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3.3
The Business Plan
3.3.3
Marketing Plan
For a winning marketing strategy, you must know all about
your customers, his likes, dislikes and expectations. It
should conceive a process to remain in constant touch with
the customers to collaborate with them. The approach should
be to look from outside in, that is to start from your customers,
determine their requirement and then figure ways to provide
the product or services at a price that they would be willing
to pay.
Once your business stands facing the customer and you have
a broad picture of the marketing strategy in your mind,
you will need to spell it out in detail here. Consider all
the traditional 4Ps of product marketing and the 7Ps of
services marketing. You must specify the competitive advantage
that you intend to build, your value proposition, the price
point for your product or service, the target market, the
delivery mechanism, your estimate of sales etc. While giving
estimates of the sales, list your assumptions clearly and
explain how you reached your estimates. Address the forces
at work in your industry, the basic trends and growth over
time.
Depending on the nature of your business, you will have
to examine different sales promotion avenues like advertisement,
exhibitions, road shows, word of mouth and so on. You will
also have to consider different ways of selling methods
to be used, invoicing, credit policy, customer records etc.
Think about the possible ways to leverage the internet in
your business. Be aware of the opportunities afforded by
the world wide web, the email and other digital tools. Since
internet has a huge application potential, be specific about
how you plan to use it. Some of the areas where it can be
of use are: information gathering, training, external communication,
marketing and sales, purchasing and recruitment etc.
Remember, the market today is loaded in favour of the customer.
There is over capacity across the industries. It is easier
to find a product than a customer. The customer today is
much more informed and empowered than ever before and can
not be taken for granted or influenced easily. So it is
your marketing plan that will make or break your business.
3.3.4
Operations Plan
This plan gives details about the internal operations and
processes of the company. Being a startup, you would not
expect to be fully operational from day one. Therefore,
you may include a time schedule for specific operational
steps in your plan. Following subjects need to be covered
in the operations plan:
3.3.4.1 Organizational Chart
As the name suggest, it gives a graphic view of the number
of persons in the organization and their place in the command
structure of the company. Include all support personnel
like accountants, secretaries also in the plan even though
they may be provided by ICED.
3.3.4.2
Capital Purchases
Describe the requirement for equipment or special software
required along with its cost. Explain the purpose of the
chosen equipment and why it was chosen over other equivalent
system. Mention whether you propose to purchase or lease
it and why. Include all items including office equipment,
computers etc. even though they may be provided by ICED.
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