A Business plan is a documented approach towards starting a new business and making it profitable. A business plan outlines the central idea upon which the business is built (also called as Business Idea), and a detailed plan to convert this idea into a viable, profitable business.

You can have a great idea, something nobody would have thought of, but if you want to make it a commercial success you should have an appropriate business plan. A business plan is a detailed roadmap for all the required activities (promotion, sales, marketing, supply chain, vendor management, HR management and financial management) in order to run a smooth business.

All business organizations, new or old, create a business plan in order to have a clear vision of what they want to achieve in coming years and what should be done in order to accomplish it.

Creating a business plan is even more important for start up business. Start ups are high on entrepreneurial zest; this combined with accurate business planning will boost the chances of your success. Also the process of creating a business plan, putting everything down on a paper, will make sure that each idea, strategy and policy is well thought over and is refined.

Benefits of a Business Plan:

There are several benefits of a business plan, these includes.

• It helps in determining whether the business model is feasible.
• It provides you an estimated cost of starting the business and capital requirements.
• It helps in identifying resources and operational support required to run the day to day activities.
• It helps identifying the competitors, and creation of strategy to have a competitive edge over the others.
• The financial plan within the business plan will tell you whether it’s practical to venture in this business. 
• The business plan will help you plan ahead for any eventuality.
• It helps in identifying advertising, sales and marketing strategy in order to reach the target audience. 
• It helps in identifying a potential problem and seeking an early solution to it. 

Business plan is a proven method for achieving your business goals; you can also present it to a prospective investor. Without having an apt business plan it is very difficult to convince a potential investor to invest in your business. Whereas having a business plan make you look much more professional and organized which helps in getting funding for you business.

If you are starting a new business, it vital that you have a well written business plan, It not only helps in securing funding for your business but it also helps improving your own confidence about your business , about what you want to do. Starting a new business without a business plan is like venturing in the ocean without having any sense of direction. The business plan provides you roadmap to set out; as your business grows you may modify the business plan to suit new opportunities and to face new challenges. But to begin with it’s always worthwhile to have a business plan. 

This is a guest post on behalf of Smarta.com – Choose from over 500 free business plan templates and tools.