmente elaborado pelo fornecedor pelo qual o acordo comercial é acordado com o cliente. Veja a seção sobre contratos de serviços e acordos de negociação. Plano de negócios estratégico - veja estratégia e plano de negócios - é um plano de negócios com drivers estratégicos (que, na verdade, todos os planos de negócios devem ser). Planejamento estratégico de negócios - desenvolvimento e redação de um plano de negócios estratégico. Filosofia, valores, ética e visão - estes são os fundamentos do planejamento de negócios e determinam o espírito e a integridade do negócio ou organização - veja o guia sobre como fatores filosóficos e éticos se encaixam no processo de planejamento. E também os princípios e materiais relacionados à responsabilidade corporativa e à liderança ética. Você pode ver que muitos desses termos são intercambiáveis, por isso é importante esclarecer o que precisa ser planejado em vez de assumir ou inferir um significado do nome dado à tarefa. Dito isto, os princípios explicados aqui podem ser aplicados a planos de negócios de todos os tipos. Os planos de negócios são muitas vezes chamados de nomes diferentes - especialmente por gerentes seniores e diretores delegando um exercício de planejamento que eles não entendem o suficiente para explicar. Por exemplo: planos de vendas, planos operacionais, planos organizacionais organizacionais, planos de marketing, planos de estratégia de marketing, planos de negócios estratégicos, planos de negócios do departamento, etc. Normalmente, esses nomes refletem o departamento fazendo o planejamento, apesar disso, o processo de planejamento e o conteúdo exigido no O documento é amplamente similar. Outras definições úteis e relevantes de planejamento de negócios estão no dicionário de negócios, o glossário de vendas e vendas, alguns também estão no glossário de termos financeiros. E mais - especialmente para treinamento - estão na listagem de siglas de negócios e treinamentos. Que também fornece um leve alívio leve se este planejamento de negócios ficar um pouco seco (seja avisado, as listagens de siglas incluem algum conteúdo para adultos). Ao escrever um negócio ou plano operacional, lembre-se. Uma primeira regra útil de planejamento de negócios é decidir o que você realmente está tentando alcançar e sempre manter isso em mente. Escreva seu alvo grande como um lembrete constante para você e para qualquer outra pessoa envolvida. Mantendo seu objetivo central visível irá ajudá-lo a minimizar as distrações e distorções que freqüentemente ocorrem durante o processo de planejamento. Uma norma cada vez mais vital e talvez segunda de planejamento de negócios é estabelecer uma forte filosofia ética no início do seu planejamento. Isso fornece uma referência vital para a tomada de decisões e a estratégia desde o início. Um código claro e ético claro comunica seus valores ao pessoal, aos clientes, aos fornecedores e cria uma base simples e consistente para as operações que os processos financeiros, os processos, os sistemas e as pessoas comuns convencionais não abordam. É muito difícil introduzir princípios éticos mais tarde em uma empresa, especialmente quando o planejamento muda para a implementação, e mais ainda, se surgirem problemas relacionados à integridade, honestidade, responsabilidade corporativa, confiança, governança, etc., qualquer um dos quais pode ter um impacto maciço sobre os relacionamentos E reputação. Veja responsabilidade social corporativa e ética e Contrato psicológico. É fácil abordar questões de ética e responsabilidade corporativa quando você é dono de uma nova empresa. É mais difícil se você é gerente em uma empresa de alguém ou em uma grande corporação. No entanto, a ética e a responsabilidade corporativa são altamente significativas no planejamento, e agora pode ser feita uma forte justificativa para sua adequada consideração. Existem agora muitos exemplos recentes de corporações - de fato, economias e governos nacionais inteiros - que falharam devido à pouca consideração com as considerações éticas. O mundo está mudando e aprendendo, devagar, mas é, e qualquer pessoa que ignora a ética no planejamento hoje faz isso em seu próprio perigo. Um terceiro requisito crucial para os planos de negócios é o retorno sobre o investimento. Ou para serviços públicos e organizações sem fins lucrativos: uso efetivo de investimentos e recursos, que está além do simples controle de custos. Para a grande maioria das organizações, sejam empresas, serviços públicos, fideicomissagens sem fins lucrativos e instituições de caridade, todas as organizações precisam ser financeiramente eficazes no que fazem, caso contrário, elas deixarão de funcionar. Em última análise - seja qual for a organização e os objetivos - a viabilidade financeira é necessária para sustentar qualquer atividade organizada. Embora seja essencial administrar aspectos éticos e socialmente responsáveis ​​dos objetivos organizacionais. Estes devem permitir o retorno adequado do investimento (ou em empresas menos tradicionais e sem fins lucrativos, devem permitir o uso efetivo do investimento e dos recursos, de acordo com os requisitos financeiros da organização específica). Recordar a necessidade de viabilidade financeira é vital também porque o planejamento de negócios geralmente é feito - com razão - para conseguir algo novo e especial. Isso tende a enfocar o pensamento sobre a criatividade, a inovação, a ambição, a qualidade, a excelência, talvez até o bem social, etc., o que pode facilmente distrair o planejamento da necessidade básica de ser financeiramente viável - e, fundamentalmente, não fazer uma perda. Ao tratar o retorno do investimento como um requisito vital do planejamento, aumentamos a probabilidade de que os planos sejam viáveis ​​e, portanto, sustentáveis. O retorno do investimento é no entanto uma característica variável do planejamento de negócios. É flexível de acordo com o tipo de empresa, seu principal objetivo e filosofia. Em um retorno de investimento convencional com base no lucro do investimento (a uma taxa ótima) geralmente é um forte controle estratégico para o planejamento local e as decisões, e também implica um requisito básico da empresa como um todo. Por outro lado, em uma empresa ou organização menos focada na recompensa dos acionistas, como uma fiduidade de serviços públicos ou uma instituição de caridade, ou uma empresa social ou cooperativa, o retorno do investimento (a uma taxa relativamente menor) pode ser um requisito apenas para sustentar Operações viáveis, de acordo com os objetivos da empresa. No primeiro exemplo, o retorno do investimento é o objetivo do segundo exemplo, o retorno do investimento permite que outro objetivo maior seja alcançado. Mais detalhadamente: em uma corporação tradicional orientada para o lucro, o retorno do investimento tende a ser o principal requisito de qualquer plano de negócios e também o principal objetivo ou propósito ou motor do plano. Na maioria das empresas tradicionais, o retorno sobre o investimento tende a ser o cerne de todas as atividades, já que a corporação existe para maximizar o rendimento (lucro e crescimento efetivo) dos fundos de acionistas investidos no negócio. O planejamento em empresas tradicionais às vezes esquece essa obrigação básica, especialmente quando um gerente júnior é solicitado a escrever um plano de negócios pela primeira vez. Em empresas tradicionais de lucro, quando um novo gerente começa a escrever um plano de negócios ou plano operacional pela primeira vez (e também para alguns gerentes experientes, pela enésima vez), o gerente pergunta: Qual é o objetivo? O que estou tentando? Para conseguir Muitas vezes quando eles perguntam a seu próprio gerente, o gerente tem as mesmas dúvidas. O objetivo central é geralmente o retorno sobre o investimento. Em empresas ou organizações sem fins lucrativos, onde o enriquecimento dos acionistas não é o objetivo principal, o retorno sobre o investimento é menos um motorista no planejamento de negócios, mas é, no entanto, um requisito crucial. Tais empresas estão se tornando mais populares e continuarão a se tornar assim, desde o colapso das economias ocidentais em 2008, e aumentando a desilusão com o pensamento empresarial antigo. Aqui, o retorno do investimento não é o principal motor de busca ou objetivo do negócio. Em vez disso, o principal motor da empresa pode ser algum outro propósito. Um exemplo de algum outro propósito pode ser as atividades de uma empresa social ou cooperativa, ou talvez uma empresa de propriedade de funcionários, ou talvez uma confiança ou uma instituição de caridade, cujo principal objetivo é (e não a geração tradicional de lucros para os acionistas externos institucionais) talvez beneficiar sua Membros ou para sustentar empregos locais, ou para beneficiar a comunidade local, ou talvez para avançar ciência ou aprendizagem ou saúde, etc. Aqui, enquanto o retorno do investimento pode parecer menos crucial ou apropriado para o planejamento e as operações, a empresa deve, no entanto, permanecer financeiramente viável . Ou deixa de poder operar em tudo. Em tais exemplos, o retorno do investimento no planejamento de negócios geralmente não é maximizado, mas ainda deve ser tratado como um requisito de base para o planejamento e flexionado de acordo com os objetivos fundamentais e os requisitos financeiros da empresa. Antes de planejar, portanto, é útil entender claramente: o que realmente estamos buscando alcançar Qual é a nossa política de responsabilidade social corporativa e ética, etc. - nossa filosofia E o retorno sobre o investimento (ou desempenho financeiro alternativo), nossa atividade exige: Isso é um motorista estratégico em si mesmo, ou simplesmente o meio pelo qual nós mantemos nossas atividades em apoio ao nosso (ponto 1) planejamento de objetivos - causa e efeito ... A metodologia básica de planejamento de negócios é a identificação de causas e efeitos. De acordo com seus requisitos comerciais relevantes (financeiros e ética) e drivers estratégicos (o que realmente estamos buscando alcançar). Aqui, uma causa é uma entrada ou ação ou recurso, um efeito é um resultado ou resultado ou conseqüência de algum tipo. Queremos alcançar o efeito xyz (por exemplo, um determinado retorno sobre o investimento, ou um determinado nível de vendas ou participação de mercado, seja o que for) - então, o que devemos planejar para que isso aconteça. Os elementos de impacto causados ​​geralmente são divididos em atividades menores, que também Constituem uma causa e efeito. (O processo de planejamento de metas e as ferramentas ajudam a explicar como essa subdivisão funciona - onde um grande objetivo é dividido em partes menores mais mensuráveis ​​e realizáveis). Os gerentes júniors são responsáveis ​​por planos e atividades que alimentam planos e atividades departamentais maiores de gerentes seniores. Os planos e atividades dos gerentes seniores alimentam os planos divisórios de executivos e diretores. Existe uma hierarquia ou estrutura de árvores de causa e efeitos, contribuindo de forma esperançosa para o objetivo geral da organização. Em muitas empresas de boa qualidade, uma responsabilidade substancial em planejamento comercial se estende agora à equipe de atendimento ao cliente da linha de frente e a tendência está aumentando. Neste contexto, o plano de negócios pode ser chamado também de um plano de marketing ou um plano de vendas - todos os planos departamentais são basicamente tipos de planejamento de negócios: o que você vai vender para quem, quando e como você vai vendê-lo , Quanto contribuição (lucro bruto) as vendas produzirão, o que será o marketing e o custo de venda e qual será o retorno do investimento. Onde um departamento é um centro de custo que não é um centro de lucro - fornecendo produtos ou serviços internamente a outros departamentos, em vez de externamente aos clientes - então o idioma e os elementos de planejamento podem alterar, mas os princípios permanecem os mesmos. Além disso, esses princípios e métodos se aplicam a grandes organizações multinacionais complexas, que tendem a implicar custos mais e diferentes, despesas gerais fixas, receitas e, conseqüentemente, maiores formatos de planejamento de planilhas maiores e maiores, mais linhas e colunas em cada uma, mais atenção e pessoas trabalhando Nos números, mais contadores e, em geral, especialmente no nível de gerenciamento médio e acima, mais ênfase no fluxo de caixa e no balanço, juntamente com o planejamento básico de lucros e perdas. Realize sua pesquisa de mercado, incluindo a compreensão da atividade de sua concorrente. O mercado varia de acordo com a empresa ou organização em questão, mas toda atividade organizada tem um mercado. Conhecer o mercado permite avaliar e valorizar e planejar como se envolver com ele. Uma falha comum de planejamento de negócios ou planejamento operacional fora do mundo dos negócios é planejar isoladamente, olhando para dentro, quando as idéias podem parecer muito positivas e confiáveis ​​porque não há contexto e nada a comparar. Daí a pesquisa é crítica. E isso se aplica a qualquer tipo de organização - não apenas às empresas. Veja especialmente as orientações sobre marketing em relação ao planejamento de negócios. Planejando muitos processos de preocupações. Os princípios do marketing irão explicar adicionalmente como colocar significado e valores no que planeja. Sua pesquisa de mercado deve se concentrar nas informações que você precisa, para ajudá-lo a formular estratégias e tomar decisões comerciais. A pesquisa de mercado deve ser pragmática e proposital - um meio para um fim, e não um meio em si. A informação do mercado abrange potencialmente uma vasta gama de dados, desde macro-tendências e estatísticas globais, até informações locais ou técnicas muito específicas e detalhadas, por isso é importante decidir o que é realmente relevante e necessário saber. A informação do mercado sobre as tendências do mercado e indústria, valores, principais corporações, estrutura de mercado, etc., é importante para conhecer as grandes corporações que operam a nível nacional ou internacional. Esse tipo de pesquisa às vezes é chamado de secundário, porque já está disponível, tendo sido pesquisado e publicado anteriormente. Este tipo de informação está disponível na internet, bibliotecas, empresas de pesquisa, comércio e imprensa nacional e publicações, associações profissionais e institutos. Esta informação de pesquisa secundária normalmente requer alguma interpretação ou manipulação para seus próprios propósitos. No entanto, não há tempo de gastar dias pesquisando dados estatísticos e econômicos estatísticos globais se você estiver desenvolvendo uma estratégia para um negócio relativamente pequeno ou local. Muito mais útil seria realizar sua própria pesquisa primária (ou seja, pesquisa original) sobre o mercado-alvo local, os padrões de compra e as preferências, os concorrentes locais, seus preços e ofertas de serviços. Muitas pesquisas de mercado primárias úteis podem ser realizadas usando feed-back, pesquisas, questionários e grupos focais (obtenção de indicadores e pontos de vista através de discussões entre algumas pessoas representativas em uma situação de discussão controlada). Este tipo de pesquisa primária deve ser adaptada exatamente para suas necessidades. A pesquisa primária exige menos manipulação do que a pesquisa secundária, mas todos os tipos de pesquisa precisam de uma certa análise. Be careful when extrapolating or projecting figures to avoid magnifying initial mistakes or wrong assumptions. If the starting point is inaccurate the resulting analysis will not be reliable. For businesses of any size small, local, global and everything in between, the main elements you need to understand and quantify are: customer (and potential customer) numbers, profile and mix customer perceptions, needs, preferences, buying patterns, and trends, by sub-sector if necessary products and services, mix, values and trends demographic issues and trends (especially if dependent on consumer markets) future regulatory and legal effects prices and values, and customer perceptions in these areas distribution and routes to market competitor activities, strengths, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods, etc Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the subjects simple and the range narrow. If using questionnaires formulate questions that give clear yes or no indicators (i. e. avoid three and five options in multi-choices which produce lots of uncertain answers) always understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced. Try to convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use focus groups for more detailed work. For large research projects consider using a market research organization because theyll probably do it better than you, even though this is likely to be more costly. If you use any sort of marketing agency ensure you issue a clear brief, and that your aims are clearly understood. Useful frameworks for research are PEST analysis and SWOT analysis. establish your corporate philosophy and the aims of your business or operation First establish or confirm the aims of the business, and if you are concerned with a part of a business, establish and validate the aims of your part of the business. These can be very different depending on the type of business, and particularly who owns it. Refer to and consider issues of ethics and philosophy, corporate social responsibility, sustainability. etc - these are the foundations on which values and missions are built. Consider the Psychological Contract and the benefits of establishing a natural balance and fairness between all interests (notably staff, customers, the organization). Traditional business models are not necessarily the best ones. The world is constantly changing, and establishing a new business is a good time to challenge preconceptions of fundamental business structure and purpose. A business based on a narrow aim of enriching a few investors while relegating the needs and involvement of everyone else may contain conflicts and tensions at a deep level. There are other innovative business structures which can inherently provide a more natural, cooperative and self-fuelling relationship - especially between employees and the organization, and potentially between customers and the organization too. When you have established or confirmed your philosophical and ethical position, state the objectives of the business unit you are planning to develop - your short, medium and long term aims - (typically short, medium and long equate to 1 year, 2-3 years and 3 years plus). In other words, what is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five years Bear in mind that you must reliably ensure the success and viability of the business in the short term or the long term is merely an academic issue. Grand visions need solid foundations. All objectives and aims must be prioritised and as far as possible quantified. If you cant measure it, you cant manage it. define your mission statement All businesses need a 145mission statement. It announces clearly and succinctly to your staff, shareholders and customers what you are in business to do. Your mission statement may build upon a general 145service charter relevant to your industry. You can involve staff in defining and refining the businesss mission statement, which helps develop a sense of ownership and responsibility. Producing and announcing the mission statement is also an excellent process for focusing attention on the businesss priorities, and particularly the emphasis on customer service. Whole businesses need a mission statement - departments and smaller business units within a bigger business need them too. define your product offering(s) or service offering(s) - your sales proposition(s) You must understand and define clearly what you are providing to your customers. This description should normally go beyond your products or services, and critically must include the way you do business . and what business benefits your customers derive from your products and services, and from doing business with you. Develop offerings or propositions for each main area of your business activity - sometimes referred to as revenue streams, or business streams - andor for the sector(s) that you serve. Under normal circumstances competitive advantage is increased the more you can offer things that your competitors cannot. Good research will tell you where the opportunities are to increase your competitive advantage in areas that are of prime interest to your target markets. Develop your service offering to emphasise your strengths, which should normally relate to your business objectives, in turn being influenced by corporate aims and market research. The important process in developing a proposition is translating your view of these services into an offer that means something to your customer. The definition of your service offer must make sense to your customer in terms that are advantageous and beneficial to the customer, not what is technically good, or scientifically sound to you. Think about what your service, and the manner by which you deliver it, means to your customer. Traditionally, in sales and marketing, this perspective is referred to as translating features into benefits. The easiest way to translate a feature into a benefit is to add the prompt 145which means that. . For example, if a strong feature of a business is that it has 24-hour opening, this feature would translate into something like: Were open 24 hours (the feature) which means that you can get what you need when you need it - day or night. (the benefit). Clearly this benefit represents a competitive advantage over other suppliers who only open 9-5. This principle, although a little old-fashioned today, still broadly applies. The important thing is to understand your services and proposition in terms that your customer will recognise as being relevant and beneficial to them. Most businesses have a very poor understanding of what their customers value most in the relationship, so ensure you discover this in the research stage, and reflect it in your stated product or service proposition(s). Customers invariably value these benefits higher than all others: Making money Saving money Saving time If your proposition(s) cannot be seen as leading to any of the above then customers will not be very interested in you. A service-offer or proposition should be an encapsulation of what you do best, that you do better than your competitors (or that they dont do at all) something that fits with your business objectives, stated in terms that will make your customers think 145Yes, that means something to me and I think it could be good for my business (and therefore good for me also as a buyer or sponsor). This is the first brick in the wall in the process of business planning, sales planning, marketing planning, and thereafter, direct marketing, and particularly sales lead generation. write your business plan - include sales, costs of sales, gross margins, and if necessary your business overheads Business plans come in all shapes and sizes. Pragmatism is essential. Ensure your plan shows what your business needs it to show. Essentially your plan is a spreadsheet of numbers with supporting narrative, explaining how the numbers are to be achieved. A plan should show all the activities and resources in terms of revenues and costs, which together hopefully produce a profit at the end of the trading year. The level of detail and complexity depends on the size and part of the business that the plan concerns. Your business plan, which deals with all aspects of the resource and management of the business (or your part of the business), will include many decisions and factors fed in from the marketing process. It will state sales and profitability targets by activity. In a marketing plan there may also be references to image and reputation, and to public relations. All of these issues require thought and planning if they are to result in improvement, and particularly increasing numbers of customers and revenue growth. You would normally describe and provide financial justification for the means of achieving these things, together with customer satisfaction improvement. Above all a plan needs to be based on actions - cost-effective and profitable cause and effect inputs required to achieved required outputs, analysed, identified and quantified separately wherever necessary to be able to manage and measure the relevant activities and resources. quantify the business you seek from each of your market sectors, segments, products and customer groupings, and allocate investment, resources and activities accordingly These principles apply to a small local business, a department within a business, or a vast whole business. Before attending to the detail of how to achieve your marketing aims you need to quantify clearly what they are. What growth targets does the business have What customer losses are you projecting How many new customers do you need, by size and type, by product and service What sales volumes, revenues and contributions values do you need for each business or revenue stream from each sector What is your product mix, in terms of customer type, size, sector, volumes, values, contribution, and distribution channel or route to market What are your projected selling costs and net contributions per service, product, sector What trends and percentage increase in revenues and contributions, and volumes compared to last year are you projecting How is your market share per business stream and sector changing, and how does this compare with your overall business aims What are your fast-growth high-margin opportunities, and what are your mature and low-margin services how are you treating these different opportunities, and anything else in between You should use a basic spreadsheet tool to split your business according to the main activities and profit levers. See the simple salesbusiness planning tool example below. ansoff product-market growth matrix - strategic tool A useful planning tool in respect of markets and products is the matrix developed by Igor Ansoff (H Igor Ansoff, 1918-2002), who is regarded by some as the Father of Strategic Management. Fully titled the Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix, the tool was first published in Harvard Business Review, 1957, in Ansoffs paper Strategies for Diversification. The Ansoff product-market matrix helps to understand and assess marketing or business development strategy. Any business, or part of a business can choose which strategy to employ, or which mix of strategic options to use. This is a fundamentally simple and effective way of looking at strategic development options. Each of these strategic options holds different opportunities and downsides for different organizations, so what is right for one business wont necessarily be right for another. Think about what option offers the best potential for your own business and market. Think about the strengths of your business and what type of growth strategy your strengths will enable most naturally. Generally beware of diversification - this is, by its nature, unknown territory, and carries the highest risk of failure. Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary: market penetration - Developing your sales of existing products to your existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market share to be had at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending the range of productsservices that you can offer to the market, as in the next option. product development - Developing or finding new products to take to your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong market share in a particular market. Such a strategy can be a suitable reason for acquiring another company or productservice capability provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route. Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself (which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-inventing someone elses wheel) - often there are potential manufacturing partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already have good market share across a wide range of products for your market, this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to develop new markets, as in the next strategic option. market development - Developing new markets for your existing products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market - it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the productservice fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share and good productservice range then moving into associated markets or segments is likely to be an attractive strategy. diversification - taking new products into new markets. This is high risk - not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through rigorous testing and piloting. Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialised in some way, perhaps because of special USPs or distribution arrangements. Other products and services may be more mature, with little or no competitive advantage, in which case they will produce lower margins. The Boston Matrix is a useful way to understand and assess your different existing product and service opportunities: boston matrix model - productservice development The Boston Matrix model (also called the BSG Matrix, Growth-Share Matrix, and variations around these titles) is a tool for assessing existing and development products in terms of their market potential, and thereby implying strategic action for products and services in each of the four categories reflected in the model. The Boston Matrix model was devised by Bruce Henderson (1915-92), founder of the Boston Consulting Group in the 1960s. It has been adapted in many ways. A simple version is shown here below. Like other four-part 2x2 matrix models, the Boston Matrix is a very quick and easy method for analysis, thinking and decision-making, while being unavoidably limited in its handling of subtlety and detail. Often in business and strategic thinking too much detail is unhelpful - instead, clarity and ease of understanding are extremely helpful, especially in communicating ideas to teams and groups, in which circumstances the Boston Matrix is an excellent aid. low market share These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split (altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out what if analysis to develop the best plans. If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing according to different fields. When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing inputs as well as sales outputs - the quantifiable activity (for example, the numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels) required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin, but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required to achieve it. Heres a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also available as a PDF, see the Profit and Loss Account (PampL) Small Enterprise Business Plan Example (PDF). The numbers could be anything: ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same. Consider also indirect activities that affect sales and business levels, such as customer service. Identify key performance indicators here too, such as customer complaints response and resolution levels and timescales. Internal lead referral schemes, strategic partnership activity the performance of other direct sales activities such as sales agencies, distributorships, export activities, licensing, etc. These performance factors wont normally appear on a business plan spreadsheet, but a separate plan should be made for them, otherwise they wont happen. write your marketing plan or business plan Your marketing plan is actually a statement, supported by relevant financial data, of how you are going to develop your business. Plans should be based on actions, not masses of historical data. The historical and market information should be sufficient just to explain and justify the opportunities, direction, strategy, and most importantly, the marketing actions, methods and measures - not to tell the story of the past 20 years of your particular industry. What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales produce, what the marketing cost will be, and what will be the return on investment. As stated above it is easiest and best to assemble all of this data onto a spreadsheet, which then allows data to be manipulated through the planning process, and then changed and re-projected when the trading year is under way. The spreadsheet then becomes the basis of your sales and marketing forecasting and results reporting tool. As well as sales and marketing data, in most types of businesses it is also useful to include measurable aims concerning customer service and satisfaction. The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in the overall business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and gross marginprofitability targets that relate to the turnover and profitability in the overall business plan. This data is essentially numerical, and so needs also some supporting narrative as to how the numbers will be achieved - the actions - but keep the narrative concise if it extends to more than a half-dozen sheets make sure you put a succinct executive summary on the front. The marketing plan narrative could if appropriate also refer to indirect activities such as product development, customer service, quality assurance, training etc. if significantly relevant to achieving the marketing plan aims. Be pragmatic - marketing plans vary enormously depending on the type, size and maturity of business. Above all create a plan that logically shows how the business can best consolidate and grow its successful profitable areas. The marketing plan should be a working and truly useful tool - if it is, then its probably a good one. sample business plan, marketing plan or sales plan sample structure and example formattemplate Keep the written part of the business plan as concise and brief as possible - most situations and high-ranking executives do not need to see plans that are an inch thick. If you can make your case on a half dozen pages then do so. Particularly if your plan is more than 5-6 pages long, produce an executive summary (easiest to do when you have completed the plan) and insert it at the beginning of the document. If you need to include lots of reference material, examples, charts, evidence, etc, show these as appendices at the back of the document and make sure they are numbered and referenced during the main body of the plan. Each new section should start at the top of a new page. Number the pages. Important plans should be suitably bound. All business plans should be professionally and neatly presented, with no grammar and spelling errors, clearly laid out in an easy to read format (avoid lots of upper-case or fancy fonts or italics as these are all difficult to read). Your business plan contents and structure should be as follows: business plans structure - a business planning template Title page: Title or heading of the plan and brief description if required, author, date, companyorganization if applicable, details of circulation and confidentiality. Contents page: A list of contents (basically the sections listed here, starting with the Introduction page) showing page numbers, plus a list of appendices or addendums (added reference material at the back of the document) allowing the reader to find what they need and navigate the document easily, and to refer others to particular items and page numbers when reviewing or querying. Introduction page . Introduction and purpose of the plan, terms of reference if applicable (usually for formal and large plans or projects). Executive summary page: Optional and usually beneficial, this should normally be no more than a page long (or its not an executive summary) - the key points of the whole plan including conclusions, recommendations, actions, financial returns on investment, etc. clearly readable in a few minutes. Main body of plan: sections and headings as required, see template below. Acknowledgments and bibliographyreference sources: if relevant (only required normally for very large formal plans) Appendices: appendices or addendums - additional detailed reference material, examples, statistics, spreadsheets, etc. for reference and not central to the main presentation of your plan. business plans - main body sections examples template This sample template is typical for a salesmarketingnew business development business plan. (A business plan for a more complex project such as an international joint-venture, or the formation of a new company including manufacturing plant or other overhead activities would need to include relevant information and financials about the overheads and resources concerned, and the financials would need to show costs and profits more like a fully developed profit and loss account, with cashflow projections, balance sheet, etc.) Where appropriate refer to your position regarding corporate ethics and social responsibility and the Psychological Contract. While these aspects are not mechanisms within the plan, they are crucial reference points. Define your market - sector(s) and segment(s) definitions Quantify your market (overview only) - size, segmentation, relevant statistics, values, numbers (locations, peopleusers, etc) - make this relevant to you business Explain your market(s) - sector trends, eg. growth, legislation, seasonality, PEST factors where relevant, refer to Ansoff matrix, show the strategic business drivers within sector and segments, purchasing mechanisms, processes, restrictions - what are the factors that determine customers priorities and needs - this is a logical place to refer to ethics and CSR (corporate social responsibility Explain your existing business - your current business according to sector, productsservices, quantities, values, distributor, etc. Analyse your existing customer spread by customer type, values and productsservices including major accounts (the Pareto Principle or the 80:20 rule often applies here, eg. 80 of your business comes from 20 of your customers) Explain your products and services - refer to Boston matrix and especially your strategic propositions (what these propositions will do for your customers) including your USPs and UPBs (see sales training section and acronyms ) Explain you routes to market, gatekeepers, influencers and st rategic partners - the other organizationsindividuals you will work with to develop your market, including whats in it for them, commissions, endorsements, accreditations, approvals, licenses, etc. Case studies and track record - the credibility, evidence and proof that your propositions and strategic partnerships work Competitor analysis, eg. SWOT analysis of your own business compared to SWOT analysis of each competitor Salesmarketingbusiness plan (1 year min) showing sales and margins by productservice stream, mix, values, segment, distributor, etc, whatever is relevant, phased monthly, in as much detail as you need. This should be on a spreadsheet . with as many different sheets as necessary to quantify relevant inputs and outputs. List your strategic actions (marketing campaigns, sales activities, advertising, etc) that will deliver the above, with costs and returns. This should be supported with a spreadsheet, showing cost and return on investment for each activity. Tip: If the business plan concerns an existing activity, use the previous years salesbusiness analysis as the basis for the next years salesbusiness plan. Adapt as necessary according to your new strategic plans. other business planning and marketing issues staffing and training implications Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you implement a marketing plan. You may not have all the people that you need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all of your people aware of the aims of the business, its mission statement and your sales propositions Do they know what their responsibilities are How will you measure their performance Many of these issues feed back into the business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need to be available to support the investment in these areas. customer service charter You should formulate a customer service charter, extending both your mission statement and your service offer, so as to inform staff and customers what your standards are. These standards can cover quite detailed aspects of your service, such as how many times the telephone will be permitted to ring until the caller is gets an answer. Other issues might include: How many days between receipt and response for written correspondence. Complaints procedure and timescales for each stage. This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them. Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, think of each one as a promise that you should keep. Business-to-business customers would expect to agree these standards with their suppliers and have them recorded as part of their contracts, or as SLAs (service level agreements). Increasingly, large customers demand SLAs to be tailored to their own specific needs, and the process of developing these understandings and agreements is absolutely crucial to the maintenance and development of large contracts. Remember an important rule about customer service: Its not so much the failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among customers - everyone can make a mistake - the biggest cause of upset is the failure of suppliers to inform customers and keep them updated when problems arise. Not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not getting any explanation why, and not hearing whats going to be done to put things right, are key areas of customer dissatisfaction, and therefore easy areas for suppliers to focus their efforts to achieve and communicate improvements. A special point of note for businesses that require a strong technical profile among their service staff: these people are often reactive by nature and so not good at taking initiative to identify and anticipate problem areas in customer service. Its therefore helpful to establish suitable mechanisms and responsibility to pick up problems and deal with them - a kind of trouble-shooting capability - which can be separately managed and monitored at a strategic level. Do not assume that technically-oriented staff will be capable of proactively developing customer service solutions and revisions to SLAs - they generally need help in doing so from staff with high creativity, empathy, communications and initiative capabilities. establish systems to measure customer service and staff performance These standards and the SLAs established for large customers need to be visible, agreed with customers, absolutely measurable. You must keep measuring your performance against them, and preferably publishing the results, internally and externally. Customer complaints handling is a key element: Measuring customer complaints is crucial because individual complaints are crucial areas to resolve, and also as a whole, complaints serve as a barometer for the quality and performance of the business. You need to have a scheme which encourages, not discourages, customers to complain, to open the channels as wide as possible. Most businesses are too defensive where complaints are concerned, preferring to minimise their importance, or to seek to justify and excuse them. Wrong. Complaints are the opportunities to turn ordinary service into unbeatable service. Moreover, time and again surveys suggest that anything up to nine out of ten people do not complain to the provider when they feel dissatisfied - they just keep their dissatisfaction to themselves and the provider never finds out theres a problem, even when the customer chooses to go elsewhere. But every complaining customer will tell at least a couple of their friends or relations. Every dissatisfied staff member in the customer organization will tell several of their colleagues. Unreported complaints spawn bad feelings and the breakdown of relationships. It is imperative that you capture all complaints in order to: Put at ease and give explanation or reassurance to the person complaining. Reduce the chances of them complaining to someone else. Monitor exactly how many dissatisfied customers you have and what the causes are, and thats even more important if youre failing to deliver your mission statement or service offer Take appropriate corrective action to prevent a re-occurrence. If appropriate (ie for large customers) review SLAs and take the opportunity to agree new SLAs with the customer. implications for IT, premises, and reporting systems Also relating to your business plan are the issues of: Information Technology - are your computers and communications systems capable of giving you the information and analysis you need How do you use email - is it helping or hindering your business and the quality of service you give to your customers What internet presence and processes do you need How should your voice and data systems work together What systems need to be available to mobile staff What customer relationship management (CRM) systems should you have How should you consider all these issues to see the needs and opportunities IT and communications systems increasingly offer marketing and competitive advantage to businesses in all sectors - make sure you know hat IT can do for you and for your customers. Premises - Review your premises and sites in light of your customer service, distribution, and customer relationship requirements. Pay particular attention anywhere in your organization that your customers visit - the impression and service you give here is critical. Reporting systems - If you cant measure it you cant manage it, and where finance and business performance is concerned this is certainly true. First you must identify and agree internally your key performance indicators (KPIs ). Identify every aspect of your service or performance that is important - then you need to be able to measure it and report on it, and where people are involved in performing to certain standards then the standards and the reporting needs to be transparent to them also. How do you report on sales, marketing and business performance and interpret the results Who needs to know Who needs to capture the data communications and ongoing customer feedback are essential Having an open dialogue with your customers is vital. Theres a double benefit to your business in ensuring this happens: You nip problems in the bud and stay aware of how youre performing. Your customers feel better about the service you provide as a result of the communications, or from the fact that the channel is open even if they dont use it - its human nature. Try to devise a standard feedback form. It can double as a promotional tool as well if its made available on a wider scale. The form can carry details of your mission statement, service offer and your customer service charter. Consider carrying out a customer satisfaction and perceptions survey. There are many ways to do this on a small or large scale, and valuable feedback is always obtained from customer survey exercises. tips for starting a small business or self-employment - for non-financial people Some of us are not naturally inclined towards the sort of detailed financial thinking that is required for traditional detailed business planning. If this is you, youll possess other valuable capabilities that will be useful in your own enterprise, and youll maybe find it helpful to use this alternative approach to planning a new enterprise or self-employment. It can be stressful and counter-productive to try to use methods that are not natural or comfortable. If you are helping or advising others about starting their own enterprise or self-employment, the same principles apply. Not everyone is naturally good at business planning, but everyone who dreams of being self-employed or who wants to start and run their own independent enterprise is capable of doing so, provided they work to their strengths, capabilities and passions. People running successful enterprises come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds, all ages, with skills, passions, and capabilities in any field you can imagine. Anyone can run their own business or be successful in self-employment given the simple determination to do so. Business and enterprise is not just for stereotypical business-types the benefits and advantages of being your own boss are available to us all. Here are some pointers for people considering starting their own new enterprise, or for helping others to do the same. First, and especially if you are not clear of your own real strengths, or what direction to pursue, focus on using tools to understanding your own personality style and strengths. Then use this knowledge to imagine and realise how your natural capabilities can be used to best effect in defining and providing your own services or running your own enterprise. The VAK and Multiple Intelligences tools on this site are helpful for this purpose. They assess peoples strengths completely differently to traditional IQ or academic evaluations, which are extremely narrow and generally not relevant at all for people who want to be their own boss. Understanding personality is also useful since personality-type greatly influences the way that a person approaches self-employment or running an enterprise, and what sort of service or business to offer. The Personality Styles page provides a lot of explanation about this. Many people are conditioned by schools and over-cautious parents to under-estimate their own potential and capabilities, which is a big reason to take a fresh look at what you are good at, and to re-think and understand better the ways that your personality type tends to be successful in life and business. There are many ways to be successful and independent in life aside from building and running a conventional business and adhering to conventional financial planning methods. The basic economics of becoming successfully independent in any sort of venture are actually extremely simple, and focusing on the following simple fundamentals (a process really) can help many folk turn your dream or an idea into a successful enterprise or self-employment reality. Its usually easiest to think first of these factors in terms of daily, weekly or monthly numbers and values, and then to extend the figures to give totals for a whole year: 1. Whats your product or service (Whats goodspecialdifferent about your products or service that enough people will buy it And importantly is this something that you have a real passion for All successful enterprises are built on doing something the owner enjoys.) 2. What does it cost to makebuy inprovide the product or service (If you are buying and selling products or using materials consider the cost prices. If the main resource is your own time then attach a cost to your labour that reflects your available time for the work and the wage you need to draw. Divide your required annual wage by the number of work hours available to you, and this is your notional hourly labour cost.) 3. What price will the productservice sell for (Ideally small businesses need a healthy profit margin or mark-up - doubling the cost is good if the market will accept it. A mark-up of less than 50 is cause for concern unless you are selling products in relatively high volumes or values. Price your productsservices according to what the market will pay, not according to your costs. Take into account your competitors and what they charge and their relative quality. Service businesses that use only the persons time are often very attractive and profitable because there is no added complication of buying and holding stock - hence why window-cleaning, sign-writing, repairs, gardening, decorating, tutoring, writing, therapy, training, coaching and consultancy, etc. are such good businesses for people who prefer a simple approach to self-employment and enterprise. Consider the effect of VAT especially for consumer businesses - ie. selling to the general public - assuming your business is or must be VAT registered. Private consumers of course are more sensitive to VAT than business customers who can generally reclaim VAT should you have to add it to your prices.) 4. Who will buy the productservice (Identify your customers and market. Do you know this for sure Test your assumptions: this is a critical part of the proposition and generally benefits from more thought and research to confirm that a big enough market exists for your idea. Consider your competition - what are people buying currently and why will they buy from you instead) 5. How muchmany do you need to sell in a year And how many customers do you need (This is a vital part of the proposition to confirm that the gross profit (the difference between costs of bought in productslabour and sales revenues) covers yourtheir financial needs (including a living wage and other fixed costs of running the enterprise. Again remember the affect of VAT on your selling prices if applicable.) 6. How will people know about the serviceproduct (You need t o understand what advertisingmarketingenquiry-generation is necessary - activity and cost. There is usually a cost for generating new customers, especially in the early stages of a new enterprise. Once the business is established, say after six months to a year, word-of-mouth referrals are for some businesses all that is required to produce new customers - especially those based in a local community, but virtually any new enterprise requires marketing at its launch. See the articles on marketing and selling .) 7. Does all this add up, and better still provide a cash surplus at the end of a year - if so then its probably a good business model. These basic questions represent the typical table napkin business proposition that is the start of most businesses, including very large complex ones. People who dislike and are not fluent in detailed business calculations might find the above process a useful starting point when thinking about how to begin a new enterprise or a venture in self-employment. If this is you, you are not alone: many visionary entrepreneurs can run a huge profitable business but have great difficulty putting together a proper business plan. Hence many highly successful business leaders rely heavily on their financial directors to take care of the financial details, leaving them free to get on with the business activity that makes best use of their natural skill, be it creativity, selling, service-provision, people-skills, technical skills, or whatever. Incidentally the above factors are the essential components which make up a basic Profit and Loss Account, which is the primary management tool for a business of any scale and complexity. Heres a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for extending these factors and financials into a more formal phased plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and reporting tool too. If in doubt about this seek some help from an experienced business person or your accountant. Adapt it to suit your purposes. The example PampL trading plan is also available as a pdf. The numbers could be anything - ten times less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same. company types and financial set up - quick guide When you have confirmed and refined the basic viability of your business idea you can then begin getting to grips with the more detailed aspects of forming the business itself. This necessarily includes deciding your type of business constitution - the legal format of your company - or company type as it is often described. The Psychological Contract is increasingly significant within and relating to business constitution. Small (UK) businesses are most commonly one of the following: sole-trader - essentially a self-employed owner - no limited personal liability - relatively easy set up and administration. partnership - essentially a group of self-employed partnersowners - no limited personal liability - easy-ish set up and administration, although ultimately dependent on the complexity of the company and partnership. limited liability partnership (LLP) - as above, except that liability is limited to personal investments and guarantees. limited company (abbreviated to Ltd after the company name) - liability is limited to the assets of the company - registered with Companies House and legally obliged to publish accounts. There are less common variations of limited companies, and other business structures and constitutions, for example: social enterprise - various structures including. trusts, associations and especially cooperatives - these are not common typical or traditional business structures, but social enterprises are growing in popularity, and will be explained in more detail on this website in due course. Meanwhile here is useful information about cooperatives. public limited company (plc) - not appropriate for small companies. Sole-trader and partnership companies are very easy to set up and administer, but the ownerpartners are personally liable for all business debts and potential claims, so good insurance cover (including professional indemnity and public liability) is essential especially if business liabilities are potentially serious. A limited liability partnership offers protection to partners in terms of personal liabilities, in that liabilities are limited to the extent of personal investment and any other guarantees. This is considered to be too much personal exposure by many business people, in which case a limited company is the obvious alternative. A limited company exists in its own right - a tricky concept to understand for many people - basically meaning that financial liabilities belong to the company (its shareholders, to the value of their shares in other words) rather than the directors and executives of the business, as would apply in a partnership. Limited companies ultimately offer more flexibility for large complex businesses but can be over-complicated and administratively heavy if all you want to do is run a local shop or landscape gardening business or modest training or coaching business. Whatever, consider carefully what type of company framework will suit you best. Once established it can be quite difficult to unravel and change if you get it wrong - not impossible, but a nuisance if you could have got it right first time with a bit of extra thought at the planning stage. A good accountant will help you decide what is best for your situation from a legal and financial standpoint, although before this you should think for yourself what sort of business structure best fits your wider business situation, and especially your business aims and philosophy. Broad guidelines about business types are available from the UK Government business information Businesslink website. Youll need a business bank account. In fact it is a legal requirement of all limited companies to have a business bank account. Shop around. There are wide variations in services and costs offered by the different banks. You must also understand and organize the tax implications for your type of business. Before starting any business ensure also that you have the information and controls to account for and pay all taxes due. Helpfully to learn more about this in the UK, most tax affairs are within the responsibilities of HM Revenue and Customs - until they too change their name to something very silly. That said, the relevance today of HM (Her Majestys) is a bit puzzling when you stop to think about it and surely due for updating to the modern age. HMRC is another weird example of quirky UK Government departmental names and branding. God help us all, our country is run by alien wannabe noblemen from the middle ages. VAT (Value Added Tax or your national equivalent) is an issue warranting serious thought if your business is small enough to have a choice in the matter. Beyond a certain turnover (pound68,000 as at 2010) any UK business must register for VAT. Check the HMRC website for the current position. Being VAT registered means you must charge VAT on all VAT-rated supplies, which means also that the VAT you receive on payments from your customers must be paid to HM Revenue and Customs. (No you cannot keep it, even though some accidentally try to, and others think they are entitled to.) Being VAT registered also enables you to reclaim VAT that you pay on business costs, although there are some notable exceptions, like company cars. Retail and consumer businesses are especially affected by VAT. Private consumers cannot claim back VAT, so the effect of VAT on pricing and margins needs careful thought in planning any consumer business. Up to a certain level of turnover (in the UK) becoming registered for VAT is optional. If your business turnover is likely to be below the threshold for mandatory VAT registration, you must decide for yourself if the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The main advantages of VAT registration are: your business will be perceived by certain people - especially other businesses - to be larger and more credible (not being registered for VAT indicates immediately that your turnover is below the VAT threshold) you will be able to reclaim VAT that you are charged on legitimate allowable business costs The main disadvantages of being VAT registered are: the administrative burden in keeping VAT records and submitting VAT returns (although this has been enormously simplified in recent years so that for small simple businesses it is really not a problem at all) risks of getting onto cashflow difficulties if you fail to set funds aside to pay your VAT bills (see the tax tips below) Information about VAT (and all other tax issues) is at the UK Government HM Revenue and Customs website: hmrc. gov. uk VAT is not the only tax. Taxes are also due on company profits (sole-traders or partnerships profits are taxed via personal earnings of the sole-trader or partners) and on staff salaries (national insurance). A sole-trader or partnership can employ staff, in which case national insurance tax is due on salaries paid to employees, which is different to the tax that employees pay themselves. Failing to retain funds in a company to pay taxes is a serious problem thats easily avoided with good early planning. Contact your tax office. Inform them of your plans and seek their help. Tax offices are generally extremely helpful, so ask. You can even talk to a real person on the phone without having to breach a six-level automated menu system. Ideally find a decent accountant too. Preferably one who comes recommended to you. With all the greatest respect to accountants everywhere, accountants are quite commonly very intense people, like solicitors and scientists, very much focused on process, accuracy, rules, etc. which in terms of personality fit can be a little at odds with the style of many entrepreneurs. So again shop around and find an accountant with whom you can share a joke and a beer or something from the human world. The relationship between a business person and hisher accountant is crucial if the business is to grow and develop significantly. Accountants might seem at times to be from another planet, but I can assure you the good ones are bloody magicians when it comes to business development, especially when the figures get really interesting. The statement that one stroke of an accountants pen is mightier than the worlds most successful sales team, is actually true. For many entrepreneurs, the ideal scenario is to grow your business large enough to support the cost of a really excellent finance director, who can take care of all the detailed legal and financial matters for you, and leave you completely free to concentrate on growing the business - concentrating your efforts and ideas and strategy externally towards markets and customers, and internally towards optimizing innovation and your staff. See the quick tax tips below, especially for small businesses which might not easily be able to achieve immediate and accurate control of their tax liabilities, which is one of the major early risks for a new successful small business. tax tips - understanding and accounting for taxes from the start A significant potential problem area for newly self-employed people, and for new business start-ups, is failing to budget and save for inevitable taxes which arise from your business activities. N. B. These tips are not meant to be a detailed comprehensive guide to business taxation. This section merely addresses a particular vulnerability of new start-up businesses in failing to set aside sufficient reserves to meet tax liabilities, especially small businesses, and even more especially sole-traders and partnerships and small limited companies, which lack expertise in accounting and consequently might benefit from these simple warnings and tips related to tax liabilities. In general these issues would normally be managed via a cashflow forecast, together with suitable financial processes to allocate and make payments for all costs and liabilities arising in the course of trading. I recognise however that many small business start-ups do not begin with such attention to financial processes, and its primarily for those situations that these particular notes are provided. These notes in no way suggest that this is the normal fully controlled approach to planning and organizing tax liabilities and other cashflow issues within any business of significant scale. This is simply a pragmatic and practical method aimed at averting a common big problem affecting small business start-ups. While your type of company and business determines precisely which taxes apply to you, broadly taxes are due on sales (for VAT registered businesses in the UK, or your VAT equivalent if outside the UK), and on the profits of your business and your earnings. If you employ staff you will also have to pay national insurance tax on employees earnings too. Generally sole-traders and partnerships have simpler tax arrangements - for example, profits are typically taxed as personal earnings - as compared with the more complex taxes applicable to limited companies, which also pay taxes on company profits and staff salaries. Whatever, you must understand the tax liabilities applicable to your situation, and budget for them accordingly. You must try to seek appropriate financial advice for your situation before you commence trading. Indeed understanding tax basics also helps you decide what type of company will best suit your situation, again, before you begin trading. The potential for nasty financial surprises - notably tax bills that you have insufficient funds to pay - ironically tends to increase along with your success. This is because bigger sales and profits and earnings inevitably produce bigger tax bills (percentage of tax increases too in the early growth of a business), all of which becomes a very big problem if youve no funds to pay taxes when due. The risks of getting into difficulties can be greater for the self-employed and small partnerships which perhaps do not have great financial knowledge and experience, than for larger Limited Company start-ups which tend to have more systems and support in financial areas. Start-ups are especially prone to tax surprises because the first set of tax bills can commonly be delayed, and if you fail to account properly for all taxes due then obviously you increase the chances of spending more than you should do, resulting in not having adequate funds to cover the payments when they are due. Risks are increased further if you are new to self-employment, previously having been employed and accustomed to receiving a regular salary on which all taxes have already been deducted, in other words net of tax. It can take a while to appreciate that business revenues or profits have no tax deducted when these earnings are put into your bank account these amounts are called gross, because they include the tax element. Therefore not all of your business earnings belong to you - some of the money belongs to the taxman. Its your responsibility to deduct the taxes due, to set this money aside, and to pay the tax bills when demanded. Additionally, if you are a person who is in the habit of spending everything that you earn, you must be even more careful, since this tendency will increase the risks of your being unable to pay your taxes. Failing to get on top of the reality of taxes from the very beginning can lead to serious debt and cashflow problems, which is a miserable way to run a business. So you must anticipate and set aside funds necessary to meet your tax liabilities from the very start of your business, even if you do not initially have a very accurate idea of what taxes will be due, or you lack effective systems to calculate them - many small start-ups are in this position. Nevertheless it is too late to start thinking about tax when the first demands fall due. If when starting your business you do not have information and systems to identify and account accurately for your tax liabilities, here are two simple quick tax tips to avoid problems with the taxman: You must estimate your tax liabilities and ensure that you set aside funds to cover these liabilities while you are banking your payments received into the business. The easiest way to do this is to identify the taxes applicable to your business, for example VAT and your own personal income tax and national insurance. Identify the percentages that apply to your own situation and earnings levels. You can do this approximately. It does not need to be very precise. Add these percentages together, and then set aside this percentage of all your earnings that you receive into your business. Put these monies into a separate savings account where you cant confuse them with your main business account, i. e. your working capital typically held in a current account. Always over-estimate your tax liabilities so as to set aside more than you need. Having a surplus is not a problem. Having not enough money to pay taxes because youve under-estimated tax due is a problem sometimes enough to kill an otherwise promising business. Heres an example to show how quickly and easily you can plan and set aside a contingency to pay your tax bills, even if youve no experience or systems to calculate them precisely. This example is based on a self-employed consultancy-type business, like a training or coaching business, in which there are no significant costs of sales (products or services bought in) or overheads, i. e. revenues are effectively the profits too, since there are minimal costs to offset against profits: example of estimating and setting aside money to pay taxes 1. In the UK VAT on most products and services is 17.5. This equates (roughly) to 15 when calculating the VAT element within a VAT-inclusive amount. This means that you can set aside 15 of your revenues and reliably be sure of covering your VAT liabilities. 2. In the UK personal income tax and national insurance combined is roughly 30 of earnings up to about pound30,000 (a little over in fact), rising to 49 - call it 50 - of earnings above pound30k - roughly. N. B. Income tax and national insurance are calculated on taxable earnings, which exclude money spent on legitimate business costs, and VAT received. These figures in the above example are approximate I emphasise again, which is all you need for this purpose, moreover the approximations are on the high side of what the precise liabilities actually are. Accountants call this sort of thinking prudent. Its a pessimistic approach to forecasting liabilities rather than optimistic, which is fundamental to good financial planning and management: if the pessimism is wrong then you end up with a surplus (which is good), but if you are wrong in making optimistic forecasts and estimates (over-ambitious sales, and lower-than-actual costs and liabilities), then you run out of money (which is bad). Back to the percentages. Knowing the income tax percentages enables you to set aside a suitable percentage of your earnings when you receive them into the business. Roughly speaking, for earnings up to pound30k you need to set aside 30 to cover income tax and national insurance. For earnings over pound30k you need to set aside 50 to cover your income tax and national insurance. (Earnings below pound30k remain taxable at 30). Remember you can arrive at these figures based on the VAT exclusive revenues, but to keep matters simpler it is easier to use an adjusted total percentage figure to apply to the total gross earnings. If its kept very simple and quick youll be more likely to do it - andor to communicate the method effectively to your partner if they are responsible for handling the financials, as often happens. Given this example, if in your first year your gross revenues (banked payments received) are say pound50,000, assuming you are VAT registered, then your tax liabilities will be (roughly): 17.5 VAT liabilities equates to 15 of gross sales revenues (again we are assuming no significant costs to offset these figures) (pound22.75k total tax divide pound50k gross revenues 45.5) From this example you can see that setting aside 45.5 of earnings (yes its a lot isnt it - which is why you need to anticipate it and set the money aside) would comfortably cover VAT and income tax liabilities. To be extra safe and simpler in this example you could round it up to 50. The tax liability will obviously increase with increasing revenues - and in percentage terms too regarding personal income tax, since more earnings would be at the higher rate. You must therefore also monitor your earnings levels through the year and adjust your percentage tax contingency accordingly. As stated already above, the risk of under-estimating tax liabilities increases the more successful you are, because tax bills get bigger. In truth you will have some costs to offset against the earnings figures above, but again for the purposes of establishing a very quick principle of saving a fixed percentage as a tax reserve until you know and can control these liabilities more accurately, the above is a very useful simple easy method of initially staying solvent and on top of your tax affairs, which are for many people the most serious source of nasty financial surprises in successful start-up businesses. The above example is very simple, and is provided mainly for small start-up businesses which might otherwise neglect to provide for tax liabilities. The figures and percentages are not appropriate (but the broad principle of forecasting and providing funds for tax liabilities is) to apply to retail businesses for example, or businesses in which staff are employed, since these businesses carry significant costs of sales and overheads, which should be deducted from revenues before calculating profits and taxes liabilities. Neither does the example take account of the various ways to reduce tax liabilities by reinvesting profits in the business, writing off stock, putting money into pensions, charitable donations, etc. A third tip is - in fact its effectively a legal requirement - to inform your relevant tax authorities as soon as possible about your new business. Preferably do this a few weeks before you actually begin trading. That way you can be fully informed of the tax situation - and your best methods of dealing with tax, because there are usually different ways, and sometimes the differences can be worth quite a lot of money. I do not go into more detail about tax here because its a very complex subject with wide variations depending on your own situation, for which you should seek relevant information and advice from a qualified accountant andor the relevant tax authorities. template and structure for a feasibility study or project justification report First, and importantly, you need to clarifyconfirm the criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to justify starting or continuing the project or group, in other words, what do the decision-makers need to see in order to approve the project or its continuation . Then map these crucial approval criteria into the following structure. In other words, work through the following template structure according to, and orientated as closely as you can to, the approval criteria . (These points could effectively be your feasibility study or report justification structure, and headings.) past, present and particularly future (customer) need (for the outputsresults produced by group or project) benefits and outcomes achieved to date for what costinvestment benefits and outcomes to be produced in the future resources, costs, investment . etc. required to produce future required outcomes and benefits (identify capital vs revenue costs, i. e. acquisition of major assets and ongoing overheads) alternative methods or ways of satisfying needs, with relative costreturn (return on investment) comparisons (ie. what other ways might there be for satisfying the need if the group or project doesnt happen or ceases) outline strategy and financial plan . including people, aims, philosophy . etc (ideally tuned to meet the authorising powers fulfilment criteria) for proposed start or continuation of project (assuming you have a case, and assuming there is no better alternative) Keep it simple. Keep to the facts and figures. Provide evidence. Be clear and concise. Refer to the tips about effective writing. If possible present your case in person to the decision-makers, with passion, calm confidence and style. Look at the tips on presentations. and assertiveness. tips on finding and working with business planning advisors and consultants If you need help putting together a business plan, and if you want to get the best from the engagement, its important to find the right person to work with, and to establish and maintain a good working relationship with them. If you are great big organisation youll probably not need to work with outsiders, and if you do then youll probably opt for a great big supplier, however there are significant benefits from working with much smaller suppliers - even single operators - and if you are a small business yourself, then this is probably the best choice anyway: to seek a good single operator, or small partnership of experts. Here are some ideas of what to look for. Youll be best finding someone who meets as much of this criteria as possible: lives close-by you so you can work face-to-face with them and get to know each other properly, and so that their time is efficiently used, instead of being in traffic on their way to and from your place is high integrity and very discreet is grown-up and got no baggage or emotional triggers - wise and mature - and it neednt be an age thing can help you see and decide where and how you want to take the business, rather than tell you where heshe thinks you need to go - a mentor not an instructor understands or can immediately relate to your industry sector and type of work is experienced working with small family companies, but is also a big picture strategist and visionary (advisors whove only ever worked with big corporations can sometimes be a bit free and easy with relatively small amounts of money - you need someone with a very very practical approach to managing cash-flow, and real business realities, who ve worked in situations without the protection of vast corporate bureaucracy and the lack of transparency that this often brings) is triple-brained or whole-brained - mostly front-brained - (see the stuff on Benziger ) - intuitive-creative, thinking, but also able to be personable and grounded, subject to the point below complements your own strengths and fills the gaps and weaknesses in your collective abilities (again see the stuff on Benziger and Jung etc) - ie. if collectively you need hard facts and figures and logic then seek people with these strengths - conversely if you are strong on all this, then seek the creative humanist ethical strengths - heshe must work with you in a balanced team - so that the team has no blind spots, and no subjective biases in style or emphasis has two or three referees you can talk to and see evidence of past work (although if you check most of the above it will be a formality) doesnt smoke or drink too much isnt desperate for the work As regards finding someone like this, without doubt the most reliable and quickest method is by networking introductions through trusted people. The person you seek might be three or more links away, but if its a friend or associate of someone trusted, by someone whos trusted, by someone you trust, then probably theyll be right for you. Start by talking to people you know and asking if they know anyone, or if they know anyone who might know anyone - and take it from there. The chances of finding the right person in the local business listings or directory, out of the blue and from cold, are pretty remote. Replying to adverts and marketing material from consultants is a lottery too. Youll find someone eventually but youll need to kiss a lot of frogs first, which takes ages and is not the cleverest way to spend your valuable time. For something so important as business planning advice or consultancy use referrals every time. Referrals work not only because you get to find someone trusted, but the person you find has a reasonable assurance that you can be trusted too, you see: good suppliers are just as choosy as good clients. It works both ways. Be prepared to reward the person in whatever way is appropriate and fair (Im thinking percentage share of incremental success beyond expectations - perhaps even equity share if the person is really good and youd value their on-going contribution and help). Often the best people wont ask for much money up front at all, but from your point of view you will attract a lot more commitment and work beyond the call of normal duty from them if you reward higher than they ask or need. Good suppliers are immensely motivated by good clients and lots of appreciation, even if they dont want the financial reward. Good suppliers have usually seen too many ungrateful greedy people taking them for granted and penny pinching, and will tend to sack clients like these without even telling them why, and move on to more deserving enjoyable work with people who are fair and appreciative, which is how youll be Im sure. Finally, when youve found the right person, always continually agree expectations and invite feedback about how the relationship is working, not just how the work is going. starting your own business - or starting any new business These are the simple rules for planning and starting your own business. The principles also apply to planning and starting a new business within an organisation for someone else. In amongst the distractions and details of new business planning, it is important to keep sight of the basic rules of new business success: Your successful new business must offer something unique that people want. Uniqueness is vital because otherwise there is no reason for customers to buy from you. Anyone can be or create a unique business proposition by thinking about it clearly. Uniqueness comes in all shapes and sizes - its chiefly being especially good and different in a particular area, or field or sector. Uniqueness can be in a product or service, or in a trading method, or in you yourself, or any other aspect of your business which makes what you are offering special and appealing to people. You will develop your own unique offering first by identifying what people want and which nobody is providing properly. Second you must ensure that your chosen unique offering is also an extension of your own passion or particular expertise or strength - something you will love and enjoy being the best at - whatever it is. Every successful business is built on someones passion. new business start-ups by older people If you already have a career behind you, and you wonder if youve got it in you to compete and succeed in the modern world, consider this. First - you have definitely got it in you to succeed. Experience and wisdom are fundamental building blocks of success, and will be for you from the moment you start looking at yourself in this way. The reassuring wisdom that older people generally possess is extremely helpful in forming trusting relationships - with customers, suppliers, partners, colleagues, etc - which are essential for good business. Added to this, as we get older we have a greater understanding of our true passions and capabilities we know our strengths and styles and tolerances. This gives older people a very special potency in business. Older people know what they are good at. They play to their strengths. They know which battles they can win, and which to avoid. Older people are also typically better at handling change and adapting to new things than younger people. This is because older people have had more experience doing just this. Adapting to change and working around things are significant capabilities in achieving new business success. If you are an older person considering starting a new business, think about the things you can do better than most other people - think about your strengths and use them. business start-ups for younger people Younger people can be very successful starting new businesses just as much as older people can be. The essential principle of playing to your strengths applies, although the implications are different for younger people compared to older people. Younger people are likely to have lots of fresh ideas. This is an advantage, so avoid people pour cold water on them. Test your ideas on potential customers, rather than to take advice from those people who are ready with their buckets of water. Next, get the help you need. Its difficult for young people to know all the answers. Youll have the ideas and the energy to make things happen, but consider the gaps in your experience, and the things you dont enjoy doing, and seek good quality reliable help for these things. Getting good help at what you cant do or dont want to do will enable you to put all your energy into what you are good at and what you want to spend your time doing. Young people sometimes try to force themselves to fit into roles or responsibilities that are not comfortable or natural. This is de-stabilising and stressful. Learn what you love and excel at, and focus on building success from this. Which brings us back to playing to your strengths. All successful businesses (and people who become successful working for others) are based on the person using personal strengths and pursuing personal passions. Success in business is always based on doing something you love and enjoy, which is fundamentally related to your natural strengths and unique personal potential, whatever that is. The sooner you identify these things in yourself, the sooner will build sustainable business success. planning business success - in summary Spreadsheets, mission statements, planning templates and other process elements of new business creation and development are tools. They enable the business to be properly structured, started and run. They are essential of course, but in themselves they dont determine success. Business success is determined by deeper factors. Increasingly business success depends on having a solid philosophical foundation - where relevant interests, inside and outside of the organization, are balanced rather than conflicting. The bigger the business, the more widely it must consider how it relates to external interests and responsibilities - to society and the world at large. A business with this sort of harmony and balance built into its shape and principles at the outset has a huge advantage over a business which contains tensions and competing pressures. Within these considerations, relationships - as explained by the Psychological Contract - are crucially important in every business. Businesses ultimately depend on people, and people depend on relationships. Aside from this - and without diminishing the significance of other vital business components such as reliability, value, quality, etc. which are necessary merely to survive at a basic level - uniqueness and passion are the remaining special ingredients for success: Uniqueness (just one word, with so many implications) - so that people will want what you offer, and Passion, so that you will enjoy being and offering your best - and so that this belief and commitment conveys to others. authorshipreferencingDonald Trump Has A 20 Percent Chance Of Becoming President Just launched: our 2016 general election forecast . How do you predict a general election with Donald Trump We can think of a few basic approaches. One of them is to assert that precedent doesnt apply to this election and that Trumps case is sui generis. Its not clear where that leads you, however. If Trump is unpredictable, a phrase we heard used to describe him so often during the primaries, does that mean his chances of defeating Hillary Clinton are 5050 If thats what you think, you have the opportunity to make a highly profitable wager. Betting markets put Trumps chances at only 20 percent to 25 percent instead. In fact, despite (or perhaps because of) the unusual nature of his candidacy, the conventional wisdom holds that Trump is a fairly substantial underdog. In contrast to 2012, when there were frequent arguments over how solid President Obamas lead in the polls was, there hasnt been much of a conflict between data journalists and traditional journalists on this question of Trumps chances. Nor has there been one between professionals who cover the campaign and the public most experts expect Trump to lose, but so do most voters . But should this seeming consensus give us more confidence 8212 or make us nervous that were underestimating Trump again Giving Trump a 20 percent or 25 percent chance of becoming president means that Clinton has a 75 percent to 80 percent chance. That might seem generous given that, under ordinary circumstances, the background conditions of this election (no incumbent running and a mediocre economy) would seem to suggest a tossup. Are Clintons high odds justified on the basis of the polls Or do they require making heroic assumptions about Trump, the same ones that got everyone, emphatically including yours truly. in trouble during the primaries The short answer is that 20 percent or 25 percent is a pretty reasonable estimate of Trumps chances based on the polls and other empirical evidence. In fact, thats quite close to where FiveThirtyEights statistical models, which are launching today. have the race. Our polls-only model has Trump with a 19 percent chance of beating Clinton as of early Wednesday afternoon. (The forecasts will continually update as new polls are added.) Our polls-plus model, which considers economic conditions along with the polls, is more optimistic about Trump, giving him a 26 percent chance. Still, Trump faces longer odds and a bigger polling deficit than John McCain and Mitt Romney did at the same point in their respective races. He needs to look back to 1988 for comfort, when George H. W. Bush overcame a similar deficit against Michael Dukakis to win. Our models are built from data since 1972, so the probabilities we list account for elections such as 1980, 1988 and 1992, when the polls swung fairly wildly, along with others, such as 2004 and 2012, where the polls were quite stable. Two empirical approaches to forecasting Trump For me, the lesson of the primaries is that one needs to be more rigorous, not less so, when forecasting elections. That means building a model instead of winging it. In contrast to our early, back-of-the-envelope skepticism about Trump, FiveThirtyEights forecast models were largely accurate in the primaries, with our polls-only model calling 53 of 58 races correctly 1 and our polls-plus model calling 52 of 58. The polls were a long way from being perfect. but they were wrong within normal parameters: Upsets happened about as often as they were supposed to happen, according to our models. Nor did the polls underestimate Trump. National polls had him leading the field all along. State-by-state polls overestimated him slightly 8212 Trump lost states where the polls had him favored, such as Iowa and Oklahoma 8212 although not by enough to cost him the nomination. So whats our approach this time around Actually, well take two approaches: polls-plus and polls-only. The model we call polls-plus abides by the principle of stick with what works. Its pretty much the same model that we used to successfully forecast the 2012 election. blending polls with an index of economic performance. As the election approaches, the weight assigned to the economic index will fade to zero, meaning that polls-plus and polls-only will converge. (Although they wont be identical there are some other, more subtle differences, as I describe in the guide to the forecasts methodology .) For the time being, however, polls-plus assumes the race will probably tighten somewhat. Thats because it shows the economy as being almost exactly average and assumes theres neither an advantage nor a penalty to the incumbent party in a year like this one, when an incumbent president is retiring. In other words, it sees the fundamentals of the race as showing a tossup, and reduces Clintons current lead of about 7 percentage points to a projected Election Day win of about 4 percentage points as a result. Polls-onlys maxim is keep it simple, stupid. This is often a good strategy when faced with novel situations instead of adding new assumptions, you should remove questionable assumptions. Historically in presidential elections, for instance, polls tend to converge toward the fundamentals down the stretch run. Usually that means they tend to tighten as Election Day approaches. That tightening, however, may occur because the major-party presidential candidates are usually fairly equal in terms of factors such as fundraising, messaging and other basic aspects of running a campaign. 2 That might not be true for Trump and Clinton this year, however. Trump is woefully behind Clinton in fundraising and campaign infrastructure. Hes also a less experienced politician, and faces more intraparty opposition, than any Republican nominee in a long time. The polls-only model doesnt make any assumptions about this. It doesnt use fundraising or political experience as a factor in making its forecasts 8212 instead, it just uses polls and demographic data. It doesnt treat Trump any differently than it would treat Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney. But polls-only assumes the candidates current standing in the polls 8212 meaning, Clinton ahead of Trump by 7.3 percentage points 8212 is the best estimate of the Nov. 8 result. It also accounts for more uncertainty than polls-plus. Even so, it has Trump as a heavier underdog than polls-plus does. I know some readers will be frustrated by our having two versions of the model it seems like were trying to have it both ways. My view is this: The choice of assumptions can matter quite a bit when building models, especially in cases such as presidential elections where the historical sample sizes are small. We want to be more transparent about that. If polls-plus and polls-only show radically different results, that suggests the choice of assumptions matters a lot 8212 something you deserve to know. And if they show highly similar results, thats useful information also it might give you more confidence in the robustness of our approach. Which model is the official version of FiveThirtyEights forecast They both are, and keep in mind that this will become something of a moot point because the models will converge toward each other. However, when you click on our forecast home page. youll see that polls-only is the default we think its a better starting point in an election such as this one. In addition to the polls-only and polls-plus forecasts, were also publishing something called a now-cast. The now-cast isnt a forecast its a hypothetical projection of what would happen if the election were held today. 3 The now-cast is designed to be extremely aggressive about identifying trends in the polls, more aggressive than is optimal when forecasting an election several months out. (One of the big lessons of our model, in fact, is that you want to be fairly conservative about declaring turning points early in the race. Apparent shifts in the polls often reverse themselves.) As a result, the now-cast is subject to some fairly violent swings and will sometimes pick up more noise than signal. Still, it can provide for an interesting diagnostic of which candidate has momentum, however fleeting. An Electoral College challenge for Clinton If the middling economy is one silver lining for Trump, another is his swing state polls, which dont seem to be as bad for him as his national polls. They arent good by any means, either, but whereas Trump trails Clinton by 6.7 percentage points in our average of national polls, according to our polls-only model, hes down 4.8 points in our adjusted polling average of Ohio. 5.7 points in Florida. 3.9 points in Iowa. and 2.0 points in Colorado. for instance. Again, we dont mean to suggest that these are great numbers for Trump the Florida result, for example, would represent the worst loss by a Republican there since 1948. Nonetheless, and somewhat in contrast to the conventional wisdom. our model suggests that Trump is more likely to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote than the other way around. (Though the chances of either scenario are small.) Some of this may be because we just havent had all that much swing state polling its possible well see leads for Clinton in the mid - to high single digits as these states are polled more often. Just this morning, for example, the firm Evolving Strategies published a set of polls in swing states showing Clinton leading Trump by 10 percentage points, on average. If there are more numbers like those, the model will adjust accordingly. But theres another potential explanation, which is that Trump is badly underperforming in red states, presumably as a result of having failed to consolidate the Republican base. That may put some traditionally red states into play for Clinton. For instance, Arizona. Missouri. North Carolina and the 2nd Congressional District of Nebraska 4 are all tossups, according to the polls-only model. (Polls-plus has Trump narrowly favored in these places.) Some of these states could be useful to Clinton. Arizona, in particular, could help Clinton put together some winning maps based on Western or heavily Hispanic states, even if she loses much of the industrial Midwest. Others, such as Missouri, are probably more superfluous. They could potentially add to Clintons Electoral College margin, but they arent likely to be tipping-point states that make the difference between her winning and losing. That goes doubly for states such as Texas. Utah. Kansas and Alaska. where polls have often shown a single-digit margin for Trump and have occasionally even had Clinton winning. Republicans are used to racking up huge numbers of votes in these states, bolstering their standing in the national popular vote. If Trump wins Texas by only 6 percentage points instead of 16, that will hurt his popular-vote margin without affecting his Electoral College odds much. Is the reverse also true Is Trump overperforming in blue states, relative to how a Republican usually does It depends on where you look. The Northeast was Trumps strongest region in the primaries, and hes gotten relatively good numbers 8212 although he still trails Clinton 8212 in polls of New Jersey. Connecticut and Maine. (He also leads Clinton in one poll of Maines 2nd Congressional District. which would be worth one electoral vote. 5 ) However, hes losing by typical margins in New York and California. where he has vowed to compete . Overall, the polls so far suggest a slightly less polarized electorate and a somewhat wider playing field than weve gotten used to in recent years. Thats a potentially refreshing change, although it may prove to be ephemeral as both Clinton and Trump have room to grow with their party bases and could gain ground in traditionally blue and red states as a result. Undecideds are abundant, so uncertainty is high Giving Clinton a 75 percent or 80 percent chance of winning might seem bold. Its actually fairly cautious, however, compared with what the model would normally say about a candidate with a 7-point lead. Thats because Trump is at only 36 percent in our national polling average, while Clinton is at only 43 percent. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party candidate whom our model explicitly includes in the forecast, is polling in the double digits in some polls, while were seeing a significant undecided vote and some votes for other candidates, such as Jill Stein of the Green Party. Historically, high numbers of undecided voters contribute to uncertainty and volatility. So do third-party candidates, whose numbers sometimes fade down the stretch run. 6 With Clinton at only 43 percent nationally, Trump doesnt need to take away any of her voters to win. He just needs to consolidate most of the voters who havent committed to a candidate yet. Related: Politics Podcast By the same token, theres the possibility of a landslide against Trump, whose floor is unusually low given that hes getting only 36 percent of the vote now. Polls-only gives Clinton a 35 percent chance of winning by double digits nationally, 7 which would make her the first candidate to do so since Ronald Reagan in 1984 (and the first Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964). A 20 percent or 25 percent chance of Trump winning is an awfully long way from 2 percent, or 0.02 percent. Its a real chance: about the same chance that the visiting team has when it trails by a run in the top of the eighth inning in a Major League Baseball game. If youve been following politics or sports over the past couple of years, I hope its been imprinted onto your brain that those purported long shots 8212 sometimes much longer shots than Trump 8212 sometimes come through. But the polls establish Clinton as a fairly clear favorite. And in contrast to almost everything else this election cycle, the polls have mostly been right so far. CORRECTION (June 29, 8:50 p. m.): An earlier version of this article misstated in one instance Hillary Clinton8217s chances of winning the presidency. That chance, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast model, is 75 percent or 80 percent, not 70 percent or 75 percent. Counting both Democratic and Republican primaries. In contrast, theres not really any tendency for the polls to tighten in Senate or gubernatorial elections, where the candidates are sometimes more unequal. And its something of a strange hypothetical, because there are currently a lot of undecided voters, and there isnt all that much polling in the swing states. Theres some uncertainty about what would happen if all voters suddenly had to make up their minds today. Nebraska awards two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district. Maine awards two electoral votes to the statewide winner and one to the winner of each congressional district. The polls-plus model assumes that Johnsons numbers will decline from here polls-only leaves them as is. Polls-plus is more conservative, giving her a 16 percent chance. Nate Silver is the founder and editor in chief of FiveThirtyEight. natesilver538