There are no shortcuts to writing a winning Business Plan for a project that needs external funding. ​​Business plans are critical to the success of any new venture. It’s important to outline a business plan carefully. All the variables need to be considered carefully. While creating a Business Plan it is important to get an element of objectivity in.
The size and scope of a business plan depends on the specific goals. If drafting it for investors, the plan needs to be more detailed. Potential investors might not be as familiar with the proposed industry so one has to clearly explain the concept and where it fits in.
A business plan can take many forms, depending on the venture. But most plans will include the following main sections:

Executive Summary
Within the overall outline of the business plan, the executive summary will follow the title page. The summary should tell the reader what the project promoter wants. There must be a ONE LINE defining statement included in the summary that clearly states what the project promoter is asking for.
The summary should be kept short, probably no more than a couple of pages. Within that space, one needs to provide a synopsis of his/her entire business plan. It should provide a short, concise and optimistic overview of the planned business that captures the reader's attention and gives them an interest in learning more about it.This is the five-minute elevator pitch. It may include:

  1. A table of contents
  2. Company background
  3. Market opportunity
  4. Management overviews
  5. Competitive advantages
  6. Financial highlights.

Business Description and Structure 
The business description usually begins with a short description of the industry. When describing the industry, it discusses the present outlook as well as future possibilities. Information is provided on all the various markets within the industry, including any new products or developments that will benefit or adversely affect the proposed project. All observations must be based on reliable data. The investor wants to know just how dependable the information is, and won't risk money on assumptions or conjecture.
Emphasis is to concentrate on its business structure. By structure we mean the type of operation, i.e. wholesale, retail, food service, manufacturing or service-oriented. Also whether the business is new or already established.
In addition, the legal structure must be reiterated in regard to whether the business is a sole proprietorship, partnership or corporation, who its principals are (Ownership Structure), and what they will bring to the business (Management Structure). The Financial Structure, the Governing Structure, the Procurement Structure, the Marketing Structure, and the Risk Structure must be emphasized as well. 
Once the project has been described, the products or services need to be described as well. The product description statement should be complete enough to give the reader a clear idea of the promoter's intentions. Unique features or variations from concepts that can typically be found in the industry are always helpful. Giving the project a competitive edge is critical to positive assessment. 

Market Research and Strategies
Target Market needs to be defined. Market strategies are the result of a meticulous market analysis. A market analysis forces the entrepreneur to become familiar with all aspects of the market so that the target market can be defined and the company can be positioned in order to garner its share of sales. A market analysis also enables the entrepreneur to establish pricing, distribution and promotional strategies that will allow the company to become profitable within a competitive environment. In addition, it provides an indication of the growth potential within the industry, and this allows the promoter to develop his own estimates for the future of his business. The target market narrows down the total market by concentrating on segmentation factors that will determine the total addressable market--the total number of users within the sphere of the business's influence. The segmentation factors can be geographic, customer attributes or product-oriented.
Spelling out the market analysis and describe the marketing strategy, including sales forecasts, deadlines and milestones, advertising, public relations decides how the proposed project stacks up against competition.

Management and Personnel
Providing bios of the project promoter's company executives and managers and explaining how their expertise will help the promoter meet business goals is another important aspect. Investors need to evaluate risk, and often, a management team with lots of experience may lower perceived risk.

Financial Documents
This is where the numbers are provided  that back up everything that has been described in the organizational and marketing sections. Conservative projections of profit and loss statements, balance sheet, and cash flow statements for the next five to ten years. These are forward-looking projections, not the current accounting outputs.

Revenue Generation

The factors that will make the project successful needs to be emphasized and listed here so a definite pattern of revenue generation emerges. This is the most important as well as crucial part of the Business Plan that overwhelmingly influence investor decisions. It must be explained why the added equity or debt money is going to make the project viable and more profitable. A potential lender is going to want to know how successful the project is going to be. Factors that support promoter's claims for success must be mentioned briefly. This gives the reader an idea of the experience of the other key people in the business. They'll want to know what suppliers or experts the promoter has spoken to about his business and their response to his/her idea. They may even ask the promoter to clarify your choice of location or reasons for selling a particular product.

Projecting Market Share

Arriving at a projection of the market share for a business plan is very much a subjective estimate. It's based on not only an analysis of the market but on highly targeted and competitive distribution, pricing and promotional strategies. Even though there may be a sizable number of customers to form the total feasible market, the project promoter needs to be able to reach them through his distribution network at a price point that's competitive, and then he has to let them know it's available and where they can buy it. achieving effective distribution, pricing and promotional goals determines the extent to which the project owner will be able to garner market share.
For a business plan, our experts estimate market share for the time period the plan will cover. In order to project market share over the time frame of the business plan, our experts consider two factors:
2. Conversion of users from the total feasible market. This is based on a sales cycle similar to a product life cycle where there are five distinct stages:

  1. early pioneer users,
  2. early users,
  3. early majority users,
  4. late majority users, and
  5. late users.

Using conversion rates, market growth will continue to increase the market share during the period from early pioneers to early majority users, level off through late majority users, and decline with late users.
Defining the market is but one step in the analysis. With the information gained through market research, our experts develop strategies that will allow the promoter to fulfill the project objectives.

Positioning The Proposed Business

Before a product can be positioned, several strategic questions need to be answered such as:

  1. How are competitors positioning themselves?
  2. What specific attributes does the product have that its competitors' don't?
  3. What customer needs does the product fulfill?

Once these strategic questions have been answered based on research of the market, our experts develop the positioning strategy and illustrate that in the business plan. A positioning statement for a business plan doesn't have to be long or elaborate. It spells out exactly how the promoter wants his product perceived by both customers and the competition.


How the product is priced is important because it will have a direct effect on the success of the project. Though pricing strategy and computations can be complex, the basic rules of pricing are straightforward:

  1. All prices must cover costs.
  3. Prices must reflect the dynamics of cost, demand, changes in the market and response to esixting competition.
  4. Prices must be established to assure sales.

There are many methods of establishing prices:



Distribution includes the entire process of moving the product from the factory to the end user. The type of distribution network you choose will depend upon the industry and the size of the market. Our experts analyze the competitors to determine the channels they are using, then decide whether to use the same type of channel or an alternative that may provide the promoter with a strategic advantage.

As we've mentioned already, the distribution strategy the promoter chooses for his product will be based on several factors that include the channels being used by the competition, pricing strategy and own internal resources.

Promotion Plan

With a distribution strategy formed, promoter must develop a promotion plan. The promotion strategy in its most basic form is the controlled distribution of communication designed to sell the product or service. In order to accomplish this, the promotion strategy encompasses every marketing tool utilized in the communication effort. 

Sales Potential


Competitive Analysis
Identify and Analyze the Competition :  The competitive analysis is a statement of the business strategy and how it relates to the competition. The purpose of the competitive analysis is to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors within the market, strategies that will provide the project promoter with a distinct advantage, the barriers that can be developed in order to prevent competition from entering one's own market, and any weaknesses that can be exploited within the product development cycle.

Design and Development Plan
The purpose of the design and development plan is to provide investors with a description of the product's design, chart its development within the context of production, marketing and the company itself, and create a development budget that will enable the company to reach its goals.

  1. Product development
  2. Market development
  3. Organizational development


Goals For Product Development
Goals for product development should center on the technical as well as the marketing aspects of the product so that there is a focused outline from which the development team can work. Organizational goals would center on the acquisition of expertise in order to attain product and market-development goals. This expertise usually needs to be present in areas of key assets that provide a competitive advantage. Without the necessary expertise, the chances of bringing a product successfully to market diminish.

With goals set and expertise in place, set of procedural tasks or work assignments for each area of the development plan is put in place. Procedures will have to be developed for product development, market development, and organization development. In some cases, product and organization can be combined if the list of procedures is short enough.


  4. Scheduling and Costs


Development Budget
That leads us into a discussion of the development budget. When formulating the development budget, our experts take into account all the expenses required to design the product and to take it from prototype to production.

Costs that should be included in the development budget include:

  1. Material. All raw materials used in the development of the product.
  2. Direct labor. All labor costs associated with the development of the product.
  7. Miscellaneous Costs. Costs that are related to product development.
  8. Capital equipment. To determine the capital requirements for the development budget.

Project Risk Identification, Analysis, Mitigation, and Allocation
The core of Project Finance is the analysis of project risks, namely construction risk, operating risk, market risk, regulatory risk, insurance risk, and currency risk. There are risks related to the pre-completion phase such as activity planning risk, technological risk, and construction risk or completion risk. Then there are risks related to the post-completion phase such as supply risk, operating risk, and demand risk.  And then there are risks related to both phases such as interest rate risk, exchange risk, inflation risk, environmental risk, regulatory risk, political risk, country risk, legal risk, and credit risk or counterparty risk. These risks are allocated contractually to the parties best able to manage them. The process of risk management is usually based on the following interrelated steps:

  1. risk identification;
  2. risk analysis;
  3. risk transfer and allocation;
  4. residual risk management;

Essential to structuring a project finance package are the crucial elements of successful identification, analysis, mitigation and allocation of project risks. These risks are related to events that could endanger the project during development, construction and operation.
During the development stage the main risk is rejection by the host government or by the financiers – for reasons including commercial weakness, failure to obtain licenses, permissions and clearance. Sponsors can hedge their risks by obtaining technical assistance grants for project preparation and planning.
During the construction stage the main risk is failure to complete the project with acceptable performance levels and within an acceptable time frame and budget. Sponsors can hedge construction risks by purchasing various forms of insurance and obtaining guarantees from contractors with regard to costs, completion schedule and operational performance.
After construction, the main risk is ongoing operations and performance and include technical failures, availability of funds, market demand, prices, foreign exchange rates or environmental issues. The sponsors can hedge these risks through contractual and guarantee agreements that transfer some of the risk to other parties.

Operations & Management
The financial tables that you'll develop within the operations plan include:

  1. The operating expense table
  2. The capital requirements table
  3. The cost of goods table


Calculate Overhead Expenses
Overhead expenses usually include the following:

  1. Travel
  2. Maintenance and repair
  3. Equipment leases
  4. Rent
  5. Advertising & promotion
  6. Supplies
  7. Utilities
  8. Packaging & shipping
  9. Payroll taxes and benefits
  10. Uncollectible receivables
  11. Professional services
  12. Insurance
  13. Loan payments
  14. Depreciation


Developing A Capital Requirements Table (CAPEX BUDGET)

Cash Flow Statement
The cash-flow statement should be prepared on a monthly basis during the first year, on a quarterly basis during the second year, and on an annual basis thereafter. Items needed to be included in the cash-flow statement and the order in which they should appear are as follows:

  2. Receivables. Income derived from the collection of receivables.


The Balance Sheet 
1. Assets
2. Liabilities
3. Equity
To obtain financing for a new business, promoter may need to provide a projection of the balance sheet over the period of time the business plan covers. More importantly, promoter will need to include a personal financial statement or balance sheet instead of one that describes the business. A personal balance sheet is generated in the same manner as one for a business.

In the business plan, the promoter will need to create an analysis statement for the balance sheet just as is needed to be done for the income and cash flow statements. The analysis of the balance sheet should be kept short and cover key points about the company.

Now that we have explained why project needs a business plan, you should try and getting your Business Plan in place before pitching for funding / investment


For Projects worth under US$ 5 million :  US$ 10,0000

For Projects worth above US$ 5 million but less than US$ 100 million :  US$ 16,000

For Project worth over US$ 100 million to US$ 500 million : US$ 40,000

For Project worth over US$ 500 million  : To be decided after mutual discussion. 

For Projects based in India, please contact us at  for special rates.

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