Gathering the Right Data

Business plans are only as effective as the data on which they are based. One of the worst things
that can happen to executives is to have prospective investors or lenders discover important
information about a company’s industry, market, or technology that should have been in the
business plan.
The writing process becomes much easier - and quicker -if certain data is available before
writing begins. Then writing does not have to be interrupted at critical points in order to gather
essential information. The key data includes the following:

Company Description 
 
Name
Legal form
Location
Financial highlights
Shareholders

Management and Organization

Organization chart
Key management
Board of Directors
Consultants and advisors
Compensation and other employee agreements
Other shareholders, rights and resolutions

Market and Competitors

Market statistics
Competitor data
Market and customer surveys

Product or Services

Product literature and technical specifications
Contracts and/or purchase orders
Competitive advantages
Patent, license, and trademarks
Regulatory approvals or industry standards
Operations plan
Research and development plans

Marketing and Sales

Marketing plan
Marketing vehicles
Marketing materials

Financial Information

Financial statements for up to past five years
Financial forecasts and projections and assumptions
Amount and timing of needed funding

You may choose to add other sections, depending upon the requirements of your company. A more detailed checklist of data that you will need to support the written plan is found in Appendix B.

Outlining the   Plan

You should organize your business plan in clearly defined sections covering the different
aspects of the company. Putting together an outline forces executives to come to some early
decisions about what will be where in the business plan. For example, carelessly organized
plans often describe the market for a product in the same section as the product description,
or describe the product in the market section. Outlining also requires the executives to
understand the necessary level of detail that should be included in the plan.

comes to business plans,

When it comes to business plans,one size does not fit all. Business plans take many sizes and
forms. All of them, however, have certain purposes in common. They must describe the
product and service to be sold, its market, and how the product will be made or the service
performed. If the plan is intended for external use, it will usually describe who is involved in
the company, how much money the company needs and how the funds will be spent, the form
the proposed financing will take and, most important, how the investors will make a return on
their investment.
All business plans must accomplish these things in a clear, concise, and convincing way.
That is, the reader must come to understand the business and feel confident that the plan’s
objectives are achievable. Given that all plans must have these common attributes, it is
important to properly prepare for the writing process. It is not advisable simply to begin
writing and expect that everything will fall into place. There are four important steps for
preparation: (1) gathering the right data; (2) outlining the plan; (3) determining the kind of
plan; and (4) designating responsibilities.

INTERNAL USES FOR THE PLAN

A business plan is an important management tool. It enables management to plan company growth and to anticipate changes in a structured way. Executives sometimes argue that it is
useless to write a business plan because the marketplace is changing so rapidly that any plan
is quickly outdated. While it is certainly true that change is a matter of course, the process of
preparing a business plan is at least as important as the plan itself. It forces management to
think through the business in detail and to set objectives. And it allows benchmarks to be set,
against which the company’s future performance can be measured.

Perhaps most important, the business plan commits the entire management team to the same goals. The process of working out the plan’s objectives invariably forces executives to reconcile different visions of where the company stands and where it is headed.

A written business plan can be an important internal document for companies with multiple
locations and operations. Top management can monitor the business plans not only to be
certain that formal planning is occurring, but also to determine whether the finished plans
are consistent with long-term financial and market goals.

EXTERNAL USES FOR THE PLAN

The business plan is a company’s first-line tool for obtaining funding and other types of
outside support. Some examples are discussed below.

Investment Funds Private equity investors and venture capital firms will ordinarily not consider backing a company that does not have a written plan. Investors are seeking evidence of high growth. In addition, they want to know how they will realize their investment returns, whether through a public offering, sale of the company, or management buyback.

To assess the likelihood of high returns, investors look hard at the following:

•  The track records of the company, the market, and the key executives

•  The feasibility of achieving the forecasts

•  The uniqueness of the product and its technology

•  The quality of the management.

Bank Financing Bankers have traditionally focused on when and how the principal and
interest will be repaid and the availability of collaterial to cover any loan losses. As such, loan
application packages tended to consist of little more than past and current financial statements. However, bankers are putting more emphasis on how a company would survive
possible setbacks. As such many bankers are requiring business plans be included in a loan
applicable package. Also, a high quality business plan can help a company stand out favorably
in today’s intense competition for loan funds.

Strategic Alliances These arrangements covering joint research, product development,
and marketing have become increasingly vital for young, growing companies. The arrangement often includes a combination of financial backing and access to well-established
distribution channels. The joint efforts may last three years or more. Major corporations
invariably want to examine a company’s business plan before committing themselves to such
long-term arrangements.

Mergers and Acquisitions As companies increasingly look to acquisitions as a means of
expansion, and to divestitures as a means of gaining liquidity, business plans become more
necessary. Companies seeking acquisition candidates typically use the candidates' business
plans as one of their first screening tools. Similarly, if the managers of an acquisition candidate
want to stay on after an acquisition, they will probably be extremely interested in the long-term plans of the acquirer.

Customer and Distributor Relationships For many growth companies, obtaining a large
customer or gaining a commitment from a major distributor can be an important milestone.
Large, well-known organizations are often reluctant to enter into arrangements with
companies that are an unknown entity. A convincing business plan can help to dispel doubts.

GROWTH COMPANY SERVICES

A successful business plan is a document that conveys the exciting prospects and growth potential of your company. It might be best viewed as a selling document. It sells the business to potential financial and other backers. By effectively selling the business as a whole, a business plan makes a strong case for specific projects. For instance, a plan may be used to seek funding to cover the expenses associated with developing and marketing a new product. Or it may be intended to secure a bank loan for additional manufacturing equipment.
Just as advertising and promotional material sell a company, so should a business plan -though in a more straightforward, organized, and detailed way. Thus, a business plan should not only emphasize the strengths of a company, but also be realistic about its problems, risks and obstacles, while offering solutions to these issues. To accomplish its goals, a business plan must do the following:

•  Discuss the company’s goals for the near-term and long-term future 

• Show how the goals can be achieved

•  Demonstrate that realization of the plan will satisfy the reader’s requirements.

The Business Case for Perforce SCM

Software Confi guration Management Delivers A Competitive Advantage

What Is SCM?

Today’s complex application development environments demand SCM to track and manage the development process. SCM provides a central repository where all software artifacts such as source code, documentation, and digital assets are stored to maintain and reproduce each iteration accurately.Although the software industry has been using SCM for many years, other industries are fi nally recognizing its importance. From chip design to game development, and web design to fi lmmaking,any company that has digital content can track its evolution with SCM.


How SCM Reduces Cost and Manages Risk

Gartner, Forrester Research, and IDC—the major research fi rms that monitor the SCM market—all agree on the business demands fueling the need for improved change management.“With the dot-com collapse, IT lost its magical aura,” says Jim Duggan, an analyst at Gartner.
“Management is now interested in getting better at change control and governance.

According to META Group, key business benefi ts of SCM are better quality, faster delivery, and easier modifi cation of enterprise systems, as well as more fl exible management, and support of mixed on/offshore development teams. META Group’s report states, “The complexity of service-oriented,highly distributed systems, combined with the need for greater project control to support regulatory compliance, demand the consistency of enterprise SCM systems to reduce costs and manage risks.” Supporting geographically dispersed project teams of both internal and external developers is also an important factor, according to META. “This will become more essential as organizations continue to supplement external staff with offshore and other outsourced programming staff.”  IDC agrees that the demand for SCM tools will remain strong as organizations seek to improve their software development processes to meet business demands for higher productivity and improved time to market, in the face of ongoing IT budget constraints.

SCM Aids Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance

The benefi ts of using an SCM system become particularly apparent in light of Sarbanes- Oxley requirements, because having the ability to answer whodunit-type questions applies not just to source code.The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 promotes new standards for the fi nancial reporting of public companies, and sets up a policing mechanism to ensure those standards are adhered to. Auditors who measure a company’s effectiveness in meeting these standards have become more sophisticated in their understanding of the necessary controls IT departments need for compliance. Auditors need to know “Who changed what?”, “When did they do it?”, “Who approved the change?”, and “Why?”


Customers Discuss the Business Benefi ts of Using Perforce

More than 230,000 developers at 4,200 organizations worldwide use the Perforce SCM System to manage their digital assets. Notable U.S. customers include AMD, Electronic Arts, National Instruments, QUALCOMM, NVIDIA, Symantec, and Washington Mutual. International customers include BBC News Online, Deutsche Bank, and Symbian.The business benefi ts of Perforce can best be illustrated by the success stories we’ve heard from our customers. We next showcase two case studies to illustrate the value of Perforce to our customers.

The Perforce Approach to Business

Perforce Software was founded in 1995. Now, as then, their commitment to speed still drives the company in the development of its reliable Fast SCM System. The Perforce SCM System features comprehensive SCM capabilities built around a scalable client/server architecture. Perforce can be deployed quickly and easily, and requires minimal administration even for large or distributed sites. Perforce promises honest, straightforward dealing, and a product that meets both the technical needs of your staff and the business needs of your organization.
Ultimately, your team needs to evaluate our product. Perforce offers a free, fully functional version directly from our website. We encourage prospective customers to take advantage of our expert technical support.


Perforce SCM: Low Cost of Ownership

One of the barriers to adopting a new SCM system is the high cost of most systems, both in terms of the up-front purchase price as well as the ongoing maintenance and administration. Perforce is unique in that it combines an affordable up-front purchase price with low administrative and support costs.

All-Inclusive Purchase Price
 
Perforce is $800 per user for the complete solution, which includes its distributed development technology. Pricing is all-inclusive; there are no add-on components that require licensing. The purchase price covers support and software upgrades for the fi rst year. Perforce offers cumulative pricing tiers. The per-user price is based on the cumulative number of users purchased by an organization, not just the number in any one order.

Minimal Administration


The Perforce Server is easy to install and administer. No third-party databases or application servers are required. User authentication is supported for external data sources such as LDAP and Active Directory. One part-time administrator can typically manage a Perforce installation of hundreds of users.

Expert Technical Support

Expert and responsive technical support is a hallmark of Perforce and a key component of the
Perforce proposition. The support staff are highly knowledgeable—no outsourcing, no scripted
responses—and take great pride in rapid response times. As a result, Perforce technical support receives enthusiastic praise from customers every day.

Business and Legal Studies

BA (HONS) BUSINESS AND LEGAL STUDIES PROVIDES A SOUND FOUNDATION IN BOTH THE BUSINESS AND THE LEGAL WORLD,TWO AREAS OF ESSENTIAL KNOWLEDGE FOR MODERN BUSINESS OPERATIONS.

Many aspects of business have legal implications and the focus of our legal studies is very much on business-related subject areas. Those who can display knowledge across these fields are much sought after.Throughout the programme you develop both your academic knowledge and practical skills. The course is a four-year sandwich degree. Year three of the programme is a placement year.


CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
 
Graduates follow a variety of career paths, including going on to work as company secretary, or working as an employment law specialist in Human Resource Management, in both public and private industry and commerce. The programme provides an excellent base from which to follow a career in business management, or indeed to starting your own business.This is not a qualifying Law degree, but instead offers a choice of career routes to someone who does not want to become a solicitor or barrister but who does want to work in the legal environment.


PLACEMENT

In the third year of the Business and Legal Studies degree students undertake a business placement. This highly recommended 48-week placement year is highly valued by students and employers alike. Placements are paid and can be taken throughout the UK and the rest of the world.



IS THIS THE RIGHT COURSE FOR ME?

Business and Legal Studies provides an excellent all round business education. This programme suits best those who wish to gain an understanding of the relationship between the legal environment and also wish to gain a good understanding of all areas of business.The course is designed for those students who may not immediately wish to go into professional legal practice.

TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT

Business and Legal Studies employs a wide range of teaching and learning methods. These include lectures, seminars, workshops and tutorials. You are encouraged to develop as independent learners, supported by a variety of facilities including extensive library provision, on-line databases, CD-Rom, technology and full Internet access.Assessment involves both continuous assessment and end test methods. The majority of modules in the Business and Legal Studies Programme use a significant proportion of continuous assessment.Group work is also a key aspect of teaching and learning in the Business School. In order to satisfy the requirements of the professional bodies who grant exemptions, certain modules require formal examination.