SatE Chapter 11: FINANCE FOR THE CHOSEN IDEA (part 3)

Budget & Support for organisations and businesses

This is a plan which shows the different items of income and expenditure for a future period of time. Usually budgets are done on spreadsheets.

Support for organisations and businesses

Trade associations

• It brings research and ideas together in a structured format

• You can decide when you business would be ready to start off

• Explain your business purpose

• Predict future scenarios and pitfalls and address them before they can threaten the success of the business.

• You can set out a strategy for your business and mostly for your marketing plan

• You can set targets and objective, including sales and financial targets

There are business or organisations that help support new firm coming up or to start them of by supplying finance to these firms. Usually businesses would have to prove to them that their firm is viable and worth investing in. Such organisations would include:

The Trade Associations are organisations that represent the interests of their members in a particular industry. An example of this is ABTA which represents the travel agencies. Members pay a fee and in return receive support and services from the organisation. The organisations will provide assistance in the application of law and dealing with problems, as well as trying to convince the government to consider their industry when it makes policies and laws.

Chambers of commerce

There  is a chamber of  commerce in each area in Great Britain its like the trade association except that it has members involved in almost every different business. It represents the wishes and the needs of local businesses. It occasionally interacts with local government and the central government and can also act as a means by which businesses can receive grants and training from central government or the European Union.

Business links

This is a national organisation with offices working in each area of Great Britain. They are designed to help local businesses and to provide them with services support and advice .they also provide training, assistance in writing business plans, exporting and importing, dealing with European regulations and improvements in the quality of products and services.

Confederation of British industry (CBI)

This is a British organisation that works as a pressure group to influence the government so that it produces favourable policies and laws for businesses. The organisation also carries out research to look at how trends in the future might affect businesses.

Institute of directors

The institute of directors supports business leaders by providing them with information, advice, training and publications. The institute of directors also represents the concepts of businesses to the government.

Government agencies

Government agencies provide primary support for businesses the main organisation would be the DTI. It has an enormous range of information, advice and support for businesses in every industry. Specific information is available to different business sectors, such as computer games manufacturing and telecommunications. In each sub-sections the DTI analyse the market and provides information about the opportunities and threats to the industry.

Business plan

Before starting a business an entrepreneur should finish their plan in order to gain finance. The business plan will enable the entrepreneur and the people who would be interested in the funding the venture. To know exactly everything the entrepreneur would need to do in order to hit profit objective including: target specific customer groups, product pricing which also known as market planning. All the costs, sales, forecasts and marketing, the business plan shows what the business is worth’s and points out weather the business is worth being invested into, this information would be included in the business plan.

An entrepreneur needs a business plan because it doesn't matter how big or small a  business is it would need some sort of plan. This is vital to the establishment of the firm. There is no set format for a business plan. Planning ahead is vital if you are to set a successful enterprise. The entrepreneur needs to set business objectives such as profits and growth and then gather information from market research. He/she would be required gather information and set an action plan (this is the way in which the entrepreneur is planning on achieve the business objectives). Financial planning is the main essential component for starting up a new business, simple because without it you can't start the business.

Benefits of writing a business plan

For the business to attain finance from sources, the entrepreneur would have to construct a formal business plan. A business plan is a formal statement of a businesses set goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan reaching those. It may also contain information about the how the organisation is planning on achieving the goals. The business goals that are being attempted may be for profit or non-profit. For-profit business plans typically focus on financial goals. Non-profit and government agency business plans tend to focus on service goals, although non-profits may also focus on maximising profit. Business plans may also target changes n perception and branding as its primary goals is called a marketing plan. Sourced, (wikipedia). Once the business plan has been constructed and designed covering all the areas of the firm it is up to go through the business plan and make sure that the business plan covers the marketing plan and all the areas of interesting which the stakeholders would be interested in. this is because the business plan has to prove to be truthful and realistic in terms of aim and objectives, in order to gain the requested capital. Entrepreneurs need to plan in order to produce finance for the business, they need to aim there business plan at:

Whom they want to get the finance form, for example the government, family or bank

The entrepreneur would then be required to contact the ideal sources of finance and presents the business plan as well as help guide them through it preferably with some sort of presentation to highlight the relevant areas of the business plan in which would be in the best interests of the sources of finance such as a venture capitalist. The entrepreneur should leave copies of the business plans for their sources of finance to look at and therefore maintain close contact with them.