What is the optimal structure of a business plan. What sections must be included in it and what is their content. We will give answers to these questions in the article, as well as give examples.

How to write a business plan simply and clearly and at the same time include all the information an investor needs? How to correctly structure data into sections of a business plan? How to fill each of the sections so that the information is not mixed into a heap of incomprehensible numbers and diagrams, but tells about your project step by step, section by section? Read on.

Optimal composition and structure of a business plan

There is no clearly defined structure of a business plan. It may vary depending on whether you have a manufacturing project or a trade project, a high-tech startup or an existing business in the service sector.

The most universal business plan structure was presented in 1978 by UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization). Since then, the writing rules presented by the organization have been successfully used by enterprises, banks, government agencies and even entire countries.

According to UNIDO, a business plan should consist of 10 sections:

1. Summary.
2. Description of the industry and company.
3. Product Description.
4. Marketing plan.
5. Production plan.
6. Organizational plan.
7. Financial plan.
8. Project performance indicators.
9. Risks and guarantees of the project.
10. Applications.

What information should you fill these sections with? Let us next consider the structure of the business plan point by point.

Summary

A resume is usually no more than a page in length. And on this page you should include all the information about the market, about the project and its team, about the product. Be sure to indicate in your resume the volume and conditions for attracting financing, and key investment performance indicators. For example, this way:

To implement the project, borrowed funds in the amount of 12 million rubles are required

Discounted payback period of the project (DPP) – 17 months

Investment performance ratio (ARR) – 223%

Net present value (NPV) – RUB 283.68 million.

Internal rate of return (IRR) – 89%

Investment Profitability Index (PI) – 9

Borrowed funds are planned to be insured by JSC IC "ALLIANCE".

It goes without saying that pictures and graphs have no place in a resume; you will place them in other sections of the business plan. .

A resume can be compared to an elevator pitch (literally “speech in an elevator”) - the format of a presentation to an investor no longer than one minute. Imagine that you have jumped into an elevator after an investor, and you need to captivate him with your project until the elevator doors open and he leaves to go about his business. This is roughly the effect a resume should have.

If it:

• uninteresting,
• does not promise sufficient financial benefits,

Many practitioners recommend writing your resume last. Because when, it’s easier for you to formulate your idea in a concentrated manner and draw conclusions.

Description of the industry and company - the basis of the business plan

This section is the necessary basis for the entire business plan. After all, without a target market there is no need to create a project. And you must clearly show the investor that the project will find its consumer and be successful.

To write a good industry description, you should start from two starting points:

1. The investor knows nothing about your market.
2. You know your market well.

The first point is clear. You need to describe the market, its history, current situation and prospects, competition and the position of your project in the market as clearly as possible.

But many people have difficulties with the second point. Precisely because, having decided to create a new project, entrepreneurs usually do not know their industry well or have a very subjective concept about it, not based on research.

The easiest way to write an “Industry Description” section is to purchase market research, ready-made or custom-made. To attract large investments, this is the only right step, since the results of the study will be professional, objective, and, so to speak, more accurate. But it is clear that this method is also the most expensive. Research can cost from 30 to 120 thousand rubles, and not every entrepreneur is ready to invest that kind of money in preparing a business plan.

An alternative would be to conduct independent research based on information from open sources and your own experience. Here you will need to use all your analytical skills, since information will need to be collected literally bit by bit from different sources.

In the “Industry Description” you should talk about:

1. What market are you going to develop?
2. Is it standalone or a niche of a larger market.
3. Who is the target audience - end consumers or production. Social characteristics of the target audience.
4. What is the scale of the market (within a city, region, country, or international).
5. Its history for the previous 3–5 years. What happened with demand, supply, capacity and competition, with prices.
6. Are there any special market factors, such as seasonality, stage of the product life cycle.
7. About the current situation on the market (capacity, saturation).
8. Give a forecast of the dynamics of capacity and saturation for the planning period (3–5 years).
9. About competition in the market and its forecast for the planning period.

If there are studies of consumer preferences, then it is good to give conclusions on them.

All information should be presented as objectively as possible and with links to authoritative sources, such as well-known consulting agencies, industry leaders, and iconic personalities in the business environment. The presentation of information should look exactly like a story, with the logic of one number flowing into another, and not a general accumulation of numbers and diagrams from which no conclusions can be drawn.

In short you have to tell the story:

Market X was formed in such and such a year and since then such and such changes have occurred in it (here is a diagram and specific numbers).

Today, according to analysts' estimates, the market capacity is such and such. The market forecast for 3-5 years, again according to analysts’ estimates, is something like this (again, diagram and specific numbers).

Competitors in the market are such and such (give a brief description and shares), our share is Z%

Our forecasts for increasing/weakening competition are as follows, so the forecast for market share by year is %%% (diagram)

As a result, by tying all the numbers together, you should get sales figures by year, which you will later use in your sales plan. .

A little hint: you can focus on the indicators of a similar project that has already been implemented on the market, then it will be easier to make forecasts.

Description of a company (project) is not such a difficult task, because all the necessary information is at your fingertips. Here, too, you need to tell the investor a short story, identifying the main milestones of the company’s development and, of course, favorably presenting the company’s victories. It is worth mentioning separately the key members of the project team, describing their competencies and positive experience in the industry and in business. .

If you are writing a business plan for a startup, especially in an innovative industry, you may have no background data at all about the market, and naturally, no history of the company. Then limit yourself to general calculations for similar industries and your own (not unfounded) forecasts, and place special emphasis on the description of the team. Next, we will consider other important elements of the structure of the business plan and the content of its main sections.

Product Description

In this section, you should convey three main ideas to the investor:

1. What is your product?
2. Why is it valuable to the consumer?
3. Why is it better than competitors' products?

The product description can take up half a page, if your project is not new and technologically simple, or ten. The main thing is that you can explain to a potential investor who does not understand your business at all what you are going to do (produce).

A good practice is to support the text with diagrams, simple drawings and product images. This way you include visual perception and keep the investor's attention on the business plan.

It is not enough to tell you what you are going to do, you need to answer the question “why?” A product that is not needed by the consumer will not be sold. And you will not receive funding for it. Therefore, try to prove as convincingly as possible that your project is needed by the market. Arguments may include calculations from the previous section on unmet demand, social surveys, and consumer preferences.

In the third part of the section, you need to clearly show why your product is better than your competitors. In my experience, competitive analysis tables work best for this. For example (Table 1).

Table 1. Competitor analysis

Having such a table in your business plan shows that you know your market, competitors' products, their advantages and disadvantages. When creating your product, you took into account existing analogues on the market and made your product better in some way.

It is necessary to indicate in such a table significant parameters, such as price (!), operating characteristics, quality. You can provide the table with additional parameters: after-sales service, brand recognition, modern design. Indicate all the characteristics by which your product outperforms competitors, but also indicate significant disadvantages. Investors will discover them anyway.

Marketing plan

This section is closely linked to the Industry Description, because this is where your future sales figures are indicated. In your Marketing Plan, you should outline your steps to achieve these numbers.

The sales plan is another integral element of the business plan.

First, you must detail exactly what, how and when you will sell.

Total sales figures by year should be broken down:

• for products (or groups of products), the manufacturing process of which is different. For example, milk, dairy products, cheeses. Or software, technical support, development;
• by quantity of products and price;
• by period (forecast by month and year);
• across sales channels (wholesale, retail, e-commerce...).

In fact, this section is where you should lay the foundation for your production plan, because once you create your sales plan, you will have an idea of ​​how much, what, and when you will need to produce.

And it also begins with a sales plan, without which not a single business plan can do.

Sales channels

Second, you should describe how you will make sales.

Who will your customers be? End users or dealers, or both? Wholesale sales are different from retail sales, e-commerce is not like a network of offline stores. Each channel needs its own resources, its own rules, and its own price for the product.

Only by describing each of the channels will you show that you understand your actions in the future and are ready to enter the market.

Advertising and promotion

You’ve decided on sales and resources, but what about promotion? You need to understand:

• how consumers learn about a new product,
• what positioning will it have?
• how will you create an information environment and will you
• how will you create a positive image of the product and company,
• whether you will create a trademark.

The answers to all these questions must be contained in the advertising and promotion plan. Having a budget for each of the tools will be a plus, but you can also indicate the total amount you plan to spend on advertising.

Dealer policy and service policy

These sections are optionally added to the business plan if your business involves working with dealers and after-sales service.

When you write about working with dealers, indicate a specific commercial offer with dealer margin and sales conditions. Don't forget that all numbers must match the sales plan.

Also describe the procedure for providing after-sales service realistically: what after-sales service activities do you expect to perform, either on your own or with the help of partners, what will be the cost of after-sales service for the project.

Production plan

A key section for production projects, for projects without any production you can skip it.

Your main task in this section is to provide a reasoned explanation of why you chose this or that raw material, supplier, equipment and technological process.

It is advisable to start the section with a description of the technological process of manufacturing the product, providing it with a diagram if possible. More detailed diagrams, drawings, descriptions can be given in the Appendices.

Then move on to a description of the raw materials and components needed for production. It is good to provide the business plan with a list of specific suppliers from whom you will buy, and provide in the Appendices an estimate of the consumption of raw materials with prices per unit of the product produced. Don’t forget about planning warehouse stocks of raw materials, processing and finished products.

Next you should write about the equipment used, its characteristics, and cost. Calculate the load on production lines and justify why you should purchase exactly that many means of production.

The production plan must be continued by calculating the required labor resources, describing the qualifications of workers and work schedules, and the payment system.

In conclusion, you must justify the choice of location of production facilities and labor organization.

At the moment when the production plan is written, the financial model will be almost ready, because the most difficult thing in creating a model is calculating production costs by combining the sales plan and the estimated costs per unit of production.

Organizational plan

The purpose of the organizational plan is to provide the investor with the missing information on organizing the business.

Typically this is:

• organizational structure of the company, number of legal entities and their relationships, structure of divisions and workshops;
• description of support and administrative departments, such as financial services, HR, project management, and so on;
• rent or purchase of office and industrial (retail, warehouse) space;
• staffing table and description of remuneration and motivation mechanisms;
• carrying out developments and surveys;
• description of the tax burden on business;
• import and export policies, where applicable;
• and others.

All this information should not only be presented in a structured and reasonable manner, but also put into numbers, which should be reflected in the financial model.

Financial plan

The financial plan combines the three previous sections of the business plan and presents them in the form of financial calculations - Forecast of income and expenses, Cash flow of the project with the mandatory use of discounted cash flows, and less often, Forecast balance.

All project flows must be divided in financial terms into investment (investment of the investor in the project, capital costs), operational (sales plan, production and organizational plans), and financial (receipt and repayment of borrowed funds, interest, deposits) with calculation of the result for each group.

The best way to present information in the financial plan section would be to place the financial model itself briefly with a detailed deployment in the Appendices.

Plus, in financial terms, you must justify the amount requested from the investor and the conditions for receiving it. You should describe whether this will be debt or equity financing, at what interest rate you discounted and why, how the mechanism for making a profit for the investor and returning the invested funds (optional) will be structured, how the investor’s exit from the project will be organized.

Project performance indicators

In this section, briefly present the conclusions of the financial plan, explain in numerical terms the benefits that the investor will receive from the project.

Be sure to calculate financial performance indicators:

1. .
2. .
3. Discounted payback period – DPP.
4. Profitability Index - PI.
5. Average rate of return – ARR.

If there are additional benefits, such as full acquisition of the business after a certain period or synergies, mention them here. In this section they will attract maximum investor withdrawals.

Project risks and guarantees

The most controversial section of the business plan, but it is mandatory to write it for all projects. On the one hand, the fact that you describe the commercial, financial, production and organizational risks of the project and strategies for reducing them will not protect your project from the onset of unpredictable risks. But, on the other hand, you will show your prudence, insight and readiness to act at the right time according to a pre-planned scenario.

Investors do not like business plans that do not describe risks, because in such business plans they have to calculate the risks themselves. Do this work for them.

The larger the project, the more scientific an approach should be used to calculate risks. To raise a relatively small amount, it is enough to do a SWOT analysis of the project, based on the opinions of 2–5 experts.

To attract large sums, it will be necessary to conduct a project sensitivity analysis and scenario analysis, and then a risk assessment using probabilistic and statistical methods.

A business plan allows you to justify the feasibility of investing in a project and evaluate its effectiveness.

A business plan must be used when planning almost any business venture. The step-by-step economic program contained in the business plan fully describes the plan for conducting the proposed business. If the rules for drawing up a business plan are followed, it will be an indispensable source of information during the implementation of the project.

Tasks

Depending on the field of activity of the enterprise, the business plan contains data about the company itself, its products or services, and sales markets. Separate parts of the document are devoted to marketing, financial and organizational plans. A business plan helps entrepreneurs solve several important problems:

• determine for yourself the priority areas of the organization’s activities;
• establish short-term, medium-term and long-term goals and methods for their implementation;
• assess the costs of manufacturing goods, providing services, performing work;
• promptly detect errors and inaccuracies when planning economic and financial activities;
• timely predict the occurrence of negative situations that could interfere with the normal functioning of the business;
• choose the best marketing methods and activities that will allow the company to occupy a stable position in the market.

A business plan is a document that entrepreneurs develop voluntarily. The law does not require submitting a business plan to regulatory authorities. Despite this, a business plan is developed by most companies that start their own business. The content of the document depends on the scope of the enterprise, so there may be some differences in the business plan that do not affect its overall structure.

Structure

The business plan begins with a title page, where the developers indicate complete information about the organization, including contact information. If the document is intended for investors or credit institutions, then financial indicators can be placed on the same page. This is followed by a summary that reveals the essence and objectives of the business plan, as well as a section with market analysis. The next part is a study of the company’s position in the industry and a description of its products. A business plan will be incomplete without specifying marketing data, a production plan, and risk analysis.

Advantages

For an entrepreneur, a business plan is the most important document. After all, it allows you to avoid many mistakes at the planning stage, which means saving time, labor and money resources. A business plan is simply necessary when a businessman needs to raise funds from external sources. Providing such a document will be an additional advantage for a businessman. Another advantage is the assessment of competitors. An analysis of enterprises operating in the same market will allow us to identify their strengths and weaknesses and determine the optimal development path for ourselves.

We have previously talked about the importance of competent business planning and the fundamental role of a business plan in the fate of your business. Let us recall that a business plan is a special document that presents information about the company, the product or service it produces, sales markets, marketing and financial policies. The business plan also contains a description of the list of business operations that are carried out in the process of organizing and operating a business.

So, you are full of ideas and determination to start your own business. Now it’s time to find out where exactly the preparation of a business plan begins, what its structure and content of the main sections are.

Business plan: section content structure

First of all, it should be said that there is no one, universal “recipe” for drawing up a business plan. As noted in our last article, depending on the nature of the final goal, there are different types of business plans. Thus, a business plan can be focused both on an “external” addressee (potential investor) and an “internal” one (company employee, founder, department).

In addition, in accordance with the specifics of the functioning of each specific enterprise for which the document is being developed, the structure and sections of the business plan can vary significantly. Obviously, the structure of an innovative business plan will be fundamentally different than the structure of an organization’s business plan.

However, there are certain modern standards for drawing up business plans. And there are many of these standards. Among the most common are:

• standard of the Federal Fund for Support of Small Business (FFSMP),
• European Union standard within the framework of the program to promote the acceleration of the process of economic reforms in the Commonwealth of Independent States (TACIS),
• and etc.

International economic institutions have developed recommendations that determine what basic information the relevant sections of a business plan should contain. According to these recommendations, the typical structure of a business plan includes:

1. Title page;
2. Annotation;
3. Confidentiality Memorandum;
4. Table of contents.

Among the main sections of the business plan we should definitely mention:

1. Summary;
2. Object analysis;
3. Analysis of the business environment of the facility;
4. Marketing plan;
5. Production plan;
6. Financial plan;
7. Risk assessment.

Learn more about each point of the business plan structure

Now let's look at the contents of the main sections of the business plan in order.

Title page contains basic information about the organization, such as name, information about managers, legal and physical addresses, contacts.

Confidentiality Memorandum, often placed immediately after the title page, serves to alert all persons with access to the business plan that the information contained in the document is confidential.

IN annotations The goals and objectives of this business plan are briefly defined.

Summary is a section that contains a description of the entire document and briefly outlines the main proposals of the plan.

In sections object analysis And analysis of the object's business environment basic information about the enterprise and its field of activity is provided, an analysis of the market and competition is carried out, and the real and potential target audience of the project is identified.

Marketing plan. This section examines the main tasks of the marketing mix, such as pricing, methods of distribution of goods, sales promotion, and ways to attract new customers.

Production plan necessary in order to show what resources are required to produce a particular product. This section covers the technical aspects of production.

By using financial plan the most effective ways to use the organization's funds are determined. Conclusions are made based on reporting, analysis of the current financial situation, as well as forecasts for the sale of goods or services.

In chapter risk assessment, as a rule, all possible types of risks that the company may face are listed and ways to reduce them are discussed.

Let us emphasize once again that there is no general standard for drawing up a business plan. The range of tasks for which business plans are drawn up is very wide. When starting to draw up a business plan, remember that the main thing is that in the end this work will help you achieve your goals.

Some people are faced with the need to draw up a business plan directly at the stage of creating their own business, but many students of economics have to deal with a business plan for the first time while studying at a university. Competently drawing up a business plan is a complex and multifaceted process that requires some experience.

Of course, completing such a learning task can cause a number of difficulties. If the task associated with drawing up a business plan causes difficulties, you can always turn to them, who will help you understand the problematic issues. Go ahead, develop your ideas, and do what you really like. Remember - only with love for your work can you achieve real success.

Hello, dear readers of the online magazine about money “RichPro.ru”! This article will talk about how to write a business plan. This publication is a direct instruction to action that will allow you to turn a raw business idea into a confident step-by-step plan for implementing a clear task.

We'll consider:

• What is a business plan and why is it needed?
• How to write a business plan correctly;
• How to structure it and write it yourself;
• Ready-made business plans for small businesses - examples and samples with calculations.

To conclude the topic, we will show the main mistakes of novice entrepreneurs. There will be a lot of arguments in favor of creating quality And thoughtful business plan that will bring your idea to fruition and success things in the future.

Also, this article will provide examples of finished works that you can simply use or take as a basis for developing your project. Ready-made examples of submitted business plans can be found download for free.

In addition, we will answer the most frequently asked questions and clarify why not everyone writes a business plan, if it is so necessary.

So, let's start in order!

The structure of a business plan and the content of its main sections - a step-by-step guide to its preparation

1. How to write a business plan: detailed instructions on how to write it yourself 📝

7. Conclusion + video on the topic 🎥

For every entrepreneur who wants to develop himself and develop his business, a business plan is very important. He performs many important functions that no other person can do differently.

With its help, you can secure financial support and open and develop your business much earlier than you can raise a significant amount for the business.

Investors react mostly positively to a good, thoughtful, error-free business plan, because they see it as a way to make easy money with all the troubles invented and described.

In addition, even before the establishment opens, you see what awaits you. What risks are possible, what solution algorithms will be relevant in a given situation. This is not only favorable information for the investor, but also a necessary plan if you get into trouble yourself. In the end, if the risk calculation turns out to be too daunting, you can slightly redo it, transform the general idea in order to reduce them.

Creating a Good Business Plan is an excellent solution for searching for investment and developing your own action algorithms even in the most difficult situations, of which there are more than enough in business.

That is why, in addition to our own efforts It’s worth using “other people’s brains”. A business plan involves many sections and calculations, research and knowledge, only with successful operation, which can achieve success.

The ideal option would be to study all aspects yourself. To do this, it is not enough to sit and read the relevant literature. It is worth changing your social circle, turning to courses and trainings, finding specialists for consultation on certain issues. This is the only way really figure it out in the situation and dispel all your doubts and misconceptions.

A business plan is worth writing for many reasons, but home- this is a clear algorithm of actions by which you can quickly get from point A(your current situation, full of hopes and fears) to point B(in which you will already be the owner of your own successful business that generates stable and regular income). This is the first step towards achieving your dreams and secure middle class status.

If you have any questions, you may find answers to them in the video: “How to draw up a business plan (for yourself and investors).”

That's all for us. We wish everyone good luck in their business! We will also be grateful for your comments on this article, share your opinions, ask questions on the topic of publication.

14.Sections of the business plan and their content.

With all the variety of existing methods for drawing up a business plan, it includes the following mandatory sections in its structure:

1. Characteristics of the enterprise

   Description of products, services

   Market analysis (assessment of markets and competitors)

   Production plan

   Investment plan

7. Review of the state of the industry

8.Organizational plan

9.Marketing plan

10. Financial plan and project performance indicators

11.Project risks and their minimization

12. Project implementation schedule

13.Appendices The given structure is recommended as a standard one for a business plan for an investment project. However, it can be supplemented or clarified by other sections depending on the specifics of the business proposal. It is not the only one possible. Depending on the purpose, scale, and complexity of the investment project, the number of sections, their content, and the depth of elaboration of the material may change, which will affect the structure and content of the business plan.

When drawing up a specific business plan, it is necessary to justify the chosen structure and its compliance with the standards for developing business plans accepted in international and domestic practice. The composition of the business plan and the degree of its detail depend on the scale of the investment project and the field of business to which it relates. In addition, business plans at different stages of their implementation, while maintaining their structure and sections, may differ in the depth of elaboration of the sections and the detail of the data contained in them, and their initial content may develop and deepen. The first and most common mistake of many Russian business plan developers is the attempt to find a “universal” methodology for developing a business plan without adapting to the specifics of a particular project. Different types of businesses usually require different types of information to be reflected in business plans in different forms. The structure of a business plan is influenced by a number of factors. First of all, this concerns the specifics and development prospects of the enterprise itself for which the business plan is being developed, as well as the market conditions in which the company operates. Each company develops its own unique business plan, using its own approach and structure, which varies depending on the nature of the business, the specific objectives of the plan and the individual requirements of creditors. A business plan for an investment project is a traditional document for attracting investments. It is designed for investors, regional administration, owners and management of the company. Its goal is to attract funding. The main requirement for a business plan for an investment project is to ensure the completeness of the information it contains. The most important principles for drawing up a business plan for an investment project is possible brevity. A typical business plan should not exceed 15-20 pages, with the exception of complex areas of business (in particular venture projects), where the project can reach 40-50 pages. The recommended volume of a business plan also depends on the specifics and cost of the project. So, for a project cost of less than 500 thousand US dollars - about 40 pages, for a cost over 500 thousand US dollars - up to 80 pages. All supporting materials must be provided in the appendix, and the main text should contain only final indicators and data .

Stages of developing a business plan for an investment project and its sections:

When developing a business plan for an investment project, information about the solvent needs for goods (services) is initially collected and analyzed on the basis of a clearly formulated business idea. Then marketing research (potential or existing) of the sales market is carried out to determine the scale of the investment project. Next, the state and capabilities of the organization are analyzed, the needs and ways to provide it with resources are determined, and then the organizational structure is developed. If the finished version of a business plan must begin with a summary, then the process of developing it usually ends with a summary. The main thing here is the correct formulation of the goals of the business plan, quantitative and qualitative, financial and non-financial, as well as their justification with the help of appropriate marketing research and initial financial indicators, before making any financial calculations. To draw up a business plan for an investment project, it is necessary to study official documentary materials, legislative and regulatory acts, summarize and arrange in a certain sequence the collected and analyzed materials and calculations carried out in connection with the developed project.