Business Planning
2 Business Planning
2.1 Introduction
This section of the Toolkit will enable you to gain an understanding of the principles of business planning, and how to approach developing a business plan for your own organisation. Key learning points for this section include:
- Developing an understanding of the benefits of business planning
- Developing an understanding of how to write a business plan
- Developing an initial approach to starting the process of writing a business plan
Note
Please note that the term “product” is used in this section as a catchall term to refer to any activity, goods or service that is delivered by a VCO.
2.2 What is a Business Plan
A business plan is a strategic document that provides a ‘route map’ for running an organisation or a specific project, helping to clarify the main business idea, define short and long-term objectives, and set an overall direction. It is a helpful and practical document and broadly speaking, a business plan will demonstrate three important facts:
- Where your organisation is currently
- Where your organisation needs to get to
- How your organisation is going to get there
