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MODULE 6: The Business Plan

Online/Offline Resources

Readings

  1. This is an example of a business plan layout. You can use this to start putting together your own business plan for Activity 5.
  2. The telecentre cookbook has some excellent sections on business plans. Although it is designed for telecentres, many of the aspects covered are very similar to those of a technical service centre.
  3. These are simple examples of an income statement, a cash flow projection and a balance sheet for a business plan (taken from www.businesspartners.co.za). Obviously the contents of your financial model will differ depending on the operating assumptions that you use, but these are nonetheless useful layout examples. Whatever your assumptions, you will need to create an income statement, a cash flow projection and a balance sheet for your business.
  4. This is an article on cash flow and why this is critical to business success.
  5. Raising funds to set up your business – refer to this excellent resource on fundraising.
  6. Joris Komen from SchoolNet Namibia has created a Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) model for supplying refurbished PCs to Namibian schools. This model looks at everything from the cost of equipping schools with networks and PCs, to replacement costs, to country infrastructure costs, to ICT Deployment and Support costs (setting up a technical support centre), to the cost of educational content. Of particular relevance to you during this course is the section on ICT Deployment and Support costs, but the whole model is worth looking at and understanding as it could be adapted to work out a similar TCO model for supplying schools in your own country with ICTs.
  7. This is the section on costs taken from SchoolNet Africa’s research report on Refurbished PCs for African Schools. It gives a good overview of the issue of determining the total costs associated with importing and using second-hand PCs in African schools.
  8. The DFID Tools for Development Handbook for those engaged in development activity draws together a range of techniques designed to help DFID officers and others undertake development activities and interventions of any size and kind. This is a manual from which to pick and choose: you may need to employ different skills at different times or several skills at the same time. Some are more likely to be employed at the outset, or in the design stage. Some skills may be employed once; others will need to be revisited and may be revised as the activity or intervention continues. And the skills and techniques you start out with may need to be added to as you progress. This document began life as an attempt to draw together many people’s years of experience undertaking development activity. However, many of the skills outlined here, such as those relating to teamworking, facilitating group activity, influencing and negotiating, or conflict reduction, are ones that you will need in everyday life. They will prove particularly useful when engaged in team-based and multi-disciplinary work that is becoming increasingly the means by which development activity is delivered.
  9. The European Commission/EuropeAid’s Project Cycle Management Handbook is a brilliant ‘how to’ guide for writing a business plan and manage a project cycle using the logical framework approach. The handbook is addressed to all persons who want more detailed information about planning, management and evaluation of projects and programmes funded by external aid programmes.
  10. AusAID has also produced a guideline to the Logical Framework Approach that might be worth reading once you have read EuropeAid’s Project Cycle Management Handbook.

Additional Resources/Info

How to write a business plan

These sites are excellent, with lots of useful examples and articles about writing business plans:

http://www.bplans.com/fb/article.cfm/2
www.businesspartners.co.za (go to ‘writing a business plan’ link)

Other sites about how to write business plans

http://www.sba.gov/starting_business/planning/basic.html
http://www.soyouwanna.com/site/syws/bizplan/bizplan.html
http://www.bplans.com/dp/

Free Internet course on starting your own business: http://www.myownbusiness.org/

This website has already written business plans for sale (in US$) – including a plan to run a computer maintenance centre:
http://www.businessplanning-4-you.com/cb/businesses/index.html?hop=100248

Cash flow models
Free cash flow templates in MS Excel:
http://www.exinfm.com/free_spreadsheets.html (see number 17.)
Cash flow software site:
http://www.planware.org/cashplan.htm