It is a truism that 'nobody plans to fail but most people fail to plan' - sadly this is often the case for many small and medium sized businesses.

Your business plan needs to be up to date and revisited frequently to be effective planning document. Key elements of the business plan are:

• market research (including up to date information on customers, products, competitors, etc)
• financial projections - Profit and Loss (P&L), Balance sheet and cashflow projections (many businesses cease trading not because they are unprofitable but because they fail to manage their cash effectively)
• information on the relative profitability of each sector of the business (this is rarely static, and many businesses continue to trade in an area which is fundamentally unprofitable);
• overhead establishment (many businesses cannot accurately measure their overheads, allocate them to different sectors of their business, or forecast what they will be in the future)

If you are writing a new business plan, or are currently operating with an out of date business plan, then please contact us for help.