1.0 Executive Summary
• Note the full legal name of your organization.
• Describe your business idea and the nature of your target market.
2.0 Mission, Vision, & Culture
• After reviewing several mission statements for actual companies in your industry, write a mission statement for your organization in 21 to 40 words that clearly states your competitive advantage, strategy and tactics.
• Create a vision statement for your company.
• Describe the core beliefs you will use to run your organization and how they will be reflected in its culture.
• Identify the ways you plan to run a socially responsible organization.
4.0 Opportunity Analysis and Research
• Describe your target customers along as many dimensions as you have defined (demographic, geographic, needs, trends, and decision-making processes).
• Describe the research methods you used to develop this section (surveys, focus groups, general research, & statistical research).
4.1 Industry Analysis (Remember to cite your sources and give references in APA format.)
• What is the industry/industries within which your organization operates? (include NAICS codes, if applicable)
• What factors influence the demand for your product/services?
• What factors influence the supply of your product/services?
• How large is your total industry (historic, current & projected size)?
• What are the current and anticipated trends in the industry?
• What are the major customer groups for the industry (consumers, government, businesses)? Describe these in detail.
• How large is your target market? (Number of customers, size of purchases, frequency of purchases, trends–Quantify!) Describe the entire potential market and the portion you will target.
4.2 Environmental Analysis
• Perform a SWOT analysis of your potential organization. Remember that strengths and weaknesses are internal to your organization –so you can control these, and opportunities and threats are external to your organization–so you cannot control these; you must react to these.
• What external/environmental factors are likely to impact your business and how likely are these?
• Are your customers in other countries? If so, how will you reach them?
4.3 Competitive Analysis
• How do you define/describe your competitors- both direct and indirect?
• Describe your organization’s competitive advantage along the lines of quality, price, location, service, and speed of turn-around as they apply.
• Find three competitors and describe them (cite your sources). Use the comparative analysis tables in Chapter 3 of your text to perform a qualitative assessment and/or quantitative analysis.
• Describe any international competitors. How do you intend to compete with them for your customers?
• Describe your strategy for outperforming the competition you identified above.
• What, if any, do you see as barriers to entry that you can create to block out competition. How will you do so?
5.0 Marketing Strategy
• Explain how your marketing plan targets your market segment (geographic, demographics, psychographics, behavior). Be specific.
• What percentage of the market do you need to capture for your business to be profitable–explain.
• Using the format described in Chapter 4 of your text, write a positioning statement for your organization.
• How will you grow the business (self-generated, franchising, acquisition)?
5.1 Products/Services
• Describe in detail what products/services you intend to market.
• Explain how these will meet a specific consumer need. (What pain do they remove or improvement do they provide?) Describe the features/benefits that you will focus on in your marketing.
• What copyrights, trademarks, patents, or other IP do you need/expect to own?
• How ill your organization help other organizations? (Your contributions may be time, money, donations, or something else.)
5.2 Pricing
• Describe your pricing structure and strategy (value, prestige, cost-plus, penetration, skimming, meet-or-beat, follow the leader, variable, personalized, or price lining.) What gross margins do you hope to generate?
• What, if any, will be your discount structure?
• On what terms, if any, will your company extend credit to customers?
5.3 Promotion
• Explain your plans for promotion, including the message, the media you will use, and distribution channels. Include a table to show the methods and the budgets you intend.
• Create a sample of an example marketing material.
• Does your company have a slogan? What is it?
• Create a sample logo for your company.
• Where, specifically, and how often will you advertise your product/service?
• How will you publicize your organization?
• What information will you keep in your customer database? How will you seek repeat purchases from previous customers?
5.4 Place
• Where will you sell your product/service (physical and virtual)? What are the advantages and disadvantages of your choices?
• What is the workforce availability in your area as it pertains to employees for your needs? (Use online census or workforce data as support–cite and reference these.)
6.0 Management & Operations (cont.)
6.1 Management Team
• Create an organizational chart if it will have more than one employee. (You may use chart wizard tool in Microsoft Word for ease.)
• If you will be hiring employees, position descriptions & duties, ideal qualifications, amount you intend to pay them.
• Will you earn a salary, wage, commission, dividend– explain your criteria and levels of compensation.
• How will you make your organization a rewarding and positive environment for your employees?
• Describe the corporate governance plan for your organization. Include at least 5 policies (rules) that will be the backbone of your company’s ethics.7.0 Financial Analysis & Projections (cont.)
7.3 Balance Sheet Projections
• Create a projected balance sheet for your business for the first four quarters and the second and third years of operations
• Create a pie chart showing your current assets, long-term assets, current liabilities, and long-term liabilities. (You may wish to use chart wizard in your Microsoft Word tools to do this.)
7.4 Income Statement Projections
• Create a projected income statement for your business for the first four quarters and the second and third years of operations.
• Create a bar chart showing gross revenues, gross profit, and net income.
7.5 Break-even Analysis
• Calculate your break even to determine the number of units/break-even volume.
7.6 Ratio Analysis
• Calculate all key ratios, using your projected financial statements.
• Compare these ratios to industry numbers, using publicly available data. (Cite and reference your sources.)
7.7 Risks & Assumptions
• List all risks and assumptions that underlie your financial projections.
• Identify external factors that may create/be substantial risks.
