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Business Planning Guidance Notes What is a business plan? A business plan is one of the most important documents that anyone starting a business or running one needs to produce. It describes your business in detail and suggests how it might progress in the future. Your plan details your aims and objectives and your organisation and sets out how you plan, manage, develop and sustain your childcare provision. What are the benefits of developing a business plan? Concentrates your thinking, transfers your thoughts to paper and keeps them all in one place Make you ask questions and do the necessary research Helps you make decisions and plan resources Explores whether a new business is viable Helps guide employees and managers Act as a Blueprint for the future – map for progress Helps you obtain financial support Highlights areas for development Planning requires communication which helps you work as a team Helps identify and understand your competitors Helps discover strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats Sets out your proposed project in numbers What does the plan need to be? Simple, accurate, realistic, concise and easily understood Looked at regularly Monitored and adapted if circumstances change It is a living, breathing document! Who might help develop the plan? People who might be involved in developing the plan include: Management Employees Children Parents Business Partners Accountant Business Consultant Volunteers, etc It is a working document for everyone. THE PLANNING PROCESS 1. Where are we now? Market Research Business Health Check SWOT Analysis 2. Where would we like to be? Objectives/goals 3. How are we going to get there? Strategy Action plans Forecast 4. How do we ensure we get there? Evaluation Monitoring and Control Key actions before you start to plan Before you start to plan, gather as much evidence as you can to help discover ‘where you are now.’ To do this you can use the following tools: Market Research - Conduct market research to gather information on customers, competitors, local and national markets. Business Health Check Tool – complete a Business Health Check questionnaire which is a workbook that contains simple questions for childcare businesses that can be used to build up a picture of their business practices SWOT Analysis - Complete A SWOT analysis, which looks at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats Reviewing these areas and gathering lots of information can help provide a picture of where your business is now and a basis of where it wants to be in the future (aims and objectives)