Business Opportunity Description

This picture denotes the sample format for describing the business opportunity that you would like to take up.

The description may vary from this in terms of its scope depending on the product, service being proposed in the business.

Owing to other exigencies, I couldn't update my blog for almost two weeks.

The first requirement of a new venture

The first requirement of any new venture would be Detailed Project Report.  The report is like the business map for the venture.  A guiding principle in all the areas from 'description and scope of business' to be conducted to 'profit levels' to be achieved. The report is to be customized according to the requirements of lending institution wherever you are seeking project funding.

What does the Report contain? Why do you need it?  How do you make it? I would try to cover here certain important elements of project report and sample description against each element.  So that my effort will help you understand the report in a little detailed manner rather than a sheer Index, which is available all over the Internet.  The contents of report.

• The title and description of the business idea or opportunity
• The legal stature of the business
• The targeted scope taken up in the project
• The background as to how it would fit into the market
• The vision, mission, strategy & planning
• The market, target customers, competition, market share, achievable share by you
• The means and mechanism of delivering the scope to target customers
• The marketing strategy, brand definition & branding exercise
• The partners & collaborators if any
• The benefits and USP that you provide to the target customers
• The promoters background, relevance to the venture, role in the venture
• The raw material, procurement plans, long-term availability factors, agreements with the vendors with respect to the same (where the business is purely service oriented or professional consulting, you should cover the human resource expertise, its availability, and your plan of mobilizing such resources)
• The material procurement plan wherever available quotations from vendors
• The constitution of core team, their profiles, relevance, roles
• The manufacturing / production process 
• The standards, best practices proposed to be introduced in the project
• The mandatory identities - company registration, tax registrations, statutory permissions,
• The organizational hierarchy, communication flow, indication of key performance areas, accountability mechanism
• Project performance metrics, performance appraisal system
• Operational procedures, measures for operational excellence
• The projected revenue, expenses, cash flow, profit & loss (for min 5 years)
• The methods of project fund mobilisation (promoters equity, debt, fund raising mechanism)
• The bankers, auditors, legal attorneys
• Detailed Project Plan which consists the product life cycle and project life cycle (Preferably done with the help of MS Project like tools)

The report generally is divided in to various sections viz., Introduction, Techncial, Marketing, Manufacturing and Financial. In case of service or consulting businesses, it will be the delivery mechanism and the process handling in place of manufacturing section.

Why do you need the project report?
The report will be the guide for your entire project.  You will need to refer to it at every stage of your project progress in order to ensure that your project is taking off in a professional and disciplined way the way it is envisaged.  In absence of such report, you will over spend monies, loose control and can't control various objects.


Further the report is required to present to the investors or bankers who should know about your project and its viability for investment.  In fact, you should develop a summary presentation based on the project report to present to the prospective funding institution.


How do you make the report?
Project Report is a professional document.  It covers integrated inputs w.r.t technical, commercial, market and so as could be seen from the above index.  Thus you need a professional agency.  Mostly there are certain CA firms who help exclusively in project report development.  You may also talk to my team who can help you.

Corporate & Professional - How do I give this identity to my organisation?

When an organization truly competes the characteristics of its line business, in a more transparent way, it could be called a professional entity. When an organization defines its business objectives in clear terms duly indicating the strategy and the delivery mechanism, it paves way for professional development. We could enumerate the following aspects in an enterprise to understand the level of professionalism adopted by it.

• Scope and clarity in service offerings
• Vision & Mission
• Culture, values and ethics
• Strategy & Planning to achieve its Vision
• Brand conscious and brand positioning measures
  
• HR and Communication flow in the organization
• Policy provisions and delivery mechanism to achieve organizational productivity
• Implementation of Best Practices and Certification standards in the functional areas
• Transparency while dealing the issues of discrimination, grievance, disputes
• Implementation of technology
  
• Statutory identities
• Clean financial and taxation system
• Social accountability
  

Further professionalism is more of an accountability and transparency. It is possible to achieve these aspects when an organization deploys related processes to implement the above provisions. Let us understand process as any given transaction or task to be achieved in the functional or departmental context. For example, performance appraisal of human resources is a process, raising an invoice is a process, quality check list is a process, exit formality is a process, and any report document is a process. At this reckon there will be hundreds and thousands of processes that an organization has to effectively deliver in order to achieve the true performance levels.

The process could be a hard copy format or a digital document. Organizations inevitably follow both the formats as total automation and paperless environment is still not feasible in our business environment. As an example for digital processes, any CRM application at the minimum shall have numerous processes related to sales and after sales support. An ERP application is the true mirror of enterprise-wide processes.

Further, every process should be flexible for due customization. The technology tools like ERP application invariably enable deployment of a given process, modification of the same with due controls, monitoring and measuring it for performance. Still an ERP application enables to integrate the enterprise wide functions and processes so that enterprise productivity and performance is reckoned periodically by the top management with due checks and controls.

Finally beyond all the above, it is the conduct, attitude, accountability and commitment of employees that brings in right identity to the organization as a whole. Hence, in today's business the HR development is given top priority to match to the organizational vision and mission. Employees should also realize that the positive identity and values achieved by an organization shall invariably enhance the professional value of their individual profiles.

Professional identity and corporate culture brings in stakeholder loyalty (employees, vendors, suppliers, customers, partners ...), creates brand value and develops business. Thus any investments made in this direction shall bring in the Returns on Investment (ROI).