Business plans are needed in many circumstances:
- General planning by management
- Expansion
- Bank financing
- Equity financing
- Succession planning
- Mergers
- Any other kind of business transition
Business plans help management:
- refine and focus their thinking
- articulate their propositions to financial and other stakeholders.
The business planning process often involves a valuation. In fact a valuation is often the best starting point for business planning inasmuch as a valuation seeks to quantify both the business opportunities and the risks, both of which attributes will be of interest to investors and lenders to the business.
Keys to a successful plan:
- There is no “one size fits all” in business planning
- A successful business plan will articulate all the important opportunities and risks in the business.
- The plan should be realistic and persuasive.
- Third party specialist consultants can contribute their independent perspective and expertise to various components of the plan but…
- Owners and management should have recognized expertise in at least one component of the plan.
- Owners and management should always have the first and last input into their business plan. It is critical that owners and management “own” the plan.
- Owners and management should be able to present the completed plan to potential investors without the assistance of the consultants that helped to write the plan.
MVI has the skills and a network of other professional specialists to ensure that the best possible advice is always available to clients.