Methodological principles of business planning. Structure and main sections of a business plan Rules and principles of business planning briefly

In this article, we consider the company’s activity in the market in the context of its serious bid to change the balance of power in the competitive field. This usually happens when a new player appears or an existing market operator develops a new direction that can create significant cash flows and profits. These events are preceded by a special procedure - business planning, which came to us from the West in the 90s. At the moment, this type of planning activity has firmly taken its place in the management of Russian companies.

The relationship between business planning and project activities

In the context of the mission of our site, the relationship between such phenomena as a project and a business plan is of interest. A project manager, accepting a task for execution, relies on a number of documents that precede the project planning phase: concept, feasibility study, charter and business plan, which is sometimes replaced by a business case if there is no need for detailed preliminary planning. This suggests that business planning is not a prerequisite for project implementation, but is extremely useful.

Another question is: is the entire set of tasks of the business plan the responsibility of the project manager? Not at all. This applies to the time duration of the project, the business plan, and the scope of tasks (pay attention to the diagram shown below). To answer this question, we need to clarify the concept and substantive essence of business planning (BPL) as an important, integral part of modern management, constituting one of the two sections of its planning function.

Business planning at an enterprise is the process of developing a comprehensive plan of activity at a strategic or tactical level with a systematic description of the business as a targeted activity for earning profit. This type of planning activity is based on the company’s development strategy, covers the entire business or part of it, and serves to design the business “from scratch” or reorganize it. The business plan, being the result of the BPL, serves as a document through which business management is formed and its viability is ensured.

Scheme of intersection of business plans and company projects

company products;
work performed by the company;
services sold;
technical solutions;
lobbying the interests of the company.

The concept of “business planning” is two-part, and its content corresponds, on the one hand, to serving business as a special form of socially useful activity for the purpose of making a profit. On the other hand, a planning document is created that systematically describes this type of activity. This plan, as a set of interrelated elements, includes planning results in the following areas:

marketing;
finance;
production;
procurement;
sales;
organizations;
personnel;
costs and financial results;
risks, etc.

It is known that not every project brings profit in a clear, obvious form, although every such task should bring benefits. For example, the construction of social facilities (dispensaries, kindergartens, housing and communal facilities) does not bring profit, but, on the contrary, increases the company’s expenses, that is, it consumes the financial result of the main activity. Therefore, a significant part of the company’s projects is planned, but these plans do not fit into the concept of business planning.

Essential points of BPL

The essence and significance of business planning lies in the perception of its results as the basis for the long-term success of the company. Ideally, a well-executed business plan forms the bulk of success in the rational use of financial resources. In addition, a complete, but not excessive supply of supplies (including labor resources), production, and promotion of the company and its product is achieved. Thus, the dynamics of growth in sales volumes and financial results are stable and consistent with forecasts. An entrepreneur always puts his own ideology into the content of planning, which reflects his attitude to the business plan.

“I make a business plan for myself because I see the value for success.”
“I plan for myself and my partners (including my employees).”
“I need a business plan formally (to get a loan, a grant, to attract an investor).”
“I don’t need a business plan, I already see everything intuitively.”

Unfortunately, for many years, starting from the mid-90s, the last two positions prevailed in Russia in the attitude of business people to business plans. And only in recent years have more and more businessmen begun to realize the usefulness that high-quality UPL brings. The investment mentality is gradually acquiring the features of maturity, and it is not only external tasks that motivate entrepreneurs to take a thoughtful approach to planning.

The need to attract additional investment sources has historically been realized in the following areas:

lending from commercial banks;
receiving grants, subsidies and other forms of targeted financing from the state represented by authorized bodies;
co-financing of investment projects with investment funds and other partners.

Modern trends indicate the emergence of another external incentive for business planning. This is to provide the company with highly qualified specialists and managers, attracted by deeply developed business plans that outline ambitious goals and objectives with justification for stable prospects and highly probable success. But the most important essence of the BPL, which must yet be fully revealed in the coming years, is a set of internal value values that allow a business person to do the following.

Eliminate natural uncertainty and the influence of the external environment.
Focus on key tasks that lead to success.
“Spin the economic flywheel” to the required speed with the corresponding generation of income and profit.
Ensure the integration of newly created and existing divisions into the process of achieving the company's long-term goals.
Facilitate control activities.

Two related planning systems

In the planning system of the national economy of the USSR, there was a sufficiently developed system of budget planning, within the framework of which the so-called industrial and technical financial plans were created. The planning culture was quite developed, and the level of the management school was so high that this system competed well with the main Western planning systems (without taking into account their market component).

During the transition decade at the end of the last century, large Russian companies were able to largely preserve the culture and school of socio-economic planning. At the same time, newly created small and medium-sized companies entered the market without a formed system of regular planning, which was largely the reason for their failure and subsequent decline into oblivion.

In the mid-90s, theoretical replicas of the Western model of business planning, which differed significantly from the traditional methods of the Soviet school of planning, began to actively penetrate into Russia. The differences became obvious after the massive entry into the market of the Alt Invest and Project Expert software products. Their content included an emphasis on the marketing component of planning, and the integrity and harmony of the relationships between the balance sheet plan, the profit and loss plan and, most importantly, the cash flow plan looked like a revelation.

Business planning at the enterprise gradually began to turn into a new parallel system for planned support of the company's activities. The traditional system of technical, economic and operational planning has also gradually undergone changes; now it represents a set of financial and management plans integrated into the budgetary business management system. Thanks to its implementation, information and forecast support is provided for making strategic, tactical and operational decisions across the entire range of economic activities, including existing production and future development.

At the upper strategic levels, the traditional model of technical and economic planning and business planning merges. Starting at the tactical level, the two are divergent in nature. Technical and economic planning at the tactical and operational level tends to serve production and management tasks of the operating cycle and includes:

estimate and calculation information support for decisions on regulating the cost of the company's products;
planning of profit, relative indicators (profitability) in various interpretations;
calculations for the reconstruction and modernization of the production and technical base;
assessment of the degree of utilization of the company's production capacity;
planning the level of labor productivity and equipment in its various types;
providing the company with industrial and production personnel;
information on sales forecasts and production resource base.

Differences in planning forms in an enterprise

In this section, we will not take into account such types of planning as preparing and drawing up a project schedule, developing operational and production plans, for example, plans for routine maintenance, etc. All these are local types, which, of course, are included in the general corporate system of planning activities, but constitute its separate highly specialized fragments. Another thing is planning as a comprehensive function of regular company management.

Modern theoretical, methodological and practical assumptions form a view in which strategic planning is the systemic source of high-quality implementation of this function; it serves as a top-level subsystem. On its basis, a subsystem of regular technical and economic planning and a subsystem of company business planning are formed below. Both of these subsystems are deeply integrated into the budget management system. Below is a model of a planning system as a management function.

Subsystems of the functional planning system in the company

Both BPL and technical and economic planning fall under the competence of the planning and economic services of the company’s management. And this is completely justified. It should be taken into account that the purpose, methods, limitations, and degree of regularity of the subsystems differ. Practice shows that both the first and second subsystems can coexist quite harmoniously, not conflicting, but mutually complementing each other. What are the differences in their specialization?

As noted above, BPL is focused exclusively on project activities. Based on the overriding condition of financial results, it covers strategic business units and entire companies. Even if a business plan is developed in relation to new products or modernization of existing production, planning and information support for increasing profits is at the forefront. Technical and economic planning in this regard is implemented much more widely, covering, in addition to financial and commercial, numerous issues that from the BSC position are considered as “prospects”: “business processes”, “personnel and systems”.
Technical and economic planning is a regular subsystem, executed with a given cyclicity at each time level: decade, month, quarter, year, five years, etc. The established culture and regulations dictate its strict implementation as a springboard for management actions, events of the main and supporting processes. Processes make a continuous business circuit, and planning continually precedes them. Business planning serves as a formulation basis for a specific business task with a given time limit. In other words, it is finite.
Traditional planning solves exclusively internal management problems, while BPL can serve both internal and external goals of the company and investors.

A comprehensive model of two subsystems for planning activities in a company

Goals and objectives of BPL

In the simplest interpretation, the goals and objectives of business planning are to prove to the customer and interested parties that the idea declared in the project concept is valid. The core idea of a business is the thesis, and the set of compelling arguments is the business plan. If the BPL is carried out professionally, then it will not be difficult for the speaker presenting the plan at the defense to prove that the project was initially successful.

Let's consider the secondary goals achieved through business planning. Among them:

clarification of the idea of creation, strategy for the formation, reorganization and development of the company and its areas of activity;
calculation and information justification for ranking and selecting the company’s investment projects for implementation in accordance with the business development strategy;
medium-term and current planning of the activities of business units and the entire company;
attracting strategic partners to participate in the business on the basis of co-ownership and in the form of profit sharing;
raising funds for investment in the company from borrowed sources;
receipt by the company of targeted financing from the state (municipal) budget in accordance with current legislation.

Main external and internal goals of the BPL

Above, we present to your attention a model of the composition of UPL targets, which are divided into external and internal. These goals unfold in a sequence of variable tasks of the company, the main one of which is achieving a result: the person making the decision to launch a project, participate in financing, lending, has accepted it. It seems that a negative decision in the context of an internal business planning guideline is also a completed planning task. For external goal types, failure indicates a failure of the task. The main task of the BPL is decomposed into a group of second-level tasks.

Reduce the high level of uncertainty that always accompanies opening a new business.
Determine the market prospects of the main idea of the project, predict the market reaction to the result of the implemented plans.
Calculate the economics of the project and predict the main parameters of planning and reporting forms: balance sheet, cash flows and financial results.
Plan the need, establish the main sources, ways to attract financing to the project.
Build a dynamic model that allows you to simulate the development of the project situation to implement the best solution.
Identify and identify project risks, formulate measures to reduce them.
Confirm the competence of the managers of the company's business units and their ability to independently develop accountable areas of activity.
Increase the status of the customer or business plan developer in the eyes of counterparties, as well as the strength of his negotiating position.
Justify the profitability of investments in the project for investors, credit institutions and other partners.
Justify the targeted socially significant nature of the project to recognize the feasibility of its state support.

Basic principles of BPL

The customer’s idea of a business plan almost always represents a hypothesis about how best to use the investment resources available and attracted by the company to maximize profits. At the same time, for some interested parties (owners, shareholders), in addition to profit under BPL, the market value of the company’s capital is also of great importance. During the planning process, the customer’s plan is subjected to a thorough check with clarification of the main conditions for its implementation:

clarity is provided on when, what and how should happen according to the plan;
the decision-making process is continuous, the goals and objectives of the company’s development are iteratively refined in connection with ongoing changes and the state of the resource base;
planning of company resources is carried out in accordance with the long-term or short-term perspective.

The most accurately named conditions are ensured if the following principles of business planning are observed.

The principle of continuity. The planning event is not a one-act event, it is an iterative action of a sliding nature. And despite the fact that the BPL is finite in nature, each act of planning carries within itself the features of continuity and consistency.
The principle of flexibility. The internal and external environment of the company is dynamic. Planning must be adaptive and adapt to ongoing changes, so adjusting business plans is a regular process.
The principle of communication. This principle involves building consistent, interdependent connections between sections of the plan and elements within each section.
The principle of creativity. Searching for, analyzing and summarizing information for inclusion in a business plan requires not only reliable sources, but a special creative approach to synthesize adequate working information from disparate and distant, but related information. Linking the sections of the plan is also creative and non-trivial.
The principle of polyvariance. Dynamic modeling allows you to create many options for events and conditions for implementing a business plan. This principle allows you to make the best choice from the many alternatives obtained during modeling.
The principle of attracting potential participants of the future subject of activity to the BPL.
The principle of adequacy requires a balanced reflection of real-life problems, reflection and self-observation during planning procedures to identify subjective distortions.
The principle of comprehensive planning. This principle establishes the rules for a holistic and complete reflection of all aspects of the company’s activities regarding the subject of the plan.
The principle of iteration. The sections of the plan being compiled are subject to repeated linking with each other during the BPL process.

Options for Business Planning Needs

The types of needs for drawing up business plans are related to the goals and objectives of their development. On the one hand, planning orientation can be internal or external. The internally oriented option, in my opinion, should include the need for BPL arising from an entrepreneur or a group of investors who have a joint partnership experience. It is formed in connection with the need to test an individual or collegial business idea. The types of needs in business plans developed for external justification purposes are presented below in the diagram.

Options for business plans developed for the purpose of justification to external partners

On the other hand, the types of BPL needs are determined by the stage of the life cycle of the business entity considered in the plan and the vector of development or reorganization of the business. We will consider an end-to-end list of types of business planning immediately after another diagram that divides business plans by business lines and by type of enterprise (newly established or existing). Business plans developed along the line of anti-crisis sanitary measures deserve separate consideration. We will be more interested in new businesses and their development.

Model of division of UPL by types of main planning objects

Among the main types of UPL, the following options stand out.

The customer (owners or manager of the company) sets a task on BPL for internal development purposes of the entire business or its strategic unit without the need for external justification.
A business plan of a given format is part of the conditions for issuing a bank loan.
The conditions of the public issue of shares, the requirements of investment funds and private investors oblige the company to develop a business plan to increase the amount of equity capital.
A good rule of thumb when considering creating a joint venture with foreign partners is to have a business plan. This practice is gradually coming to domestic Russian business.
BPL is being sold under a large contract.
The practice of headhunting in recent years, as an additional information opportunity, uses the potential of BPL to attract employees of the highest level of qualifications.
A business plan acts as an argument in negotiations on the sale of a business, merger with other companies, etc.
Business plan as a resource for planning an anti-crisis program and business reorganization.
BPL to win the competition for government grants and subsidies.

UPL functions

The fundamentals of business planning lie in its special nature, which models the future state of the business. Theoretical ideas and methodological prerequisites for this type of planning have great predictive and evidentiary power, thanks to which the level of uncertainty in starting conditions can be reduced significantly. Uncertainty cannot be completely eliminated, but not only many subjective factors are leveled out. A lot of supporting positions are acquired, and it becomes much easier for a businessman to achieve results due to:

a basic description of the sequences and duration of actions;
perception or at least attempts to take the position of a consumer of added value that arises according to plan at the other end of market communication;
sales planning;
collection of economic elements of production costs and distribution costs;
cash flow plan forecast taking into account time value;
balancing and modeling a deficit-free cash plan;
comprehensive assessment of investment efficiency, etc.

In this regard, I highlight the following main functions of business planning.

Research function. A modern business plan is unthinkable without marketing analysis of the market, consumer preferences, benchmarking and other types of research.
A statistical and analytical function, which is considered in the context of significant reliance on the professional experience of the developer and statistics of the company, other enterprises in the industry, region, operating in similar market conditions.
Function of application of norms. Labor standards, technical, technological standards, consumption standards for materials, components, fuel, energy, etc. serve as the basis for basic economic calculations and planning. Without industry standards and standards developed within the company itself, BPL is usually significantly more difficult. Therefore, this function includes the search for norms, regulations and their competent application.
Pricing function.
Balancing function. The balance sheet forecast, cash plan, profit and loss plan necessarily require adjustments in order to ensure their more harmonious content for business planning purposes.
Simulation function. Almost all sections of the plan can be subject to correction, and they are closely interconnected with each other. The ability to obtain variable dynamic models significantly improves the quality of planning.
Evaluation and analysis function.
Function of planning itself. This implies the development of a calendar plan, Gantt chart, financial and production planning documents.
Design function. This function is quite important and requires special care in observing the form and sometimes high user qualifications.
Function of argumentation and justification.

Features and problems of UPL

Since the basic ideas and principles of business planning came to us from the Western management school, key foreign BPL techniques have found application in domestic planning practice and have become widespread. The formats of methods for drawing up plans depend on the type of UPL. There are three main methods.

UNIDO. The most common and most universal BPL technique.
EBRD. Basically, this planning technique is associated with providing credit solutions for the implementation of investment projects.
BFM GROUP. A specialized methodology designed for detailed planning of business development and recovery projects.

The advantages of business planning are manifested in the numerous benefits that arise thanks to this routine and fairly formalized procedure:

The company's management expands the horizons of its perception, updates its systematic and long-term thinking;
information support for making strategic and tactical decisions is improving;
BPL allows you to minimize the risks of development projects and business projects;
the quality of calculation of additional sources of financing during planning improves.

Russia, as a developing country, has its own characteristics of business planning in the field of management culture. Seven decades of planned economy have left a serious imprint on various aspects of business thought in our country. Many businessmen believe that they already have a feel for business, and “we can always fake a business plan to suit the requests of the bank (Ministry of Economy, investors).” The reason for this lies in the double standards of society and the total opacity of business. This mentality is becoming a thing of the past, but is far from eradicated.

Other features of business planning are that in the West, in my opinion, the responsibility to counterparties for obligations is higher. Therefore, the concern about the absence of cash gaps, the balance of the balance sheet, capital income and operating income is more serious there, and greater importance is attached to discounting cash flows during planning. UPL as a planning tool has been developed and refined for decades, and the technologies for working with information are significantly higher than Russian capabilities. In this regard, it is worth emphasizing the modern problems of business planning:

low culture of formulating goals and objectives;
priority of short-term planning over long-term and BPL;
inability to work with external information when planning;
professional transformation of economists-planners, which does not allow them to implement BPL in a new way;
low level of management motivation at BPL.

We are completing a review of the topic of business planning as a significant phenomenon of business life. BPL tools, having appeared in the society and economic sphere of our country relatively recently, have firmly taken a place in the components of managing megaprojects with the participation of various forms of ownership and in modeling the future success of small businesses. Although BPL mainly falls under the purview of economic services of companies, this area of activity is close to project managers. PMs are active users of business planning results and, in some cases, undertake the development of business plans themselves.

The purpose of developing a business plan is to plan the company’s economic activities for the immediate and long-term periods in accordance with market needs and the ability to obtain the necessary resources.

The main goal of a business plan is to develop strategic decisions by considering the proposed business object from the perspective of marketing synthesis. Other goals for developing a business plan may be different, for example:

▪ obtaining loans or attracting investments;

▪ determination of the degree of reality of achieving the intended results;

▪ proof of the feasibility of reorganizing the work of an existing company or creating a new one;

▪ convincing the company's employees that it is possible to achieve the qualitative or quantitative indicators outlined in the project, and others.

However, currently in Russia the primary goal of business planning is to attract potential investors and partners to participate in projects.

The business plan provides for the solution of strategic and tactical tasks facing the enterprise, examples of which, depending on the participants in the business planning process, are presented in Table. 1.

Each task of a business plan can only be solved in conjunction with others.

In modern practice, a business plan performs five functions.

The first function is related to the ability to use a business plan to develop a business strategy. This function is necessary at the stage of creating an enterprise, as well as when developing new areas of activity.

The second function is planning. It allows you to assess the possibilities of developing a new line of activity and control processes within the company.

The third function allows you to attract funds - loans, credits.

The fourth function allows you to involve potential partners in the implementation of the company's plans who want to invest their own capital or existing technologies in production.

The fifth function allows, by involving all employees in the process of drawing up a business plan, to improve the awareness of all employees about upcoming actions, coordinate their efforts, distribute responsibilities, and create motivation to achieve the goal.

Table 1

Examples of business planning tasks

Employees enterprises	Higher management	Investors and partners
Informing all employees of the enterprise about the goals, objectives and methods of solving them	Organizational, managerial and financial and economic assessment of the state of the enterprise	Determining the intended source of financing for the implementation of the chosen strategy, i.e. ways to concentrate financial resources
Coordinating the actions of all departments of the enterprise in achieving the goals of the business plan	Identification of potential business opportunities, analysis of its strengths and weaknesses	Identification and assessment of risks that may interfere with the implementation of the business plan
Motivating employees to fulfill the objectives of the business plan	Formation of investment goals for the planned period	Calculation of expected financial results of activities, primarily sales volumes, profits, returns on capital
Justification of general and specific details of the functioning of an enterprise in market conditions	Choosing a strategy and tactics for competition
	Assessment of financial, material, labor resources necessary to achieve the goals of the enterprise

For the practical implementation of a business plan as a process, it seems important to adhere to the following principles:

▪ flexibility, providing for constant adaptation to changes in the environment in which the organization operates;

▪ continuity, providing for a “sliding” nature of planning;

▪ communication, which means coordination and integration of efforts (everything must be interconnected and interdependent);

▪ interactivity, which provides for the creative nature of planning and repeated elaboration of already compiled sections of the plan;

▪ multivariate, providing for the choice of the best possible option for achieving the goal;

▪ participation, which implies the importance of the planning process itself from the point of view of involving all possible participants in the future organization;

▪ adequacy of reflection of real problems and self-assessment in the planning process.

Concept and functions of business planning principles

This category refers to guiding ideas - the main rules of economic planning. They are inextricably interconnected and guide the entrepreneur to achieve the maximum level of efficiency and profitability.

These principles are equally relevant at all levels and stages of planning activities, for example:

choosing a strategy and creating an image of the future of the company;
current industry design;
operational calendar and even daily/hourly planning.

General principles

The fundamental system-forming principles of business planning include:

obligation;
continuity;
flexibility;
holism;
a combination of centrism and decentralization.

What do commitment and steadfastness mean? Planning and carrying out pre-set tasks is rational in any field.

When starting a business, you need to have a business plan and follow it.

Achieving intermediate goals will be evidence of a correctly chosen strategy, while failure indicates the need to adjust the tactics used and expectations.

Perseverance finds expression in:

cyclicality: at the end of the period, they sum up the results and develop a new urgent plan;
rolling planning (after part of the reporting period, a new plan is drawn up with an increased planning horizon; due to changes in market conditions, goals and orientation of the company, plans for the remainder of the period may be adjusted).

Flexibility and adaptability are achieved by:

creating planned reserves for key indicators;
application of the eventual approach (thinking through the occurrence of certain circumstances).

Effectively about business. Business Planning: Video

Introduction

Business plan, feasibility study (feasibility study) - these concepts have become firmly established in the modern economy. A business plan is not a mere formality, but a vital necessity for the financial well-being of an enterprise. When creating a new business, expanding production, restructuring a business, the management of the enterprise (often with the help of specialists) analyzes business processes, builds business forecasts, etc., i.e. develops a business plan or a shortened version of it - a feasibility study. There are many methods and computer programs for drawing up a business plan.

Often, when developing a project to create or expand an existing business, the procedure for drawing up a business plan is voluntary. However, in Russian legislation there are a number of areas of activity in which drawing up a business plan is mandatory, i.e. a business plan as a document is one of the necessary documents when obtaining a license, permits, quotas, etc. In addition, developing a business plan is often a prerequisite for obtaining a long-term investment loan.

The purpose of this work is to develop a business plan for an enterprise engaged in the production of souvenir products.

During the work, the following tasks were set:

4. Consider the goals, objectives and functions of the business plan;

5. Study methods for assessing the effectiveness and degree of risk of an investment project;

6. Develop a business situation for creating an enterprise engaged in the production of souvenirs.

The relevance of this work is justified by the fact that in the current market situation, without a carefully worked out and comprehensively analyzed business plan, it is impossible to work successfully.

Theoretical foundations of business planning

Goals, objectives and functions of the business plan

A business plan is a detailed, clearly structured and carefully prepared document that describes the goals and objectives that the enterprise needs to solve, how to achieve its goals and the technical and economic indicators of the enterprise and/or project as a result of their achievement.

The main purpose of developing a business plan is to plan the economic activities of an enterprise for the immediate and long-term periods in accordance with market needs and the ability to obtain the necessary resources.

1. obtaining a loan from a bank;

2. change in the form of ownership of the enterprise;

3. receiving foreign investment.

It should be noted that currently in Russia the primary goal of business planning is to attract potential investors and partners to participate in projects.

The task of a business plan is to substantiate the concept of an entrepreneurial proposal, the technical feasibility and economic feasibility of a business, characterized by a set of quantitative data or parameters of a result defined by a goal.

At the same time, the conditions for obtaining the greatest economic effect are taken into account based on forecasting market conditions, developing a marketing strategy, forming financial and organizational policies when implementing a project proposal, and justifying the investment program.

In modern practice, a business plan performs five functions.

The first function is related to the possibility of using it to develop a business strategy. This function is vital during the creation of an enterprise or when developing new areas of activity.

The second function is planning. It allows you to assess the possibilities of developing a new line of activity and control processes within the company.

The third function allows you to attract funds from outside - loans, credits. In modern Russian conditions, it is almost impossible to carry out any significant project without credit resources. However, getting a loan is not easy. The main reason is not so much the problem of high interest rates as the increased non-repayment of loans. In this situation, banks take a whole range of measures to ensure the return of funds, among which the requirements of bank guarantees, real collateral and others should be noted. However, the decisive factor when granting a loan is the presence of a carefully developed business plan.

The fourth function allows you to involve potential partners in the implementation of the enterprise's plans who wish to invest their own capital or their technology into production. Resolving the issue of providing capital, resources or technology is possible only if there is a business plan that reflects the course of development of the enterprise for a certain period of time.

In the practical implementation of business planning as a process, it seems important to adhere to the following principles:

1. flexibility, providing for constant adaptation to changes in the environment in which the enterprise operates;

2. continuity, providing for a “sliding” nature of planning;

3. communication, which means coordination and integration of efforts (everything should be interconnected and interchangeable);

4. interactivity, which provides for the creative nature of planning and repeated elaboration of already compiled sections of the plan;

5. multivariance, providing for the choice of the best of the alternative possibilities for the goal;

6. participation, suggesting the importance of the planning process itself from the point of view of involving all possible participants in the future organization;

Structure and main sections of a business plan

A typical business plan contains 11 sections.

1. A summary (abstract) is a shortened version of the business plan itself, containing information about the goals of the investment project, as well as general conclusions from all subsequent chapters.

2. Description of the product/service. Here it is necessary to talk about what goods or services the company plans to provide, note how variable the demand for the product is, and prove why this product is necessary for the consumer.

3. Sales market. This section describes the target market, describes its model, and discusses the main trends. The planned sales volume is also stated here.

4. Assessing competitors. The section logically follows from the previous one and characterizes the main competitors within the selected target segment, their strategy, advantages and disadvantages. A SWOT analysis is also carried out.

5. Marketing strategy. This section involves formulating marketing goals and what measures will be taken to achieve them.

6. Production plan. This chapter describes the production process - from premises to personnel and equipment. In fact, the main objective of this section is to clearly prove that the company is able to actually produce the required quantity of goods within the given time frame and with the appropriate quality.

7. Organizational plan. This section provides a list of required specialists, indicating their qualifications and functions, and describes the organizational structure of the company.

8. Legal plan. In this section it is necessary to indicate who will be the founder of the organization, when and where the organization is registered (or will be registered), as well as its legal status.

9. Financial plan. Contains financial calculations for the enterprise. Particular attention in this section is paid to profitability indicators (payback period, simple and internal rate of return, etc.). All calculations are performed based on the information provided in previous chapters.

10. Risk analysis. This section describes possible risks arising during the implementation of the project and ways to reduce them, if any.

11. Financing strategy. This chapter should outline the essence of the enterprise’s investment policy, describe and justify how much funds are needed to implement the project, from what sources, etc.

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