A business plan may serve one or a combination of two very important purposes:-

• An effective internal document that enables management to review the future to focus their business, mapping out a company's strategy and performance against which prospective accomplishments should be assessed to enable the document to be brought up to date on an ongoing basis;
• An invaluable sales tool, often being the only chance that a business is able to present a case for funding to a prospective lender or financier for its launch, expansion or, if need be, turnaround.

In either case, an effective document may well be critical to the business' future success and, as such, it is fundamental that it achieves the purpose for what it has been written first time around. In particular, our experience tells us that having regard to the nature and requirements of the document's reader can play an integral part of the business' ability to achieve these objectives.

Whoever a business plan is targeted at - the bank, 'business angels', venture capitalists, grant awarding bodies, shareholders, employees and international authorities - all of these avenues require a different style of plan in response to their individual needs.

For example, a plan written for internal management purposes may want to focus on the business' marketing strategy or the management infrastructure itself. In contrast, a document that is required for bank funding will need to be able to demonstrate that the business will be able to service its debt, both in terms of interest and capital repayments. On the other hand experienced equity investors will be equally as concerned with the likelihood of an attractive return on their investment.

Whilst the very nature of our specialised service means that we help our clients consider the type and extent of the information to be included in a business plan on a case-by-case basis, each plan should comprise the following components:-

Full narrative that is written in understandable language

Our consultants' expertise and experience in assisting with the preparation of business plans for a full range of audiences enables them to pre-empt what the document's reader will want to extract from the proposition, including

• details of the business' products or services, as well as any relevant background information;
• the business' ownership and management;
• the business' target market;
• an analysis of any existing or future competition;
• the business' marketing strategy;
• all operational details, such as location, premises, governing legislation, and personnel requirements etc;
• the business' financial position and any funding requirements.

Comprehensive financial information and underlying assumptions

Aside from interpreting any available historic financial information, we assist with the preparation of justifiable financial forecasts of an appropriate detail.

Sensitivity analysis

A fundamental part of the financial information is our identification of varying scenarios to anticipate the principal risk factors inherent within a client's business.

Appendices

We recognise the importance of supplementing the 'nuts and bolts' of a business plan with additional and relevant literature that may range from key management CV's to copies of the business' marketing literature and relevant press cuttings.