Business Planning Level 1

Question 1

What would you include in a Business Plan if you were setting up your own?

Answer 1

• Executive Summary
• Marketing Strategy
• Vision & Mission Statement
• Overview of products / services
• Overview of management team / personnel
• Financial forecasts
• Responsibilities & targets
• Training, resource & hierarchy
• SWOT Analysis

Question 2

What’s in your company’s marketing plan?

Answer 2

• Client / customer analysis
• SWOT analysis
• Market competition
• Marketing Network
• Planning Marketing Mix
• Design & Execution

Question 3

How do you fit into your company’s marketing plan?

Answer 3

• Marketing network: dependent on person to person sales
• Through client care, establishing and maintaining relationships with new and existing clients
• I also have involvement with DSB’s social media, promoting projects we have completed and the services we offered, whilst showcasing professional successes, such as new employees, services or qualifications obtained by our employees

Question 4

What are marketing plans obliged to provide you with?

Answer 4

• identifying how new customers are to be attracted or existing customers to be maintained

Question 5

What are the objective’s of your companies business plan?

Answer 5

• Diversification of client base
• Succession planning
• Improve use of technology & future fit ways of working
• expansion of services to include a Project Management wing

Question 6

How do the objective’s of your companies business plan reflect on your daily work?

Answer 6

Through succession planning, I have recently been promoted to associate director. This has had an impact on my role through great client facing activities and networking and marketing involvement. In terms of my role as QS, definitely not only through my client, but also through my company KPIs.

Question 7

How would a business measure its performance against its business plan?

Answer 7

Through Key Performance Indicators

Question 8

What external factors beyond the control of the company would it consider when constructing its business plan?

Answer 8

• Political
• Economic
• Social
  -Technological
• Legal
• Environmental

Question 9

What current challenges is Covid and/or Brexit bringing to business planning? How is your company dealing with this challenge?

Answer 9

1. Increases risk management to account for compounded uncertainties
2. Need for agility and ability to adapt to change with the ever changing market and economy
3. Long term forecasting difficulties - the interplay of these difficulties make long-term forecasting more complex & less reliable
4. Investor relations - companies may face challenges in communicating business plans to investors and stakeholders due to increased uncertainties, affecting funding and investment opportunities.