Start as you mean to go on

Pre-start Business Planning

If you seek advice to start a business, you will invariably be encouraged to develop a business plan. This is sound advice! Putting together a well prepared business plan will not only give you a blue print for success but also the confidence to achieve what you’re setting out to do.

If you are at the Pre-Start phase in your business journey our on-line business planning system will help you set-up the controls you need to use when you Start-up and Grow your business.

Managing Start-up and Growth

It is common when starting a business to treat the business planning process as a separate exercise to actually managing it. This is particularly unfortunate because the sales, costs and profit targets that you worked hard to put together should now be used as a basis to track your actual business performance

We can help you here by transferring all the relevant information in your business plan into business management software so that you can track your performance against targets from day 1.

Not only that, but our business management systems are scalable and will grow as your business grows which means that you won’t have to worry about the costly replacement of obsolete computer hardware and management software.

The benefits of a Business Plan

The benefits of a business plan are not just in having the document itself, but also in what you learn about your target markets, customers and business management generally as you go through the business planning process. In this context, when you have completed your business plan you can realistically be able to:

• Prove that there will be sufficient market demand for your product or service offer.
• Have a competitive pricing structure that will support achievement of your profit targets.
• Run efficient and cost effective promotional campaigns.
• Plan requirements for facilities, equipment and numbers of employees.
• Identify training needs to strengthen your skill base.
• Set realistic sales, costs and profit targets.
• Calculate your start-up costs, cash flow requirements and any needs for financial investment.
• Carry out a risk assessment to identify and offset any threats to your business.
• Ensure that you conform to all legal and regulatory requirements
• Prepare an action plan to keep you focussed on the key things you must do to achieve success.
• Use management systems to control the performance of your business

The critical factor of a successful business is, YOU!

When you start your business you could have so much to do in so little time, that having one system to manage Sales & Marketing, Sales Order Processing and Finance will not only save you time but allow you to concentrate on building your business.

Here are just a few of the advantages you can have from using our Business Management Systems

• Seamless transfer of information from your on-line business plan so that you can track your actual against planned business targets.
• All your important business information in one place overcoming the need for separate spreadsheets, data bases and proprietary software packages.
• Scalable so that the system you start with can expand as your business grows saving you costs on expensive upgrades.
• Systems designed specifically for different market sectors including retail, service, project management and manufacturing.
• 24/7, highly secure access to reliable business information anywhere where there is an internet access.
• Remote access by sales staff and home workers offer potential for reducing overhead costs
• More predictable IT costs.
• More predictable business performance and less stress from knowing what’s going on.
• Develop and hone your management skills.

Whilst this might sound like business utopia, the key is to ensure:

• Business processes are carried out the same way every time and that information is effectively shared when progressing a customer order.
• The performance of business processes is continually measured.

This can be demonstrated with the aid of the following diagram:

There are two essential component parts of our systems

Hardware

Our systems are fully hosted by Rackspace, a world leader in the provision of web hosting services. They offer:

• Banking level security with guaranteed performance and 24/7 access to important business information with unique user name and password protected access.
• Server design integrating firewall, virus protection and spyware technologies, which together with 24/7 system maintenance and rigorous back-up procedures ensures the integrity hosted information.
• Continuous investment in server based technology to ensure that their systems are always ‘State of the Art’ and at performance levels that were once only available to large companies.
• The ability to rapidly scale up hosting capacity without the need to invest in new hardware.

Software

Our design incorporates the experience gained by government approved business advisers who have worked with significant numbers of business owner/mangers, operating across all market sectors and at all stages of development from pre-start, through start-up, growth and ultimately exit. The combined hardware and software offers give you the added benefit of:

• The opportunity to support a home based or mobile workforce with potential for significant savings in business overheads.
• Efficiency gains by more effective sharing of information between employees, customers and suppliers.