Assignment: Business Plan
Products and/or Services
o Describe the products and services you plan to sell.
o How is your product or service unique?
o Are you producing a commodity or a differentiated product?
o How does your product or service compare to other products in
o Quality? Price? Location?
o What experience do you have with this product/service?
Market Assessment
I. Examining the General Market
o How is the market characterized?
o Are there clear segments in the market? Describe them.
o What important customer need(s) is the market not currently fulfilling?
o What is the growth potential for each segment of the market?
o What opportunities and threats does your firm face?
o What does an analysis using the Five Forces model suggest about your industry? Who is your competition (in light of the Five Forces)?
o What trends, relevant to your business, do you see?
o What are the drivers of change?
o What political and legal issues do you face, such as zoning, environmental laws, inspections, etc?
II. Customer Analysis
o Who will be your customers?
o What do you sell to each of the customers?
o How does your product/service solve a key customer problem?
o How difficult is it to retain a customer?
o How much does it cost to support a customer?
III. Industry Analysis
o A comparison of companies is similar.
IV. Strategic Alternatives
o What can the company do that they aren't doing now?
Strategic Implementation
I. Production
• How will you produce your product?
• What value will you create and capture with your product?
• What is your competitive advantage?
• What technology will you use, i.e. reduced tillage, GPS systems, etc.?
• What processes will you use to produce products?
• What growth options will you use to develop the business unit?
o Enterprise Expansion
o Replicate
o Integrate
o Network
What is the anticipated timeline?
II. Resource Needs
In order to effectively organize your business, you need to ensure the resources are available. Assess those needs here.
• Human
o What skills are needed?
o How will human resources be acquired?
• Financial
o What level of financial resources will be needed?
• Physical
o What type, quantity and quality of physical resources will be required?
III. Sourcing/Procurement Strategy
o On what do you base a decision to buy products or services? Price? Quality? Convenience? Extra service? A combination?
o By what venue will you find suppliers - local dealer, Internet, direct from the manufacturer, etc.?
IV. Marketing Strategy
o What is your sales plan?
o What advertising and promotion will be used to increase sales/awareness?
o Where will you sell products/services?
o Will you use the open market or contracts?
o Do you have a preferred market outlet?
o Are you a qualified supplier for a specific processor or buyer?
o How will you price the product?
• Hedging, forward pricing, options
o How will you use these to mitigate your risk?
• Contracting
o Will you use production or marketing contracting to reduce risk?
• Insurance
o How will you use crop, liability and other insurance?
E. Performance Standards
o What performance standards will be used to monitor this enterprise or business unit?
o What are the acceptable performance standards?
o What yield or output levels could you attain?
o What efficiency levels will you reach?
o What procedures will be used to monitor performance?
o Who is responsible for monitoring performance?
o What industry benchmarks will be used to assess performance?
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
o The answer should be typed, using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced, with one-inch margins on all sides.
o The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
o Also include a reference page. The Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.