FT Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan
How to win backing to start up or grow your business
Introduction
Part 1 Preparing your plan
1 Essential preparation
Result
Need
Preparation
Part 2 Writing your plan
2 The business
Background
Business mix by segment
Segmentation in a start-up
3 Market demand
Market size
Market growth
Market demand for a start-up
Market demand risks and opportunities
4 Competition
Your competitors
Competitive intensity
Competition in a start-up
Industry competition risks and opportunities
5 Strategy
Competitive position
Strategy
Strategy in a start-up
Strategic risks and opportunities
6 Resources
Management
Marketing
Operations and capital expenditure
Resource risks and opportunities
7 Financials and forecasts
Historic financials
Market-driven sales forecasts
Competition-driven margin forecasts
Funding the plan
Full financial forecasts
Forecasts in a start-up
Financial risks and opportunities
8 Risk, opportunity and sensitivity
Meet the Suns and Clouds chart
What the Suns and Clouds tell you
Sensitivity testing
9 Conclusion
Conclusion
Executive summary
Investment highlights
Part 3 Reviewing your plan
10 Monitoring and evaluating
Monitoring your plan
Evaluating your plan
Beware these characters!
Postscript: 12 hot potatoes
Appendices
Appendix A: Deriving competitive position
Appendix B: Structured interviewing of customers
Index
248 pages, Paperback