A business plan is a document in which you write what you want to achieve in the future and define the steps to achieve it.
You can create this document for yourself, to find out whether the planned investment you want to make makes sense or not. Is it profitable or not. When you describe your idea in detail, according to the standard categories of a business plan, you will be able to look at the entire investment more objectively, check your weaknesses, but also your strengths.
Banks, EU funds or external investors require a business plan before they decide to give you money for your desired investment. The recommended content of a business plan differs depending on whether it is being prepared for HBOR or HAMAG or for obtaining self-employment support.
From this document, HBOR or HAMAG will check what you do, how much you earn, how much is left in your account, who you work with, whether you have any agreed-upon jobs, how much you borrow from the bank, and how much of your own money you have.
What does a business plan contain?
A business plan has common categories that you need to cover. In simple terms, this document can be divided into:
1. Descriptive section – this section describes your business, your team and its expertise, the potential market and how you plan to conquer it – how big is your market and how you are different from your competitors
2. Financial part – this part analyzes the numbers, looks at how much the entire investment is, at what price and in what quantity you can sell it, how much you can earn from the investment, how much money you need, and in how many years you will pay back the planned investment, i.e. earn from it.
What is the role of a business consultant in developing a business plan?
An experienced business consultant can be extremely helpful in developing a business plan. The best business plans are created in synergy between investors and business consultants. The consultant’s role is to test the feasibility of your business idea and to give you an objective assessment of costs, revenues, and market potential.
On the other hand, if you do not participate in the development of a business plan with a business advisor, there is a good chance that the excellent ideas conceived in the business plan will remain “a dead letter on paper.”
A quality business plan is one that is concrete, comprehensive and realistic. Even if you have excellent signals from the market about the demand for your idea, lower your expectations. In practice, in almost all cases, the realization of a business idea is delayed by at least 6 months, and in the case of larger investments, by several years. Also, in almost all situations, the costs of realizing business ideas are higher than planned in the business plan.
If you are already in business and want to create a business plan that includes a new planned investment in addition to your existing business, a business advisor will ask you to provide them with:
- Offers and/or cost estimate with prices
- Historical data about your business (from accounting)
- Information about key clients and suppliers
- Information about other debts
- Your plan for how you plan to make money from the investment
Last year, we developed more than 20 business plans for a variety of industries. The value of our clients’ investments amounted to more than 30 million EUR.
If you need a business plan, we can create one for you.
Author: Tatjana Štefanac Zjalić
