Mergers and Acquisitions/Business Plan

Welcome to The Business Plan, M&A 5300. This course is designed to introduce the student to essential constructs and uses of the Business Plan.

Course Outline

Course Outline Course Outline & Syllabus

Sessions

Session 1: The Purpose of a Business Plan
Session 1: Suggested Structure

1. Introduction

1.1 – Introduction 1.2 – Criteria for Feasibility

A successful business or entrepreneur must take in more money than they pay out. A cash flow analysis is a critical piece of preliminary planning. Create a spreadsheet with all anticipated expenses, all sources of capital, and estimated sales curves for the first three years of the proposed business. Analyze the cash balances and cash flow and vary some assumptions such as sales figures and available capital to determine breakeven points and net profits or losses. If you start out day one profitable congratulations, but keep planning. Business conditions and outlooks can change swiftly and an orderly shutdown can be critical to sustaining an overall profit for the venture. Typically successful businesses will take between six months to three years to show their full profit potential. Once you begin operating you can plug real data into your cash flow analysis and begin refining it to demonstrate where errors and inaccuracies exist in your planning assumptions and process.

2. Background

2.1 – Business Type/Set-up

2.2 – Loans and Overdrafts

2.3 – Sources of Finance

2.4 – Law & Legal

2.5 – The Economy

3. Market Research

The purpose of market research is to analyze customers, volumes, and competition.

3.1 – Customer Research

3.2 – Competition Research

3.3 – Current Market Situation

4. Marketing Plan

4.1 - Marketing Mix

4.2 - Advertising Costs

4.3 - Pricing Strategy

5. Property and Location

5.1 – The Area and Location

5.2 – The Property

5.3 – Layout of the Shop

6. Costs and Revenues

This section may be completely redundant to a good detailed cash flow projection as per 7.1

6.1 – Sales and Revenue Predictions

6.2 – Running Cost Predictions

6.3 – Start-Up Cost Predictions

7. Financial Planning

7.1 – Cash Flow Forecasts[1][2]

7.2 – Balance Sheets -- Sample balance sheet[3]

7.3 – Profit and Loss Accounts

7.4 – Ratio Analysis

7.5 – Investment Appraisal

7.6 – Break Even Analysis

8. Conclusion

8.1 – SWOT Analysis

8.2 – Conclusion from Criteria

9. Bibliography

Appendices A – Economy B – Questionnaires C – Products D – Competitors E – Financial Planning

Session 2: Executive Summary
Session 3: Company Summary
Session 4: Products
Session 5: Marketing Analysis Summary
Session 6: Strategy Implementation Summary
Session 7: Management Summary
Session 8: Financial Summary
Session 9: Exit Strategy

Required Reading

Suggested Media

http://www.sba.gov/smallbusinessplanner/plan/writeabusinessplan/index.html
Startup Studio - Interviews with entrepreneurs on how they started their businesses and suggestions for other entrepreneurs