What is a business plan: structure, content, creation using software

Benefits of a business plan builder

In the age of information technology, it is not at all necessary to give a lot of money to anyone, because you can make a business plan online for free using the service, and the calculation will be accurate and reliable. There are other advantages of such platforms:

• ideal for a beginner, since they do not require a large amount of economic knowledge from the user, the service will literally lead by the hand, explaining and clarifying each point in an accessible language;
• the designer will present the data in table format, because this type of data reproduction is more convenient for perception;
• Buying a business plan
  provides an opportunity to evaluate possible outcomes and the relevance of the planned plan;
• will help save money in the future, at the stage of implementation of the planned project, and will also save nerves and time;
• The resulting developments will become a kind of map that will tell you where to start and in which direction to move.

It should also be said that it is especially important for an investor that the information is clear and understandable and presented in simple language. The service provides exactly this information. In addition, calculating a business plan online for free is not at all difficult.

A business plan should contain only basic information without complex terms or embellishments. This is, first of all, a real expected picture.

Closing a deal, receiving feedback

After the service is provided, mandatory documentation is generated and the acceptance certificate is signed by both parties. It is advisable to ask the buyer to leave a review of the purchased software, to analyze the feedback: is he satisfied with the transaction, how convenient and easy to use is the program, is there any need to improve it. After all stages are successfully completed, there are no mutual claims regarding the software product, and the transaction is considered closed.

Programs for creating a business plan for a personal computer

Downloading the program will not be difficult, because there are now a great many of them, but there are several that are used most often:

1. Project Expert. The application is used quite often and allows you to create an extremely simple and informative calculation in a help format. The software is different in that it makes charts and graphs. It will not be difficult to understand, since the interface is intuitive. It should also be noted that Project Expert is able to calculate economic indicators that reflect the overall situation in the proposed project.
2. Business Plan PL, which will help you create business planning at a higher, professional level. It differs from the previous software in the presence of a large number of templates and ready-made projects, on the basis of which you can create something of your own.
3. Alt-invest.

A Russian-made program that analyzes financial conditions and expected results, carries out calculations and presents the obtained data in the format of tables, charts, and graphs.

It is better not to use this format for novice entrepreneurs, since the program requires material investments, and on the website you can calculate a business plan online for free.

Attention! Unlike online services, software may require a deposit of funds to open additional options. For the Project Expert program, this payment will be 50 thousand, and for Business Plan PL – 13 thousand rubles.

The feasibility of business planning using software

Bibliographic description:

Ivanov, D. Yu. The feasibility of business planning using software / D. Yu. Ivanov, V. D. Aleksandrova. — Text: immediate // Current issues of economics and management: materials of the IV International. scientific conf. (Moscow, June 2016). - Moscow: Buki-Vedi, 2020. - pp. 113-115. — URL: https://moluch.ru/conf/econ/archive/174/10560/ (access date: 10/09/2020).


Key words: business planning, organization of intra-company management, business planning software.

There are two categories of entrepreneurs. Some open their own business based on intuition, others - after thinking through in detail every step of their activity and drawing up a business plan for the project.

The benefits of business planning are as follows:

‒ Business planning allows you to objectively assess how viable the idea is and how competitive it is in the market;

‒ A business plan allows you to save material resources and other resources;

‒ Thanks to a business plan, you can determine the exact number of required personnel, distribute responsibilities among employees and determine the responsibilities of each;

‒ A properly drawn up business plan takes into account changes that may occur in the market, so that in any situation the entrepreneur will know how to act in a given market situation.

The business plan consists of 15 sections:

1. Summary of the business plan (brief summary);
2. Goals and objectives of the project;
3. Description of the company;
4. Analysis of the industry and its development trends;
5. Target market;
6. Competition;
7. Strategic position and risk assessment;
8. Marketing plan and sales strategy;
9. Operating activities;
10. Technological plan;
11. Organizational plan;
12. Personnel plan;
13. Financial plan;
14. Social and environmental responsibility;
15. Conditions for going out of business

Nowadays, more and more enterprises, for the convenience and speed of creating a business plan, are purchasing software for carrying out financial calculations. However, their cost is high, and such a purchase is not always advisable for the enterprise.

The first Russian and foreign software for business planning appeared at the end of the 20th century. The most popular software products today:

‒ Project Expert;

‒ Business Plan PL;

‒ Business planning workshop;

‒ COMFAR III Expert;

‒ Business Plan Pro;

‒ Alt Invest.

Most of the programs on the market are conditionally comparable in their functionality, user-friendliness of the user interface and the degree of closedness of the software core.

To determine the feasibility of using programs for carrying out financial calculations of business plans, you need to know their cost. Table 1 shows the cost of the most popular software products.

Table 1

Cost of the four most popular business planning programs

To assess the feasibility of purchasing expensive business planning software, Table 2 shows the costs of several different enterprises for paying wages to economists involved in drawing up business plans.

table 2

Costs of paying wages to economists responsible for business planning of the enterprise

Table 3 presents a comparison between the costs of purchasing software and maintaining one specialist and the costs of maintaining several specialists without purchasing special business planning software.

Table 3

Comparison of costs with purchased business planning software and costs without such purchased software

It is clear that business planning using software is beneficial for medium to large enterprises, regardless of location. The costs of such enterprises are reduced by 60–78%. However, purchasing software for small businesses, on the contrary, increases costs by 13–20%. Thus, to minimize costs, small businesses are not recommended to purchase special business planning software, unlike medium and large enterprises.

Literature:

1. Advantages of business planning // Ancient coin [site]. URL: https://old-moneta.ru/other/preimushhestva-biznes-planirovaniya.html (access date: 04/11/2016);

2. Job search system [website]. URL: https://ru.indeed.com/jobs (access date: 04/11/2016);

3. Allaverdyan V.V., Soft for business planning: pros and cons // Investment consulting [site]. URL: https://www.i-con.ru/publications/other/d326/ (date of access: 04/11/2016);

4. Alt-Invest 7 // Softline is a global supplier of IT solutions and services [website]. URL: https://store.softline.ru/alt-invest/alt-invest/ (access date: 04/11/2016);

5. Cost of connecting to the BPE24 service for online development of business plans // Expertsystems - investment consulting and solutions for business development [site]. URL: https://www.expert-systems.com/financial/bpe/price/ (access date: 04/11/2016);

6. Price list of the projectexpert line // Center for Financial and Management Technologies [website]. URL: https://www.cfmt.ru/financial/projectexpert/peprice/ (access date: 04/11/2016)

[1] In these calculations, bonus compensation is equal to 20% of the basic salary, issued twice a year.

[2] In these calculations, the price of the ProjectExpert 7.0 program is used. Prof.

Key terms
(generated automatically)
: Moscow, Samar, COMFAR, III, large enterprise, enterprise, software, specialist, wages, small enterprise.

Online constructors for drawing up and calculating a business plan

As already mentioned, the online form of preparation is convenient and profitable; it allows you to make financial calculations for a given period of time (several months, a year or more). The most commonly used services are:

1. openbusiness.ru, which is ideal for small businesses. Creating planning will help you make forecasts for the company’s payback, determine the break-even point (reflects the revenue line, upon crossing which the organization can be considered unprofitable), and also build a detailed plan for up to 5 years.
2. https://intellect-nova.com, site functions will help you write competent and complete planning. The only difference from the previous service is that the creation is partially paid, so the full and current version will cost 400 rubles. Here it should be remembered that the fee for software for a personal computer reached 50 thousand rubles.

There are many other similar services, they differ only in pricing policy. You can also use the following:

• Bplans.
• Liveplan.
• Business designer.

It is necessary to select the service individually so that it is accessible, understandable and multifunctional.

A ready-made business plan shows the full picture and does not require modifications.

Main stages of starting a business

Step-by-step instructions for creating your own business, the first stage includes software development. It's not just software creation that plays an important role. A number of key points that need to be thought through and implemented at this stage:

• creating reliable protection, because if the program is hacked, then software development loses its meaning;
• creating a demo version of the product, as well as developing mobile applications for business;
• creating training videos for working with the program, with which the user can work with it, for example, if you have modified the application in the 1 C accounting system, then such videos will greatly facilitate the work of company employees;
• creating a program announcement to create interest;
• make a detailed description of the software product, indicate the programming language in which it was created (java, sql, C++, others), what platform was used for developing business applications, as well as screenshots of the main windows;
• test the product not only on different versions of Windows, but also for iOS, which will significantly expand the circle of potential buyers;
• create a distribution kit, check for viruses.

Particular attention should be paid to the program interface. Agree, if the product is clear, convenient, and has a pleasant appearance, then such software development for business will be able to attract attention. Because if the created program is capable of executing the most complex algorithms, but at the same time it is completely impossible to use it, it will not be sold.

You also need to make sure that it works flawlessly. After all, it is after working with the demo version of the program that the user decides whether it is worth purchasing it or not.