writing business requirements
Last year I was approached by a small group of people who had just left their jobs in a company that manufactured commercial processing equipment food. Who became disillusioned with his employer due to lack of efficiency in production, marketing, and a general atmosphere of disorganization. The group leader felt they could "build a better mousetrap" if it was their own.
Each group member was an expert in the operational part of the company. They enjoyed good relations with company clients, who were also frustrated by missed deadlines, unfulfilled promises, and even incomplete orders. The covert group leader talked to some of these customers (medium to large food manufacturers) on the purchase of their new venture.
Several companies seemed excited about the prospect and made verbal commitments to purchase equipment from them. Obviously, the group of four wanted to go ahead with forming a company manufacturing. Now we need to start funding.
Even if these people knew the business since the end of operation, they were all missing in several key areas. None of the group understood the accounting, cost structures, cash flow, or anything related to finance. This poses serious problems for me, who looked up to them to get the money they needed to move forward. To make a long story short, I worked with them as best I could, but was frustrated quickly when we tried to put together a business plan and accompanying programs to give the lender.
I depended on to give me relevant information on their business because I knew nothing about the industry. Unfortunately, just do not know as much as they should about the administrative and financial sectors of the company, and it showed. They were repulsed two leasing companies, and have rejected an SBA loan. Despite the difficulties, we still would have gotten the loan SBA, if potential customers have signed commitments to buy, but did not.
The moral of this story is that his ducks in a row for all aspects of your business. What would have happened if they had received funding? Unless you have hired some of the top flight in the house financial officer, I think would have resulted in serious problems.
Some tips for developing a business plan:
1. Be conservative with your sales projections. It's easy to get caught by the glamor of the high sales projections, but you should assume that it will be pink in the early years. Make sure you have a sound basis for their projections.
2. I do not see it as a formality to obtain a bank loan. Watch as a blueprint for the life of your business. Write effective business plan means doing a lot of soul searching and research. What market entry challenges we have? What is the most effective marketing of our products? The suppliers that offer the best value to our raw materials? The answers to these questions (and many more) should be well thought.
3. Carefully analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your management team. Part of the business plan is to provide biographies of key players. Write this section should reveal whether the main parts of its business is in good hands: sales, marketing, accounting and finance, administration and operations. If you found to lack any of these areas, we started to look for people who need them.
4. Do not wait until the last minute to start writing. Calendar actual working hours in the course of several weeks. The main reason is because of this: if you tell a loan officer or investor in person about his idea, he / They say: "Sounds interesting, send me a business plan for tomorrow." In other words, as we expect it done. Obviously it will not be able to handle a 40-page document overnight, with research and financial analysis.
5. Before sending your business plan to anybody, correct the executive summary with care. You probably do not get funding if you have typos in the executive summary. The fewer mistakes you have, the more professional you see.
You've probably read the statistics on the failure rate of new businesses. Nobody can say with certainty how many failures is that the key players not do their homework up front, but I think it is a majority. Do not let happen to you!
About the Author:
Kent Harlan has been a CPA since 1984 and is the owner of Ozarks Capital Funding, a firm offering financing in the areas of accounts receivable factoring, equipment leasing, and financing for healthcare providers. http://ocflink.comkenth@ocflink.com
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Starting a New Business Requires Planning in All Areas
|
|
Software Requirements $61.73 Most IT systems fail to meet expectations. They don’t meet business goals and don’t support users efficiently. Why? Because the requirements didn’t address the right issues. Writing a good requirements specification doesn’t take more time. This book shows how it’s done — many times faster and many times smarter.What are the highlights?Two complete real-life requirements specifications (the traditional and the fast approach) and examples from many others.Explanations of both traditional and fast approaches, and discussions of their strengths and weaknesses in different project types (tailor-made, COTS, and product development).Real-life illustrations of all types of requirements, stakeholder analysis, cost/benefit and other techniques to ensure that business goals are met.Proven methods for dealing with difficult or complex requirements, such as specifying ease-of-use, or dealing with 200 reports that might be needed because they are in the old system.Who is it for? Everyone involved in the software supply chain, from analysts and developers to end users, will learn new techniques, benefit from requirements written by other specialists, and discover successes and failures from other companies. Software suppliers will find ideas for helping customers and writing competitive proposals. Programmers and other developers will learn how to express requirements without specifying technical details, and how to reduce risks when developing a system. Students aspiring to IT careers will learn the theory and practice of requirements engineering, and get a strong foundation for case studies and projects. 0201745704B12142001 |
|
|
Rennie & Cusine: The Requirements of Writing $125.95 Rennie & Cusine: The Requirements of Writing |
|
|
Unearthing Business Requirements $22.89 Unearthing Business Requirements |
|
|
Writing Better Requirements $24.11 Buy and sell [Writing Better Requirements] at great prices. |
|
|
Requirements Engineering for Software and Systems $76.18 Prior to his career in academics, Laplante (software engineering, Pennsylvania State U.) spend some eight years as a software engineering and project manager in avionics, CAD, and software test systems, and directed business development for a software consulting firm; he has authored or edited 24 books and numerous journal articles, reviews, and editorials. Based on a Penn State course taught by the author, this text provides a review of the theoretical and practical aspects of discovering, analyzing, modeling, validating, testing, and writing requirements for systems of all kinds, particularly software-intensive systems. Incorporating a variety of formal methods, social models, and modern requirements writing techniques useful to practicing engineers, the text is suitable for professional software engineers, systems engineers, and senior undergraduate and graduate students in these fields. Annotation )2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) |
|
|
Commercial Ground Leases $335.95 Buy and sell [Commercial Ground Leases] at great prices. |
|
|
Treatise on State and Federal Control of Persons and Property in the U $49.41 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1900 Original Publisher: The F. H. Thomas Law Book Co. Subjects: Police power Labor laws and legislation Antitrust law Interstate commerce Labor unions Constitutional law Corporation law United States Law / General Law / Administrative Law |
|
|
The Business of Writing $20 The Business of Writing |
|
|
Writing Business $44 Writing Business |
|
|
Writing For Business $2.97 Writing For Business |
|
|
The Writing Business $17.57 The Writing Business |
|
|
Business Writing $1.41 Business Writing |
