Outlining Personal Reflection and Evaluation of the Experience through Business Plan Development - Report Example

Outlining Personal Reflection and Evaluation of the Whole Experience through Business Plan Development The biggest challenge was the accounting part of the business plan. With little accounting knowledge, the accounting and budgeting part of it was a big issue that had to be dealt with. The financial planning and begetting part of a business plan is a major part of the business plan. This is because it shows the road map to success because at the end of the day, the most important thing is the money part of it. A business plan not only tries to indicate the opportunity on the market but also intends to indicate that this opportunity is financially feasible. With this regard, the need for numbers is very critical. Unfortunately, for a person who is not well informed with regard to accounting can find it hard to get the numbers tight. Yet, if numbers are not correct, the whole business plan goes to disarray. The numbers are critical to a marketing plan because they show whether the business will have a chance to succeed. For any business, a budget and the financial projections are the most important because this shows how practical the idea is. A business opportunity has to meet tow criteria. The first criteria is the availability of a market segment that is not served (Hutt & Speh, 2012). It is necessary for this market to be identified and then get to know how this market is to be served. However, as Thomas (2011) says, even with the availability of this market, not everything is covered until the financials and the financial projection is covered. At this point, the second aspect of a business opportunity comes in. This second aspect is the question of whether the people in this market can afford to buy the goods or the services the business intends to sell to them. This is why a market is defined as the number of people who are able and willing to buy the goods or services of a business. They do not just have to be willing, they have to be able. With regard to this, it is necessary to make sure that the financial projections of a business covers this part bur the goods or the services. In developing this part therefore, it is necessary to make sure that there are a number of things that must be met. Financial analysis of the budget and whether it is within the parameters of the business is important (Godfrey, 2015). This was a hard thing to do and the option to hire an acoutrnat was not within reach thing reach. This made it hard for the process and it was almost hard for the budget and the financial projection to be achieved. Having o work with limited knowledge about the accounting issues and also being driven to have to make sure that the financials were correct was a daunting task and made the development of the business plan a hard task. However, it this was also an important learning process and the skills leant during the process will be important in the future in the real world. The other challenge that had to be overcome was the fact that there are many that ice-cream shops in the target market as a result therefore there was a need to spend a lot of time and hardwork as well as effort in thinking the Unique selling point of our business. According to Maxwell (2015), differentiation is one of the ways in which a business achieves strategy. This means that for the marketing plan, there was a need to make sure that the business plan was developed in a way that the business will be different from the reason of the businesses in the market. To guarantee that there was a need to investigate all the businesses and know that these strategies and their product delivery was, it was necessary to investigate all these businesses. This would in coming up with a business model and a product delivery process that is well differentiated from the rest of the businesses in the market. With limited financial resources and the fact that the operational skills for this process were limited, it became difficult for the team to carry out this process. The challenge here was that the business plan was for a business that intends to enter into an already existing market. For such a case, an entry strategy requires a well differentiate products which means that there is a need to first understand those who are already in the market and then come up with a business plan that will differentiate the business from the rest of the businesses from the rest. This was not easy at all. Getting certain types of information from the existing businesses was hard. Knowledge their business strategy and their product development strategy was a difficult task and there was a need to make sure that this hurdle is overcome. Once this hurdle was overcome and we were able to know what the current businesses have to offer with regard to the ice cream business, there was another hurdle that had to be overcome. This is because we would like to transform our production method of ice cream by using liquid nitrogen and introducing new flavors that people never taste it before in order to be differentiated. We already found a way to differentiate the business from those that are already in the existence in the market, but the way to operationize this was difficult. Here, the problem was that even though there was a way to differentiae the business, the logistics of doing this would be difficult. The technical knowable about production and manufacturing was limited and this in itself was a challenge since this would be where the business would be able to differentiate itself and thus gain a strategic advantage (Moley, 2012). Without knowing how to deal with this issue, it would be difficult for the business to be able to differentiate itself and this would be a problem. The other challenge was to get market data that would be necessary in knowing what the numbers in the market was. This was a little different from getting the information about the businesses that are already in the market. After the information about the market players was acquired through a difficult process, it was now time to get time to get data about the market data such as the demographics and the structure of the market. This was not an easy thing and the search in the internet did not help a lot because most of the online sources were outdated. This information was necessary and important for the business plan to be developed. Being students, it was hard to get the kind of credulity that is necessary for those who are concerned to even give us the appointments we needed in order to get the research for the market data. Without this market data, it would be necessary for the business plan to be developed with regard to knowing if the business plan was feasible. It was imperative that we be more aggressive and assertive to get these appointments. This was definitely not easy for us and it was another daunting task. Developing a business plan requires that one to know all the market information that is available and this would require one to have the right connections. For students, these connections are almost rare and one has to navigate through a labyrinth of problem before anyone takes them seriously. As a result, it became an almost impossible task for us to be able to fulfill this task. However, we also understood we had to go through this in order to come up with a feasible business plan. Learning outcome While it was a big challenge with regard to developing the business plan, this was also a learning process. It became very clear about the real world experiences that one is likely to come across when going through her business. It was apparent that the business world is a jungle especially for a new person who has no experience for what it takes to succeed in the business. Some of the lessons that were learnt from the process of developing this business plan were as follows; Need for interdisciplinary knowledge for business executives The most crucial and the main reason was the fact that there is a need for business executes to learn interdisciplinary knowledge so as for him or her to make it in business. what was leant is that one has to have knowledge from different backgrounds for them to be able to be good business executives. For ignorance, even though we did not have knowledge about accounting, it became very clear that this knowledge was a necessity in order for us to accomplish the project. Although this may be different in the actual business world where one is allowed to hire experts to accomplish a certain task, it was very clear that basic, or even more than basic knowledge in some of these fields that are related to business have t be available in order for one to be compete as a business executive (Hutt & Speh, 2012). For instance, they have to know accounting to an acceptable level even if they are not accounting professionals. That was not all; it also became clear that one has to have to know how technology related to business strategy even if they are nit technology experts. Technology is very important and has become a central part of the business strategy for any business. One has to know about technology even if they are not in the field of technology. This was a learning point through the development of the business plan. Moreover, this was an advantage because it became clear that if the business plan used technology as part of its strategy, it would have an advantage over the other businesses. It also became clear that basic knowledge about technical issues such as production is necessary for business executives because business strategy starts here. As has been identified, differentiation for this particular business would start from its ability to have a manufacturing system that is capable of giving the business a better way to differentiate itself from the businesses that are already in the market. This was a good learning point during the development of the business plan and it is necessary for any business to be aware of this. Conclusion It is apparent that developing a business plan is not an easy thing for anyone with business skills to navigate the business world. Apart from having business skills, it is important that one has more knowledge, albeit in a basic way to be able to be effective in the long term. Business managers have to be able to know a lot of things including accounting and information technology. This points to two major factors. One, the fact that it is necessary to have business courses integrate other elements such as technology and innovation and how these these relate to business strategy. The other is the fact that business managers need to continually learn about the knowledge in other fields in order for them to b effective in the way they operate businesses. Business executives need to have a wide range of knowledge and skills in order for them to be efficient in the way they do business. This means that they have to walk an extra mile in order for them to be good at what they do. They may not need to be experts in these to the field of knowledge but they may need to know more that the business theories they learn in class. In this regard, a modern business person needs to well endowed with knowledge from other fields in order for them to be effective. This requires that they be proactive in the way they realer to the rest of the world. They have to relate with the external world and be able to have knowledge in various ways and also be able to provide their technical skills in a way that a lay person can understand. This is critical and makes a big difference. In other words, business executives must see themselves as mediators between the professional world and the layman world. Reference list: Godfrey, M. (2015). Business Market Strategy and the Modern Business Environement. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. Hutt, M., & Speh, T. (2012). Business Marketing Management: B2B. New York, NY: pearson Education. Maxwell, P. (2015). diffrenatiation and Market Strategy. New York, NY: Pearson Books. P., M. (2012). Strategic Advantage: Modern Businss Mangement. New York, NY: Pearosn books. Thomas, P. (2011). Modern Buisiness Management and Ethics. New York, NY: Guille Books. Read More