Definition & Importance of a Business Plan :

What is a Business Plan?

A Strategic version of your company - a written summary of what you hope to accomplish by being business and how you intend to organize your resources to meet your goals.

A road map- for operating your business and measuring your progress along the way. It will give you and your employees goals and direction:
a roadmap to follow in guiding your business through good and bad times.

It clearly identifies the target customers, market area, pricing strategy and the competitive conditions under which you must operate to succeed.

Why is a business plan important?

	A message sender (communicates your company's ideas and message to employees, outside directors,and potential investors outside the company, in an organized credible manner)
	A motivation tool (the development of your business plan is one of the best ways for you to communicate how well you understand your business)
	Provides critical focus and discipline necessary for effective planning
	Acts as a reality check
	A performance tool
	A management development tool (writing your business plan will help you to develop as a manager, because it gives you practice in thinking and figuring out problems about competitive conditions)

Importance of a good business plan to Al Tomooh

	It informs the Evaluating Committee about the business opportunity itself
	It gives us enormous insight into the experience and sophistication of the applicant and the potential for development
	The process enables Tomooh to begin to identify the needs of the emerging business -human as well as financial

Remember

you get only one chance to make a first impression. A well-organized plan will be essential in assessing your financing proposal and you as a business manager. Resolve now to make planning a part of your management style.

Writing the business plan

The essential features of a business plan are listed and illustrated by the use of relevant examples:

1- Executive Summary:

	Focus on your experience and background and the decisions that led you to start this particular enterprise
	Information about the problems your target market faces and how your expertise will help provide solutions
	Convince the reader that there is a need for your service or product and about its uniqueness and superiority to competitive products

2- Company Description & Location.
3- Service of product line.
4- Organization, Management and Personnel.
5- The market and competitor analysis.

	Description of the primary target market
	Key characteristics of your secondary markets
	Strategies for reaching your target market
	Pricing and gross margin targets
	Opportunities/Barriers
	Size of primary target market

6- Marketing and Sales strategies.Includes the following:

	Market penetration strategy
	Channels of distribution strategy
	Communication strategy
	Sales force strategy
	Sales activities

Remember

Weaknesses are the flip side/opposite of strength . Hence, analyse the same areas as you did before to determine what your competitors weaknesses are, and why they are having these problems. This way, you can avoid the same mistakes
they have made.

The sales forecast is the starting point for your projected income statement and cash flow forecast .

7- Financials

Of these, the statement of cash flow is the most important for your business plan since it will be the one which is most scrutinized.
Cash flow is the actual movement of cash into and out of your business

8- Appendix

This section should include documents which support to statements you have made in the body of the business plan and should be provided as an as-needed basis.