Know-How Exchange : Strategy

You should post this in the projects section.

Phil - Enterprise Resource Planning - it's a piece of software that runs a business from purchasing to sales to invoicing. There's an accounting package as a core and around it is a manufacturing planning tool to keep track of inventory - starting, work in process, and finished goods. It keeps track of product cost and profits by product, customer, stage of manufacturing, etc. It can be used for distributors, retail, also. Microsoft has a couple products - Microsoft Nav, etc. Another competitors is DBA Manufacturing - aimed specifically for small business.

avinash19dec - If you need a business plan for a presentation to investors in a month, yes it takes time and you should have started this about five months ago! It takes time and much effort to pull together a business plan with details for each part adequate to convince an investor you know what you're doing so that they feel comfortable enough to invest. If anyone has a business plan lying around for an ERP system, I really doubt it will have enough information pertinent to your situation such that it would save you much time in preparation and/or be believable enough to sell to an investor. And if someone has such a document, given the manhours of investment they made to develop such a business plan, I am not sure they will be willing to give it away for "free."

Key points that the investors will want to see:
1) You have to know your customer. Who will you sell your first system to? What pain will they resolve? What is that pain costing them? Why would they buy your system versus the 100 or so other systems out there? How many prospective customers are out there similar to this first one.
2) You need to know your competitors. Who are the chief ones? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How does your company counter these? NOTE: I DID NOT say how does your product counter these...your business plan is not a software features report. It's a company report. You are not selling your product. You are selling your company.
3) In layman's terms, from the customer's point of view, what makes your product unique? Not "technology" or "features," but what, from how the customers will use it, makes it different from the present solutions?
4) What makes your difference sustainable? Why won't the big guy competitors incorporate your special abilities? How will you stay viable long term?
5) What are the key strengths and weaknesses of your company? What are the key strengths and weaknesses of your management team? Where do you have holes in the management team? How do you plan to overcome the holes and weaknesses? Is your "CEO" really capable of taking on that leadership role or do you need to bring someone else in? If you don't assess this, the investors WILL. It's better if you really recognize the strengths and weaknesses of the team and state your plan to overcome the weaknesses!
6) What are you planning to do with the investment money? What is your specific and detailed plan to go from cash in hand to a 10X return on the investment in 5 to 7 years?
7) What are your assumptions? What don't you know that you should know? How do you intend to find that out and by when?
8) You need a five year financial plan - income statement, balance sheet, and most importantly, cash flow. The first 3 years of the cash flow need to be by month.
9) You have to have an exit strategy - how will the investors get their money back? Will you be going public? Will you sell the company to someone? Deriving "a piece of the profits" of an entity that is going to stay with the management team long term is generally not what investors are looking for.
10) What are the risks? How are you planning to mitigate those risks?

The format for this is as you have for the templates you have - and are readily available all over the web. It's the questions above that need to be answered in the plan.

I hope this helps. If you have more questions, feel free to contact me off-forum.

Wayde

sorry by mistakely i closed this question

Hi Frank

Can you please provide me sample erp product business plan document if you do have.

avinash,
The plans I have developed are protected by confidentiality agreements.

If we can chat on the phone I can get you started. I agree with everything that Wayde said above except the time line which may have been stated for effect.

Feel free to contact me via my profile.

Avinash,


I am assuming what you really want in a month is to get money from the investors, not just a business plan. The time line I mentioned IS NOT stated for effect! The time line assumes the following:
1) You have actually talked with real live prospective customers, they have seen what you have, have fed back information on how well it matches needs versus the competition
2) You've completed segmentation and market analysis of the segments in which you choose to participate
3) You've developed a penetration plan for those segments, including who the first companies and contact points you will go after in each segment
3) You've completed extensive competitive analysis, including strengths and weaknesses analysis
4) You've completed a SWOT analysis for your company
5) You've met multiple times with the investors to understand completely what makes a good investment for them, their expectation of return, and their expectations for the business plan elements.
6) You complete the business plan accordingly
7) And since "the business plan" isn't the vehicle to close the deal anyway - it's the vehicle you use to get in the door with your business, you've complete the presentation aimed at the investors which addresses those key elements that make them salivate.

The time frame is what it takes to get money from an investor - a high probability path. Yes, any old business plan can be completed in a month. It probably won't get you money, unless the investors are friends and relatives or are very unsophisticated. Of course if you have all of the items listed in my two postings completed, then, yes, a month is OK.

Wayde