16 CHAPTER 1 WHAT‘S IT ALL ABOUT?
The amount of detail in each section will vary depending on the business activity
and the intended readership. A plan for a manufacturing unit within a larger organisa-
tion will have much more emphasis on product than on marketing. (It might be a useful
and salutary exercise to develop a marketing plan for cost centres, such as an information
technology department that exists only to support the other departments of the same
company.) A plan for the bank manager is likely to need more detail on the product and
current status than a plan for your chief executive.
Moreover, the order of the sections will vary depending on the audience and intent.
For an internal document you might move the section on the current status right up to
the front, while for a business plan for a start-up operation you might put the current
status very near the end.
HOW MANY PAGES?
A business plan should be as short as possible. Some people say that 20–40 pages is a
good average. Undoubtedly, most executives already have too much to read in this age of
information overload. If you add to their problems, your plan will not be given the atten-
tion that it deserves. This said, I often find it hard to keep a plan down to this optimum
length. There is just so much to say when describing a business.
It depends on your circumstances. You have to provide the documentation and informa-
tion that readers need. You have to give them enough to make the required decisions or take
the required actions. Sometimes you need to give them a little bit more than the minimum
in order to demonstrate that you have done your planning properly. In other instances, you
need to drop in a taster that shows that you know more than you have written.
Five things that belong in annexes
Business plans should be concise and easy to read. How do you cope when you
have to include some fairly heavy material? Where possible, summarise it in the text
and include the full details in annexes. Examples of things that belong in annexes
are as follows.
1 Background material that informs your reader about specialist processes
or concepts that are critical to the plan and are more than simple definitions
of terms.
2 Detailed product specifications.
3 Marketing brochures and leaflets.
4 Detailed financial analysis.
5 Full biographies (CVs or résumés) of senior executives.
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