business planning for small to mid-sized enterprises

Business Planning for Small to Mid-Sized

Enterprises

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Table of Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................................... 3 What your business plan should look like .............................................................................................. 4 The Strategic Plan ............................................................................................................................................... 4 The Annual Business Plan ................................................................................................................................ 4

Chapter 1: Why do businesses need to plan? ......................................................... 5

Chapter 2: The business planning process: document, measure, share ................... 8 Documenting your business plan ............................................................................................................... 8 Setting targets and measuring performance ....................................................................................... 10 Sharing your business plan ......................................................................................................................... 13

Chapter 3: Four key features of a good business plan ........................................... 15 Relevant content .............................................................................................................................................. 15 Frank and honest appraisal of resources .............................................................................................. 15 Competitive environment ............................................................................................................................. 17 SWOT analysis ................................................................................................................................................... 17 Budget ................................................................................................................................................................... 18

Pressure testing the plan .............................................................................................................................. 18

Chapter 4: JPAbusiness Annual Business Plan Template ....................................... 21

Disclaimer: The information contained in this eBook is general in nature and should not be taken as personal, professional advice. Readers should make their own inquiries and

obtain independent advice before making any decisions or taking any action.




Introduction

Comments by James Price JPAbusiness Pty Ltd

Is the push for planning a recent phenomenon – a post-WWII concept devised and encouraged by business advisors to give them a reason for being? Or is there a little more to it than that?

A look back through the history books (or Google!) will reveal that planning has underpinned successful civilisations for thousands of years, from China’s earliest dynasties, to the highly structured societies of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome.

Often when I talk to a business owner about planning they either think of the DA process associated with getting a commercial development rezoned, or the process of having a building application approved for a new warehouse or premises.

Either that, or their eyes glaze over and they come out in a cold sweat!

“Planning? Oh no! Do we really need to talk about that?”

Often, planning simply isn’t on their radar of practical things one needs to do to run a business.

But, if you think about it, the successful civilisations have been doing it since day one.




What your business plan should look like

There are two main plans a business will have:

1. A strategic plan 2. An annual business plan

The Strategic Plan The Strategic Plan shows the strategic direction of the business and will usually cover a period of one to five years.

I like a Strategic Plan to focus on a period of three years because, in today’s volatile world, things get a little hazy after three years.

The Strategic Plan gives context to the people within the business as to where the business is tracking overall, for example:

• what business lines we’re focusing on; • what markets we’re looking at; • what product range we’re looking at; • where we’re going, and • how we intend to get there over that period.

The Annual Business Plan The Annual Business Plan will then say righto, within that context, how am I going to operate for the next 12 months?

• What’s going to be my operational focus? • What’s going to be my financial focus? • What’s going to be my risk focus? • What’s going to be my people management focus?

The Annual Business Plan should be in the minds of your whole team.

If they’re meeting on a monthly basis as a management team, or as supervisors, the meeting should refer to elements of the plan because that is the context point around why they’re doing what they’re doing.

In this eBook we’re going to focus on the process of creating Annual Business Plans.




Chapter 1: Why do businesses need to plan?

Step one in the business planning process is to simply get over the feeling that planning is not critical to how you run your business.

Another error when we talk about planning is that it conjures images of a weighty document, probably gathering dust, that is put together by a consultant or someone in the business once a year, and is never referenced beyond that.

That is not what business planning is about.

Business plans can be written on the back of an envelope, if necessary. But, more importantly, they must be:

• referenced regularly; • shared with others, and • pressure tested.

We'll talk about those concepts in depth a little later.




A key insight

Some years ago I was given a key business insight by a successful retailer, a client with 40 years’ experience running newsagencies in regional NSW.

He said: ‘Don’t focus on what you can’t influence. Put the majority of your time and effort into what you can influence and you’ll find things will flow.’

He recognised as a business owner there are a bunch of things we can’t control – so why bother about them?

Of course you should be aware of them, but really focus your efforts on the things you can influence and control on a day-to-day basis.

That’s what planning is all about: influencing the things you can influence, and taking account of the things you can’t.

The latter are risks or opportunities that may or may never eventuate. By changing the things you can change, you can position yourself to take advantage of opportunities should they arise, or mitigate risks that might flow.

Can you plan for every scenario?

When considering the things you can’t influence, there is a concept which I call ‘long tail risk’.

Tail risk is a common term in investment circles and refers to the risk of an asset or portfolio of assets moving more than three standard deviations from its current price.

In more general terms, tail risk can also refer to the risk of rare or unexpected events – so-called ‘black swan events’. Things like 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, the Sendai earthquake in Japan, the Ebola and SARS viruses, are long tail risks.

The GFC, for example, was an enormous event that turned the world inside out, but it wasn’t in many people’s plans.

The businesses that had planned for the unexpected – even if they didn’t predict the GFC itself – are among the ones that survived.




Plan to protect yourself

Businesses that survived the GFC include companies in the mining sector that went into the crisis with a strong balance sheet and not a lot of debt.

Those companies had been conservative in their planning to ensure they had the ability to draw up equity in the event of a difficult circumstance.

Those are the companies that are still around today and they are also the companies that bought distressed mining assets in the wake of the crisis.

Similarly, many Australian tourism companies went broke when Asia was closed to them during the SARS epidemic, because they didn’t have a buffer.

They hadn’t thought about the impacts of such black swan events.

The survivors were solid companies which, in their business planning, were focusing on how to they protect themselves in the event of a risk.

They didn’t know it was going to be the SARS virus, they didn’t know how extreme it was going to be, but, relative to others, they were thinking through the planning process.

The moral of the story…

We can’t avoid catastrophe, but business planning will make your business as robust as possible.

If you don’t plan and something happens that you’re not prepared for, then you’ll need to plan to get things back on track.

So, why not just plan from the start?




Chapter 2: The business planning process: document, measure, share

Documenting your business plan

As I said before, there is almost a phobia about business plans because they are seen as thick documents compiled once a year, gathering dust on a shelf and not being utilised.

To be frank, as a business advisor, I’m not fussed as to the level of documentation you give your plan.

Later in this eBook we’ll provide a template showing the core items to include when putting together an annual plan for your business, or for an opportunity within your business.

The final document may be 10 pages, 30 pages or one page long. It may be in the form of notes and minutes taken at a participative meeting with key customers, staff, suppliers and financiers.

My point is that the physical appearance of a plan is far less important than its substance.




Size doesn’t matter…much

I strongly believe a good business plan can be contained on one page.

You can even plan on the back of an envelope and be effective and, yes, I’ve had a number of clients with multi-million dollar businesses who’ve done exactly that.

The challenge, however, comes when their businesses get bigger, i.e. beyond 15 or 20 staff.

At this stage some have wondered why some team members don’t share their vision or why it’s hard to get staff to focus on the things that matter…to them!

The reason is they haven’t been good at communicating and involving those people in the planning process, and the direction and outcomes for the business.

That’s why you see businesses grow to a point and then struggle for a period – they don’t have the knowledge of how an active planning process cankeep a business motoring on in a growth trajectory.

To do that effectively you do need something more significant than a one-page, or back-of-the-envelope, plan.

Three core concepts of an annual business plan

Whatever the size, your document should include the three core concepts of a business plan, which are:

1. Where is the business now?2. Where do we want the business to be in the future?3. How are we going to marshal the resources we have and which we can

influence to get there?




Setting targets and measuring performance

We like business plans that have no more than five annual targets for the business.

These five annual targets may be broken down into monthly or quarterly targets that address the key elements in a plan.

So there might be something associated with:

• Customers • Financial return • Quality • Risk • Business value

I’m not going to be prescriptive because each business will be different. For example, targets appropriate for a five-year-old business in its initial growth phase are different to the targets appropriate for a 30-year-old business.

Tracking your performance

To track or not to track? Again, this goes back to the concept of a plan sitting on the office shelf gathering dust.

The view I provide our clients is that unless you’re prepared to track the progress of your plan against actual performance, you might as well forget the concept of planning.

This is where you keep yourself honest as a business owner or senior manager within a SME.



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Performance measurement timetable

The different targets and things you measure will need to be considered at different times.

For example, the issues relating to business value may only be looked at once a year.

However, other measures, such as risk and business development, customer service, quality or financial measures, people capability would normally be looked at either monthly or quarterly.

Some businesses will look at them in real time, either daily or weekly.

I don’t want to be prescriptive about that, as too many activity-based measures too often can be detrimental to business performance – focusing on the ‘outcome’ is the key.

Ensure your measurements are timely

When looking at plan performance versus actuals, you need a reporting system that delivers the actuals in a timely manner.

So if you’re looking at monthly profit as a plan measure versus a target you’ve set in the business plan, it’s no good looking at August’s profit on the 25th of September. It’s too late then, because you’re not able to do anything about it.

If you’re going to look at that measure you need the figures within seven days of end of month, or sooner, because then you can make management decisions based on how you’re performing versus the plan.

So, again, the planning process allows you to drive focus on your reporting and management systems and the way your staff are assisting you with those.




Who needs to be involved in the measurement process?

There are a number of stakeholders, including your banker and staff, who will be interested to know how you’re tracking relative to your plan.

Monitoring your progress will allow you to give them certainty and confidence, or transparency, on where things are going and why they’re going the way they are.

Don’t be too worried if you find the business is not sticking exactly to the plan.

It’s often said that a good budget, or a good plan, is wrong the day it’s written. That is correct to a degree, because you operate in a dynamic environment.

A plan is only an estimate of where you think you’ll be based on the things you can influence, but also taking account as best you can of the things you can’t influence.

The beauty of the tracking process is that it forces you as a business owner to ask the important questions of yourself and your team:

• Why are we here versus where we expected to be in the plan? • What’s changed that we didn’t expect? • What’s better, what’s worse, what does that mean for the business and

what we’re doing?

It institutionalises that questioning process that goes so deeply to enhance business performance, because it’s a dynamic, active process.

Questioning gives life to your plan on a regular basis.




Sharing your business plan

A business plan is important for you as a business owner to protect and build the strength of your business, however there are other stakeholders around your business for whom the plan is also important.

These are people who rely on your business and have expectations that it will continue to perform.

In private businesses these are often investors, shareholders, family members, financiers, banks, staff, employees and customers, particularly in B2B situations.

It’s not good enough as a business owner to be sitting by yourself in a coffee shop and thinking ‘I know where I’m going and that’s my business plan’.

You’re not Robinson Crusoe when you’re in business – you’re not on your own.

To give others confidence in your investment opportunity, your products and services, you need to help them understand where you’re taking your business.




Sharing plan with team offers multiple benefits

A plan is always best shared, because that’s when you get true value and perhaps no greater value than when you share it with your team.

We’ve talked in the past about managing staff for high performance and creating a positive business culture.

You will only have a positive, active, participative culture if you share your plans with your team so they can share your vision for the business’s direction.

By enlisting their input your plan will also be tested. A plan that’s kept in your head is just a good idea. A plan that is communicated, questioned and tested is a true business plan.

Sharing a plan brings it to life.

How much of my plan should I share?

You can use discretion, given confidentiality and sensitivity issues, as to what amount of the plan you share with your stakeholders, but a good plan is shared and pressure tested.

In order for it to be robust, a plan must be looked at and questioned from a number of angles.

We’ll discuss this pressure testing process in more detail in the next chapter.



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Chapter 3: Four key features of a good business plan

Relevant content

A plan’s success may not be dependent on its size, but it is dependent on the relevancy of its content.

Our business planning template, which we’ll present in the next chapter, provides plenty of detail regarding just what content needs to be included in an annual plan.

In this chapter we’re going to look in depth at four of the most important items on that list:

1. Frank and honest appraisal of resources2. Competitive environment

3. SWOT analysis

4. Budget

Frank and honest appraisal of resources

It’s unfortunate, but true, that people often lose sight of their resource capability when creating business plans.

Absolutely critical to a successful business plan is a realistic appraisal of the business’ current resources.

There is an old saying that ‘your eyes are bigger than your belly’, or your appetite, which describes someone who wants more than they can possibly eat.

It’s a fitting metaphor for the business owner whose business plan looks like a Christmas wish list!

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Often I see business plans with very, very long action lists, with a copious amount of things to do, yet few details on how those actions are to be achieved.

A good plan will assess the available resources within a business and be realistic about what’s achievable and what really matters, versus what might be nice to do.

When I’m talking about resources I’m talking about a few different things, which include:

• Cash flow • Access to finance or equity • People expertise and capability • Existing systems and processes

within the business to support the change process that might flow from the plan

So be honest with yourself.

Yes, sometimes our eyes are bigger than appetite, so really focus on what you need to do to deliver to the broader objectives of the business in terms of:

• building its value; • achieving the required return on your investment, and • delivering your value proposition to your customers.

You need to get rid of the noise and a good planning process will do just that; it will sift out the things that don’t really matter or that are distractions from your main game.

If you don’t know where you are now, it’s very hard to figure out where to go.

A good self-assessment audit, perhaps with the assistance of an external, independent advisor, is useful for understanding your current situation.




Competitive environment

Another important piece of relevant information to include in a business is your competitive environment.

An examination of your current competitive environment will include:

• Who is doing what in your market? • Trends and issues in your market. • What do your competitors look like? • What is your point of difference and competitive advantage? • If you don’t have a competitive advantage, can you identify one you

would like to migrate to?

SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) is an important part of a plan. It’s rudimentary, but it allows you to think through the things impacting your business.

Like the resources self-audit, it helps you recognise your key strengths and weaknesses, but it also encourages you to think about the things you can and cannot influence.

It encourages you to ask ‘what opportunities lie ahead for me in the timeframe of the plan’ and, equally important, ‘what are the risks’?

You might not foresee the long tail risks – in fact, if you lay awake thinking about them it will probably divert you from the main game of running the business and thinking about the things you can influence – but you do need to consider potential risks.

These could include:

• Is there a risk of a new market entrant into your industry? • Is there a risk a new distribution platform will impact the

competitiveness of other players versus yourself? • Is there a risk of cheaper, more competitive imports flooding your

market?




Budget

The final relevant piece of content in a plan relates to the actions you’ve detailed and the changes you want to make.

These actions need to be represented by a financial budget that provides for the resourcing of the plan, over its time period.

This budget will include projections relating to business growth from existing customers as well as growth from new customers, and how that’s going to developed and resourced.

Pressure testing the plan

You’re lying in bed, in the middle of the night, and you have a great idea for your business. Right now, in the comfort of your own home, this idea looks awesome!

But what about in the cold light of day, surrounded by your team, your customers, your suppliers? Do they think it’s awesome?

We talked earlier about the importance of sharing your plan to ensure your stakeholders have certainty and confidence about how you’re sailing your ship, and also to ensure your team members are on board with your vision.

The other critical reason we share a plan is to have it ‘pressure tested’ by our stakeholders and to seek their input.




Substantiate your claims

All the ‘relevant content’ you’ve included in your plan needs to be pressure tested.

As I’ve mentioned before, our eyes can be larger than our appetite, and often a plan can contain some very grandiose projections regarding business development.

For example, a plan may say:

“For the past three years our revenue has grown from $4.8 million to $4.9 million to $5 million. This year we’re planning to grow to $6 million.”

How do you substantiate that claim?

You must justify, in a rigorous way, how that objective is achievable and also consider the risks if you don’t get there.

So the plan may say: “To grow from $5 million to $6 million this year we need to put on two new sales staff and we need to invest in infrastructure to help them get out and target the market.”

The pressure testing process should then include someone asking:

• What if we don’t grow revenue by that much and only make $5 millionthis year?

• We’ve spent an extra quarter of a million dollars on people resourceand associated costs, so what are the implications of that? What arethe risks of that?

• Is that growth actually achievable? What’s the general market growth inthe sector? The general market growth that is projected is 5%, which is$250,000 in extra turnover. We’re saying we’re going to put on an extra$1 million (i.e. 20% growth). Why are we going to be different fromeveryone else – why are we so good?

• Are we actually that good or do we just think we are?

That’s the pressure testing process.



Really good teams in really good businesses have that process incorporated in their psyche, in their culture, in the way they go about things.

Their teams include conservative and considered people and ambitious, assertive and creative people who complement each other. A good planning process allows those characteristics to come to the fore.

Alternatively, some businesses seek external advice and assistance to go through that process and eke out what is a reasonable, conservative, realistic plan, versus an unsubstantiated ambition.

This substantiation will be important for making sure your team members are on board with your plan, but also your financial backers and equity partners. They want to know they’re contributing to a business that has well substantiated plans.




Chapter 4: JPAbusiness Annual Business Plan Template The content of the JPAbusiness Annual Business Plan Template is presented in this eBook, plus the Template is also available as a downloadable pdf on our website.

The Annual Business Plan Template consists of four parts:

Part A: Business and Resources Self-Audit

1. Use the JPAbusiness Business Health Check Template2. Use the JPAbusiness Business Value and Return Calculator3. SWOT analysis4. Customer portfolio5. Top 5 issues and challenges

Part B: Competitive Market Analysis

1. Outline of competitors2. Top 5 trends on competitive factors3. Your point of difference versus main competitors

Part C: Outlook

1. Outcomes, Strategy, Actions and Targets for the next 12 months

Part D: Budget to deliver the Annual Business Plan

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JPAbusiness Pty Ltd Phone: +61 2 6360 0360 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. ABN 62 150 534 099 www.jpabusiness.com.au To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

JPAbusiness Annual Business Plan Template Date:

Name of business: Period of plan:

3-year aim:

PART A: Business and Resources Self-Audit – where is your business now?

Step 1: Use the JPAbusiness Business Health Check Template.

We’ve included the content of the Business Health Check Template on the following pages.

To download a fresh template, click here and the template will open straight up, or visit http://www.jpabusiness.com.au/e-book/jpabusiness-business-health-check-template


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JPAbusiness Business Health Check Template

Rate your business health

When thinking about the state of your business today, please allocate a score of 1, 2 or 3 to the following Business Health Factors (1=below your expectations, 2=meets your expectations, 3=exceeds your expectations).

Please be honest with your rating – your business, its customers and staff, are counting on it!

Business

Health Factors What to consider

Rating

(Circle your choice)

Consistency of business

systems and processes

Consistent business systems and processes ensure regularity

of business performance, which is critical to delivering customer service and efficient outcomes.

1 2 3

Staff performance People are key to driving business performance – are you getting value from your investment in people? Are your

expectations and staff job responsibilities being met?

1 2 3



Business


Rating


Financial performance Are your expectations regarding the financial performance of the business being met? Are you a solvent business (i.e.

consistently meeting current financial commitments), and are you also meeting financial projections and budgets?

1 2 3

Billing, invoicing and debtor

management

Are your customers meeting your payment terms? Are billing processes and follow-up timely and in close proximity to when

services or products are provided or sold?

1 2 3

Cash flow Cash flow is the blood in the veins of your business, allowing

you to operate day to day. Is the blood flow strong or weak? Does the business experience periods of tight or constrained

cash flow that impact day-to-day operations?

1 2 3



Business


Rating


Creditor payments Are you meeting your obligations and commitments to suppliers? Are you meeting your statutory payments to parties

such as the ATO?

1 2 3

Work in progress The strength and diversity of your WIP is a measure of the

business maintainable earnings. Do you have a solid order book into the future?

1 2 3

Job management and project delivery In order to manage risk and meet customer expectations, you need to know exactly where projects are up to, in terms of

scope, delivery and financial processes, such as invoicing.

1 2 3



Business


Rating


Quality of job delivery Are you actively and dynamically measuring the quality outcomes of what you produce/sell/provide? Or do you only

find out about quality when you get a complaint?

1 2 3

Client servicing Are your clients’ expectations being met? Measure this by

seeking feedback from clients, and keep track of repeat business and customer retention.

1 2 3

Organisation and scheduling Do you feel in control of the day-to-day activities your business undertakes? Are tasks planned, scheduled, prioritised?

1 2 3



Business


Rating


Risk management Do you have an active process within the business for identifying and addressing key risks – payment, market,

customer, safety – that may dramatically impact the fortunes of your business?

1 2 3

Staff culture Is your people culture conducive to a positive, open and interactive team environment that is rewarding for the business

and the individuals that work within it?

1 2 3



Business


Rating


Business sustainability and reward for

owners

Are you maintaining and growing the value of your business? Are you getting a decent remuneration as an owner working in

the business for your day-to-day work, and also a return on the funds you have employed? How vulnerable is the business to

outside events?

1 2 3

Business plan and budget/

projections documented for

the current financial year

Successful businesses have a keen eye on the future. They plan

out where the business needs to be at least in the next 12 months (and beyond) and they have a budget and projection for

how that will be achieved.

1 2 3

Total Score…………………



What your results mean:

30 plus If you scored 30 or more, chances are your business has a sound health for the years ahead. You might want to

consider strategic growth opportunities or other refinements to assist with your longer term success.

20 – 30 If you scored between 20 and 30, chances are you’ll be experiencing some aches and pains, either internally with

regards to delivery and performance, from a cash flow or financial perspective, or from other factors. Consider seeking the advice and assistance of an advisor to explore and recommend some remedies.

Below 20 If you scored below 20, chances are it’s time for some significant ‘surgery’. A performance review or other such options,

including restructure, turnaround plan or possible sale or divestment, may need to be considered.



Step 2: Business Value and Return

Use the JPAbusiness Business Value and Return Calculator to help answer the following questions and determine the impact of your expected rate of return on your Implied Business Value:

1. Considering the last 3 years’ financial performance, has your business generated your requiredrate of return?

2. Considering the last 3 years’ performance, what Implied Business Value has your businessshown?

3. What are your expectations around the rate of return your business needs to generate in thecoming 12 months?

Click here to use the calculator, or visit http://jpabusiness.com.au/business-calculators

Your Implied Business Value: $


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Step 3: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – what are they today?

STRENGTHS (you can influence – what you’re good at) OPPORTUNITIES (you may be able to influence)

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

WEAKNESSES (you can influence – internal factors) THREATS (you have limited influence – external factors)

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•



Step 4: Customer Portfolio – for the most recent financial year just past

Summary statement on customers or business line diversity:

Top 5 Customers Income Last FY ($’s) Gross Profit Last FY ($’s)

Debtor Performance (Invoices Outstanding)

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Other

Total



Step 5: The top 5 issues and challenges impacting the growth, development and fortunes of the business in the next 12 months (e.g. internal and external to the business economic conditions, compliance and regulation, people capability, cash flow and working capital etc).

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.



PART B: Competitive Market Analysis

Step 1: Profile the competitive players in your market

Smaller Players Aggressive Players

Name Turnover ($/m) Share of Market (%) Name Turnover ($/m) Share of Market (%)

New Entrants (1-3 years) Big Passive Players

Name Turnover ($/m) Share of Market (%) Name Turnover ($/m) Share of Market (%)



Step 2: The top 5 trends on competitive factors relating directly to your products or services that may impact the business in the next 12 months (e.g. margins, prices, competitors, imports, products, technology, customer needs).

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.



Step 3: What is your Point of Difference versus your main competitors, i.e. why are customers dealing with you ahead of another provider?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.



PART C: Outlook – where do you want your business to be over the next 12 months?

Outcomes Strategy Actions Targets

Customers

Financial Return

Quality

Risk

Business Value



PART D: Budget to deliver the Annual Business Plan

Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun

Operating Inflows

Income

Cost of goods sold

Gross Profit

Operating Outflow

Monthly Surplus/Deficit (Sub-total)

Capital

Capital Income (Inflows)

Capital Investments (Outflows)

Monthly Cash Surplus/Deficit (Total)



Notes and key assumptions:

Business Plan Creation and Approach Checklist

1. Have you sought active staff and stakeholder input? □

2. Has there been a pressure testing process? □

3. Is the plan robust, realistic and the right direction for the business? □

4. Business owner sign-off □

5. Have you communicated key elements of the plan to important stakeholders? □

There are multiple benefits that flow from business planning, so if you find yourself stuck on any of the questions in this Annual Business Plan Template, please don’t give up.

Phone a friend or colleague, or seek some professional advice from a business advisor, and take advantage of the tools at hand to help turn your business ambitions into reality.


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