Saturday, October 22, 2011

Business Planning for Small Business

What does it take to come up with that all-important business plan? More importantly, when looking to come up with that plan, what are the most pressing concerns for aspiring business owners? Well, when it comes to pursuing that new business venture, coming up with that plan starts with understanding the differences between goals, objectives and resources. Whilst most enterprises confuse these three criteria, others understand the differences and are able to provide a clear and definitive path to business success. Therefore, when coming up with your business plan, start first by establishing your ultimate goal, determine the individual objectives to attain that goal and then allocate your resources to attain your objectives. This all sounds relatively easy doesn’t it? Well, it’s not quite that simple. However, it can be made easier once you’ve clearly differentiated between these three essentials of business planning. So how is this done?


Every business plan must first start with a mission or vision statement. This includes defining where the company wants to go, how it wants to get there and its overall approach to growing its market share. Next, the plan should include a definition of the new venture’s core values. These values explain how the company will approach business and how that business will be conducted within the new venture’s market. These values are meant to guide employees and management on best business practices. From this point forward, the plan should move towards defining the company’s objectives relative to its goal, the strategies the company will adopt to achieve its objectives, and how the company will allocate its resources to enact its strategies. Whilst this all sounds involved, it really does boil down to defining those three aforementioned criteria.


• What are Goals?
The new business venture’s goals are meant to define the company’s ultimate purpose. In this case, view the company’s goals as broad in scope and far-reaching in their application.


• How do Objectives Differ from Goals?
When thinking of objectives, think of how companies use set periods to measure success or failure. Objectives are more specific in nature than goals. They are periodic points of measurement where the company can assess its progress to attaining its overall goals.


• Use Resources to Attain Objectives
A company’s resources include far more than just its employees and managers. It also includes company wide assets like equipment, machinery and business knowledge. Allocating resources to attain objectives is an essential part of business planning because it leads to proper asset utilization.


About the guest author: James is heavily involved with small businesses in startup phase and is passionate about the field of small business generally and business planning in particular, he writes for several websites including smallbusinesswizardry.com.


This is an original article published on SEO Desk with exclusivity.

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