The first step to a successful business
Business strategies, business goals, business gatherings and business plans. It’s all important for a project, but where to start first?
When you want to start a business, beside the great idea you firmly believe will be realized and bring you profit, you are also in need for financial resources. In the most common situation, you have little or no financial resources to start a business, so you need help from the side. Whether you present your idea to foreign investors, business angels, banks or other financial institutions, you mostly communicate on the basis of your business plan. A business plan is a document that defines goals, activities and resources needed and is usually developed for the purposes of starting a new business.
Our Dzenita Brcvak and Batric Krvavac attended a training “Više od biznis plana” (“More than a business plan”) held by Milos Vukovic, CEO of Fidelity Consulting agency. Considering that they already had experience in developing such strategies, the importance and complexity of the business plan were already familiar to them. However, the training helped them to better understand some parts of the business plan, especially those of budgeting and structuring a good summary. The importance of a well-written summary, with all aspects of the project, is high. Why? Because investors and those who decide whether your project will be supported or not, mainly read only this part. So, it’s very important to present the idea and its profitability very well (yes, we are talking about return on investment, the so-called ROI). The summary should include a brief description of the idea, goals, method of implementation, team, price calculations, financial sources, targeted market and the effects of investment. When it comes to budgeting, Dzenita points out that Milos has, in a very nice and simple way, brought her closer to the process of creating a profit and loss account, since she doesn’t often face such planning.
In addition to the theoretical part, which was necessary, they worked in small groups, as well. Each of the formed groups was supposed to come up with an idea and present details of the business plan through the Business Canvas model, which was previously explained in details.
All in all, the way in which the business plan process was explained was “very interesting, receptive and easy to learn”, say our colleagues. They also point out that the course is definitely worth it, because it develops logical thinking about the business idea, but also thinking about the idea from the perspective of the investor and the market needs.
