Business Plans For Dummies

by Paul Tiffany, Steven D. Peterson, Colin Barrow

Overview

Whether you're just thinking about launching your own business, are in the process of launching it, or have had a business for a while and want to put it on a strong course, Business Plans For Dummies is the guide you've been waiting for. Authors and business experts Paul Tiffany and Steven Peterson help you think through the single most important document for your business. They help you set goals and craft a meaningful mission statement to guide you into the future, and they also make sure that you have a handle on financial considerations that can ultimately make or break your enterprise. Thanks to the authors' thorough understanding of what makes businesses successful in the real world, you can avoid pitfalls and profit from opportunities you may not have considered. Best of all, if you've regarded business plans merely as a necessary formality on the way to getting funding, Business Plans For Dummies gives you a new appreciation for the process of creating a business plan. Business Plans For Dummies, and the time you spend reading it, are sure to give you a manifold returns on your investment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781119943884
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	05/08/2012
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Paul Tiffany is the managing director of Paul Tiffany & Associates, a Santa Rosa, California-based firm that has offered management training and consulting services to organizations throughout the world for the past fifteen years. In addition, he has taught business planning courses at some of the top business schools in the country, including Stanford, Wharton, and The Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where he currently serves as adjunct professor. He holds an MBA from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from Berkeley. He can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].

Steven Peterson is a senior partner and founder of Home Planet Technologies, a management training company specializing in hands-on software tools designed to enhance business strategy, business planning, and general management skills. He is the creator and designer of "The Protean Strategist," a state of the art computer-based business simulation. The simulation creates a dynamic business environment where participants run companies and compete against each other in a fast-changing marketplace. Each management team in the simulation is responsible for developing its own strategy, business plan, and program to make the plan work. Steven has used The Protean Strategist to add excitement, hands-on experience, teamwork, and a competitive challenge to corporate training programs around the world. He has worked with both large and small companies on products and services in industries ranging from telecommunications to financial services and from high technology to consumer goods and industrial equipment. He can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].

Table of Contents

Introduction

Why You Need This Book

How to Use This Book

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Determining Where You Want to Go

Part II: Sizing Up Your Marketplace

Part III: Weighing Your Company's Prospects

Part IV: Looking to the Future

Part V: A Planner's Toolkit

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go From Here

Part I: Determining Where You Want to Go

Chapter 1: Starting Your Business Plan

Getting the Most Out of Your Plan

Looking forward

Looking back

Looking around

Naming Your Planners

Putting Your Plan on Paper

Executive summary

Company overview

Business environment

Company description

Company strategy

Financial review

Action plan

Chapter 2: Charting the Proper Course

Creating Your Company's Mission Statement

Getting started

Capturing your business (in 50 words or less)

Introducing Goals and Objectives

Why bother?

Goals versus objectives

Efficiency versus effectiveness

Management by objectives

Setting Your Own Goals and Objectives

Guidelines for setting goals

Guidelines for setting objectives

Getting it right

Avoiding the pitfalls

Timing is everything

Chapter 3: Setting Off in the Right Direction

Why Values Matter

Tough choices

Lost and unprepared

The value of having values

Identifying Your Company's Values

Investors

The rest of the crew

Existing beliefs and principles

Putting Together the Values Statement

The quick way to develop a values statement

The long way to develop a values statement

Creating Your Company's Vision Statement

Part II: Sizing Up Your Marketplace

Chapter 4: Checking Out the Business Environment

Defining the Business That You're In

Analyzing Your Industry

Structure

The arrangement of rivals

New technologies

Can anybody play?

Cashing out

Markets

Just how big is big?

Growing or shrinking?

Choices

Something altogether different

Relationships

Supply and demand

Keeping customers happy

Delivering the sale

Finance

The cost side

The profit motive

Data

Recognizing Critical Success Factors

Technology

Manufacturing

Human resources

Organization

Services

Location

Marketing

Distribution

Government regulation

Preparing for Opportunities and Threats

It's a beautiful morning

Dark clouds on the horizon

Chapter 5: Taking a Closer Look at Customers

Checking Out Who Your Customers Are

The good customer

The bad customer

The other guy's customer

Discovering Why Your Customers Buy

Understanding needs

Determining motives

Finding Out How Your Customers Make Choices

Perceptions are reality

The five steps to adoption

Remembering the Big Picture

Dealing with Business Customers

Secondhand demand

Decision-making as a formal affair

Forces to be reckoned with

Chapter 6: Dividing Customers into Groups

Defining Market Segments

Ways to Make Market Segments

Who is buying?

Where do they live?

What are they like?

What do they do?

How do they act?

What do they buy?

What can it do?

How is it sold?

What does it cost?

Where is it found?

Why do they buy?

What do they get?

How do they decide?

Finding Useful Market Segments

Is the segment the right size?

Can customers be identified?

Can the market be reached?

Figuring Out How Market Segments Behave

Chapter 7: Scoping Out Your Competition

Understanding the Value of Competitors

Identifying Your Real Competitors

Competition based on customer choice

Competition based on product use

Competition based on strategy

Competition in the future

Tracking Your Competitors' Actions

Determining their capabilities

Assessing their strategies

Predicting Your Competitors' Moves

Figuring out their goals

Uncovering their assumptions

Competing to Win

Organizing facts and figures

Choosing your battles

Part III: Weighing Your Company's Prospects

Chapter 8: Establishing Your Starting Position

Situation Analysis

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses

Frames of reference

Capabilities and resources

Management: Setting direction from the top

Organization: Bringing people together

Customer base: Pleasing the crowds

Research and development: Inventing the future

Operations: Making things work

Sales and Marketing: Telling a good story

Distribution and delivery: Completing the cycle

Financial condition: Keeping track of money

Critical success factors

Analyzing Your Situation in 3-D

A glance at competitors

Completing your SWOT analysis

Chapter 9: Focusing On What You Do Best

Describing What You Do

Constructing a typical value chain

Comparing different value chains

Forging your own value chain

Staying in Business

Searching for competitive advantage

Focusing on core competence

Sustaining an advantage over time

Earmarking Resources

Chapter 10: Figuring Out Financials

Reading an Income Statement

Revenue

Gross revenue on sales

Dividend and interest income

Costs

Cost of goods sold

Sales, general, and administration

Depreciation expense

Interest expense

Taxes

Profit

Gross profit

Operating profit

Profit before taxes

Net profit

Interpreting the Balance Sheet

Assets

Current assets

Fixed assets

Intangibles

Liabilities and owners' equity

Current liabilities

Long-term liabilities

Owners' equity

Examining the Cash-Flow Statement

Cash in and cash out

Funds provided by

Funds used for

What's left over

Changes in liquid assets

Net change in cash position

Evaluating Financial Ratios

Short-term obligations

Current ratio = current assets ÷ current liabilities

Quick ratio = (cash + investments + receivables) ÷ current liabilities

Inventory turnover = cost of goods sold ÷ inventories

Receivables turnover = sales on credit ÷ accounts receivable

Long-term responsibilities

Times interest earned = earnings before interest and taxes ÷ interest expense

Debt-to-equity ratio = long-term liabilities ÷ owners' equity

Relative profitability

Net profit margin = net profit ÷ gross revenue on sales

Return on investment = net profit ÷ total assets

Return on equity = net profit ÷ owners' equity

Chapter 11: Forecasting and Budgeting

Constructing a Financial Forecast

Pro-forma income statement

Projected revenue

Anticipated costs

Estimated balance sheet

Assets

Liabilities and owners' equity

Projected cash flow

Exploring Alternatives

The DuPont formula

What-if analysis

Making a Budget

What's inside the budget

How budgets are done

Top-down budgeting approach

Bottom-up budgeting approach

Part IV: Looking to the Future

Chapter 12: Preparing for Change

Defining the Dimensions of Change

Economic trends

Technological trends

U.S. governmental trends

Cultural trends

Anticipating Change

Trend forecasting

Extrapolation

Judgment forecasting

Delphi study

Scenario planning

Assessing the Effects of Change

Rolling the dice

Win or lose

Chapter 13: Thinking Strategically

Making Strategy Make a Difference

What strategy means

When strategy works

Applying Off-the-Shelf Strategies

Low-cost leadership

No-frills product

Experience curve

Low-cost culture

Standing out