Basic structure of a business plan

Illustration: Basic structure of a typical business plan

A typical business plan will adopt the following layout:

 Title page
 Table of contents
 Introduction
 Executive summary
 Body of the report
 Business description
 Business environment analysis
 Industry background
 Competitor analysis
 Market analysis
 Operating plans
 Management summary
 Financial plan
 Conclusions and recommendations
 Appendices
 Detailed financial information
 CVs of key management
Title page

The title page is there to attract the reader to the report and assist them in finding the report later.
You would typically include:

 Title (and any sub-titles) – this should distinguish the report and ensure it is easily
identifiable from others
 Author (internal reports only)
 Your organisation’s name (external reports only)

BOOMA MANUFACTURING COMPANY

 Any reference numbers

 Degree of confidentiality
 Date

You might also include unobtrusive artwork such as logos (your organisation and the client) plus a
simple graphic that relates to the report subject.
Table of contents
A table of contents is a list of all the sections that are included in the report (in the same order in
which they appear) plus relevant page numbers.

Contents
Table of contents...................................................................................................................................3
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................4
Executive summary...............................................................................................................................5
Body of the report.................................................................................................................................6
Conclusions and recommendations.......................................................................................................8
Appendices............................................................................................................................................9
Introduction
The introduction prepares the reader for the report itself by reminding them of what they already
know i.e., why the report has been written and the question that the report answers.

The introduction should address the following:

 Make the subject of the report clear

 State the purpose of the report
 Briefly explain the methods used to get the information
Executive summary
The benefit of including an executive summary is that for senior people with little time it is the one
section they will read. Therefore, a succinct, clear and well written executive summary should always
reach the reader.

 The executive summary should include:

 What the report is about
 What the problems are
 The conclusions you arrived at
 What you recommend

The skill in writing an executive summary is to give the overall picture without including too much
detail. One useful by-product of writing the executive summary is that by going through the writing
process you will be able to check that the report itself is logical.
Body of the report
The body of the report should be split into sections with logical headings and subheadings. These will
likely reflect the groupings and sub-groupings you created during the planning and structuring
phase.

The headings are essentially ‘signposts’ that allow the reader to navigate to the relevant detail in a
logical fashion to further investigate something they have read in the executive summary. Typical
components would include:

 Business description, which briefly explains:

o Overall mission and objectives
o History and ownership
o Products and services
 Business environment analysis
o Industry background Chartered Accountants (Ghana)
 PESTEL analysis: A PESTEL analysis describes the political (P), economic (E),
social (S), technological (T), Ecological (E) and Legal (L) factors that impact
the business. For example:
 Political: A change in government policy may lead to a reduction in
grants available
 Economic: High interest rates make it expensive to borrow money
from a bank to fund expansion
 Social/cultural: An ageing population increases the demand for
pharmaceuticals and old-age-related healthcare
 Technological: The evolution from traditional hand-held mobile
phones with buttons to smart-phones with touchsensitive screens
 Ecological: An industry may face the risk that their sources of raw
materials will be used up e.g. in the fishing industry or timber
production
 Legal: In many countries, companies are faced with environmental
legislation and/or health and safety legislation, affecting the ways in
which they operate, as well as the design of the products they make
and sell.
 SWOT analysis: A SWOT analysis describes a business’s strengths (S),
weaknesses (W), opportunities (O) and threats (T). For example:
  Strength: the business employs a highly skilled and dedicated
workforce
 Weakness: the factory is full of old machinery that frequently breaks
down
 Opportunity: there is huge demand for the businesses products
overseas so they could start exporting their products
 Threat: A large new competitor could open an outlet in the same
town where the business is currently the only supplier.

o Competitor analysis
 Who are the main competitors?
o Market analysis
 Size, segmentation, growth/decline
 Operating plans
o Marketing plan
o Operations plan
 Management summary
o Who the key management personnel are and their backgrounds
o Organisation chart (summary only – can include more detail as an appendix)
 Financial plan
o Summary financial information – income statement, statement of financial position
and cash flow statement
Conclusions and recommendations
The conclusions and recommendations must follow logically from the rest of the report. When
writing the conclusions and recommendations section, consider the following:

 Do the conclusions and recommendations follow logically from the rest of the report?
o Draw out the main point(s) of the report and present a considered judgement of
them
o Only draw conclusions that are justified by the evidence and facts contained in the
body of the report
o Make recommendations based only on your discussion and conclusions
o Never introduce a new line of argument or material in the conclusions and
recommendations section
 Check the conclusions and recommendations against the original objective of the report
 Make sure you have answered the reader’s key question
 Finish with the final impression you want to make
Appendices
The appendices should include detailed information that the reader can essentially do without in
order to make sense of the main body of the report. For example: calculations, examples,
questionnaires and CVs. They are effectively the bottom level of the logical pyramids you
constructed during the structuring phase.

In summary, appendices should be:

 Included only if necessary

 Non-essential for understanding the main arguments
 Referred to somewhere in the body of the text i.e., there must be a link.
 Mentioned as the final item in the table of contents

An alternative approach is to exclude appendices but invite the reader to contact the author
should they wish to see a copy of the detail. However, as a minimum most business plans would
include the following two appendices:

 Detailed financial information – more detail than in the financial plan in the main body
 CVs of key management – certainly board members but also include for other key
management personnel