After concepting your business idea, it is important to plan through every phase of your business establishment. This step is not wish procedure; it takes time, careful and unbiased analysis of your business. You have to be sure no ends are lose. It is advisable to discuss it with a trusted mentor who can give a clear and unbiased opinion too.
After initiating your business idea, the next thing to do is:
2. Plan for your business.After successfully deter
mining its viability in the market, it is time to plan this business project.
Here, observe carefully all the basic steps of project management as you plan through your business. You will start from the beginning and plan your way through:
Determine the total package for your business. If it is a service line, what and how many services are you offering; if a product based, what and how many products. It is necessary to set out with as few product or service as possible, and later expand your business scope. This will help keep things simple and manageable, especially as you may be in need of competent HR and capital resources. The scope plan helps you put things in perspective and remove speculations. Here, you are clear on what you are truly after in the market. You will also document your core values, business delivery pattern here. Ensure you write them down.
Take your written business scope and break it down into smaller activities which you can handle in bits. After this, you will now determine the precedence of each activity which should be done before which, etc.). Set a realistic time frame to each activity, in the end, you will have a clear set time frame for your business setup phase, showing the relationship existing between business activities and more importantly, their precedence.
Determine the total financial need for your business. The detailed activities done earlier will help you plan more adequately for financial needs. Also, you should detail where you intend to raise it from (personal savings, bank loans, family support, etc.) this is an important step of your business setup plan as no business can be created efficiently without finance. You need to be very straight and precise here. Determine a realistic time frame to raise the financial capital.
This is arguably the most important factor to consider. While initial publicity can get clients to pay a first-time visit, only the quality of your product or service can retain them of course supported by the service delivery system-customer relations and management setup on ground). What you do here is to determine from onset, the level of quality to build into your business and take the time to build it in. be sure you have all you need to pursue this before embarking on it. For instance, are you trained enough, do you possess the needed skill, experience and education needed to sustain quality etc. Further, you need to also determine the level and way through which customers are attended to—operational control and means of service/product delivery. Fine tune the business structure again to accommodate customer retention plans.
This is probably not new to you. First, define what roles the HR will play in your business. Define the needed qualification, experience and other necessary factors the HR need to function adequately. Determine where and how to get them in. make a get-them-in move and set up your HR structure. In doing this, please note:
- HR is very crucial to the business and the right performance is important to your business surviving
- Only plan for HR at this stage if what needs be done cannot be covered by you due to series of activities or lack of necessary qualification and training/exposure. HR can be expensive to maintain.
Ask: what can go wrong? Note the number of factors that can possibly go wrong and work to stave them. This is why this planning process is important. Reconsider your initial SWOT analysis. Develop in details, your strengths and weaknesses, the existing opportunities and threats in the market. Understand that irrespective of how tamper-proof your plans may seem, a singular risk factor ignored can potentially ruin your entire business setup and steep you in debt.
Much work is not expected here, but this is an important aspect of your business as it covers: the way you, your business and staff communicate with all stakeholders: suppliers, clients and customers, other businesses etc. The medium through which you coordinate and communicate your business existence to potential clients through marketing and publicity channels is important too.
Your stakeholder is all who will be affected, served or influenced by your business. This includes potential sponsors, suppliers, clients staff and even you (if your business is to be an entity limited by shares). You need to be clear on your stakeholders list. Determine if you will need partners later on, determine where you will get supplies where needed), define in fuller details, your customer demography. Also mind to create a clear list of your competitors here to help you redefine strategies from time to time.
This is covered in Stakeholders’ management. It is basically about the suppliers, who they are, where they are, the best price that does not compromise quality in the market for your raw materials. It is important to have more than one supplier and supplying market or location.
- Integration (putting it all together):
This is where you sum the complete plan together as a single entity. The plan summed up, should highlight these in any order:
- Total (at least the basics) business activities to be conducted.
- Exacted/expected time of setup completion, showing precedence and inter-dependence of business activities.
- Clear description of financial implications, including likely sources for financing.
- List of other needs such as HR, customer demography, etc.
Basic Business Setup Activities
The first phases of business establishment are pretty consistent and common to all business.
Below is a list of activities generally common to all SMEs. Think on these when setting up your own business. They vary according to business setup need, product, environment and market.
- Business Registration with CAC (or government body of your country) and Bank Account setup.
- Operational Location (Home or Office Space)
- Operational needs such as dedicated business line, complementary cards, letterheads etc.
- Brand need-logo design, colour choice etc.
- Marketing plan: route (on-ground or online); medium; materials (fliers, banners, speakers etc.)
- Product/Service Management and administration plan: reliable raw material supplies, skill resources, staffing plan etc.
Others are:
- Website creation and management.
- Product reassembling and management
