Do you want to boost your company's growth? Make a Business Plan.

The elaboration of a Business Plan is fundamental, not only in its idealization and development but also in its continuity and growth. It is a guiding tool that ensures critical information when bringing together potential investors or partners and a good guide for achieving defined goals.

Having a good idea and financial liquidity to invest are not enough to determine a business success. It is essential to know the factors that compel your business to develop, regardless the activity sector in which it will fit. Know your target audience, suppliers and customers well, be aware of who your main competitors might be and what solutions they present on the market.

Is crucial to be aware of the business's competitive advantages and market trends: a business plan must support the company's strategic decisions.

Economic-Financial Feasibility Study: indicators

To prepare a business plan for a new business, a business restructuring, expansion or diversification, or any situation related to the acquisition, valuation, sale or merger of businesses, it is essential to carry out an Economic-Financial Feasibility Study . This study will make it possible to assess the company's capacity to implement a given project, ensuring its economic and financial sustainability, based on assumptions and criteria based on the following indicators:

• Net Present Value (NPV): Evaluates the viability of your investment project, calculating the updated value of the projected “cash-flows” (forecast cash inflows and outflows), and whether these can cover the planned investments;
• Internal Rate of Return (IRR): Determines the project's profitability rate, and whether it can be higher than the update rate (minimum project viability rate);
• Payback Period: Time needed to recover the value of your investment.

This way, it is possible to assess the economic and financial sustainability of the project and the company's capacity to implement it.

Business Plan and Financing

A business plan is not only helpful for a startup that needs financing for an investment. In fact, it is a fundamental tool when making strategic decisions. Therefore, a strategic, coherent, prudent, rigorous and supported definition document must be developed, in accordance with the businesses growth and needs, following changes in the market and adapting strategies and investments to guarantee the products or company services continue to be an added value for its customers. This allows companies to create their business strategies with solid foundations, avoiding surprises in the future.

Furthermore, having a business plan can anticipate problems and help to deal with them before they are harmful to the company – it is always better to test the viability of a project on “paper” than in reality, if it is unfeasible it will not have an impact. in the company if it is tested on “paper”. It should be a document of strategic guidance in the implementation of investment projects, as it is useful in decision-making and for the correct management of the company's resources, whether financial or human in the business.

This type of instrument is also required in financing requests, whether from banking or credit institutions, or in support programs and allocation of incentives/funds. The basis of identifying sources of financing must always be a business plan that, by portraying the company's strategy and the way it intends to differentiate itself from the market, characterizes the most appropriate way of financing the activities that allow the implementation of this plan. The existence of this “document” is crucial to ensure access to the most convenient forms of non-current financing.

Therefore, if your company is planning to apply for an investment project, anticipate this stage now and reinforce the potential of this application by preparing the Business Plan.

YUNIT ACCOMPANIES YOU THROUGH THE ENTIRE PROCESS

For more information, schedule a free no-obligation meeting with our experts by calling: +351 21 330 72 02, or send your questions to: contacto@yunit.pt

Rui Rodrigues - Coordinator | Yunit Consulting