GMBMEN PLANNING Practical Guide and Toolkit 1

GMBMEN Planning “Writing a good business plan can’t guarantee success, but it can go a long way toward reducing the odds of failure." Siegel, Ford, Bornstein (1993), 'The Ernst & Young Business Plan Guide' 2

GMBMEN Planning What is a Business Plan? It is a model of our proposals and their consequences for the next period. Like all working models it is a tool to inform and assist decision-making. 3

GMBMEN Planning a plan - a statement of intent - a calculated intention to organise effort and resources to achieve an outcome a business - an activity or organisation, which is engaged in the provision of products and/or services, to produce commercial gain and or specific social benefit 4

GMBMEN Planning The five key elements of a Business Plan are simply: 1. Where we’re starting from 2. What we intend to achieve in the next 3 (or 5) years … for whom (our customers, current and future) … why (the benefit, especially financial, to us) … by when These are our SMART objectives 5

GMBMEN Planning 3.How we intend to achieve them … … the milestones on the way to our objectives – i.e. what we have to do to achieve the objectives … our capacity to do so: financial, human, equipment resources … how we shall go about marketing the products to appropriate customers/users … identifying competition and how we shall respond … other risks and how we shall minimise them 6

GMBMEN Planning 4. How we shall stay on course: performance-management 7

GMBMEN Planning 5. Budget – the distillation in numbers of the plan: demonstrating full understanding of the costs of our proposals, the income and the profit/loss outcome – in realistic detail for Year One, in outline for subsequent years… 8

GMBMEN Planning Business plans need three things: Focus Appearance Believability 9

GMBMEN Planning To summarise A good business plan is one that: Shows that your plans are feasible and realistic Helps you plan for the future and assess your strengths and weaknesses Helps spot future opportunities and threats Helps to identify risks and how you will deal with them Shows how you will monitor success and manage setbacks 10

GMBMEN Planning STRUCTURE Part 1 – Summary Part 2 – Purpose and Objectives Part 3 – SWOT and PEST Analysis 11

GMBMEN Planning STRUCTURE Part 4 – Activities Part 5 – Property Part 6 – Team 12

GMBMEN Planning STRUCTURE Part 7 – Risk Part 8 – Putting your plan into practice Part 9 – Money, budgets and cashflows 13

GMBMEN Planning Do you intend to use your plan to help you raise money? Do you intend to use your plan to attract partners? 14

GMBMEN Planning 4 things to remember when writing a business plan: Decide what you are actually trying to achieve Establish a strong ethical philosophy at the outset of your planning process. Demonstrate the effective use of investment and resources Business plans should not be long wordy documents. 15

Useful reading : The Complete Guide to Business and Strategic Planning for Voluntary Organisations by Alan Lawrie. Available at (£15.64) 16