For any enterprise to be financially profitable, articulating a practical and viable business plan can often be the make or break trump card. And like the proverbial adage proclaims, when one fails to plan, in essence they plan to fail.
A concise and well thought out business plan is multi-faceted. It serves as a road map and guide, in the long term as an effective appraisal system for accomplished targets.
This document plays a significant role towards attaining any projected goals. It can also be a tool to gauge the extent of progress, gains made vis-à-vis projections set for completion within a specific time frame.
Take the case of a visual art painter, who for years has to struggle making ends meet in between selling their artworks or sculptures to galleries on credit, or to buyers who maybe aspiring to be art collectors. Ideally, any payments received are split up into the bare essentials – payment of pressing bills and a fraction of the cash ploughed back into purchase of raw materials inclusive paints and canvas. The fact that the artist is likely hardly conversant with basic book-keeping skills, rarely does it cross their mind on the need to enlist professional accounting services. In most instances, the expenditure tends to be a bit higher than returns or amounts accrued after any artworks sales.
Ask any business consultant – the cardinal rule is never to blindly plough more cash into any venture without clear-cut guidelines. The collapse of most enterprises is rooted in failure to put in place practical and hence pertinent business structures aimed at consistent cash flow and revenue generation.
“Business planning is a practical exercise spelling out the thin line between success and failure. It does not matter which firm or organization – big or small; whether undertaking services production, goods production for businesses or consumers, nor if market is international or domestic,” notes Kuria Thuo, a consultant on SMEs.
The business management specialist opines that successful business planning must be founded in a conceptual framework, which provides a basis for analysis, execution and evaluation. “A thorough understanding of projected market and planning process must precede any attempts to develop and execute a business plan,” he explains.
The execution of this process is different from the business plan – described as a written document or statement with a venture outline and how to achieve the same. Ideally, any budding artistic entrepreneur has to actualize projections as a continuous process, since it precedes and dictates the future growth hence profitability of any enterprise.
It is crucial for creatives to undertake basic ground work and also learn to feed off strategic planning principles – whose sole purpose is to enable an entrepreneur to gain sustainable edge in the growth of their art-inclined enterprise.
Whereas an effective projection raises, and at same time, redefines key critical questions – it should lay out a projected breakdown of expenses or challenges likely to impede successful kick off for start-up or fledging enterprises.
A well-crafted business plan could serve as a credible surety, which if need arises; it can then be used to secure a strategic partner or credit financier owing to its viable attributes.
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