One of the prerequisites of starting a new business venture or project is to assess the business idea or project for its commercial viability. Various aspects that need to be considered are capital and operating expenditure, costing and pricing, turnover predictions, inventory purchase plan, return on investment and break-even estimations etc. This numerical preparedness not only helps in evaluating the commercial viability of a business idea but also serves as a financial action plan in carrying out business activities.
Business Plan Development Consulting
Shortcomings in Retail Business Plan Development
More than mistakes, startup business plans are more prone to shortcomings. Understanding these not-so-apparent gaps requires some amount of experience and insight. Experienced business plan consultants or business plan writers may find it quite relatable that startups and SMEs, otherwise competitive, often reflect a lack of detail and comprehensiveness in their business plan presentation and loopholes in their retail business plan development strategy. The world’s best business plan consultants know that rush is not good when it comes to preparing a business plan. So, the imminent question is – how to write a startup business plan?
Not Planning can Prove to be Risky
A business eventually thrives on its commercial viability and profitability. Not only is good planning required here but also there can be no half-baked assessments. Those commercial aspects which are left unplanned may very well become a source of financial stress later. All the relevant financial projections from investment to operating requirements need to find a place in a retail business plan. For instance, some extra revenue would not hurt but it might be difficult accommodating an unplanned expenditure into a running budget later.
A Plan to Stay on Track
With commercial planning, a business enterprise remains aware of how it must conduct itself for continued business operations. For instance, the purchase plan needs to stay aligned with the demand forecasts to ensure optimum stock availability at all times, to keep the inventory costs within the budget, and for smooth supply chain operations. Most startup business plans nowadays are fiercely competitive that keep business on the edge of the track; something that even the best business plan consultants would scrutinize with all their might.
Lack of funds and provisions
Future can at best be forecasted but it will always entertain contingencies. The same is true for financial forecasts. A retail store financial model or an eCommerce retail financial model must always create and maintain funds and provisions for unforeseen exigencies – small or big, planned or unplanned. A simple example would be a depreciation fund. It allows a company to save funds for asset replacement for a time when an old asset has to be replaced by a new one. Such funds need not cover the entire bill but it serves as a financial cushion for the financial year in which the new asset is purchased.
Accounting for increasing expenditure
Every year the cost of materials, office supplies, wages and salaries, taxes, third-party service charges, etc. are almost bound to increase. The changes could be minute but on a company level, even a 5% hike in its total operational expenditure will have a strong impact on the profit and loss statement.
How YRC can help: a glimpse
As retail business plan writers, we realize how important the financial projections and planning are for assessing the strength and sustainability of a business idea. We follow a rigorous, comprehensive, and systematic process in preparing these estimates and the overall retail business plan development strategy as we thrive to emerge as one of the world’s best business plan consultants. If the commercial viability is established, this detailed financial mapping also serves as a roadmap for future course of action.
From fixed and virtual assets to inventory and marketing, YRC helps businesses identify the capital and initial expenditures to be made. These investments lay the physical and operational foundation required to get a retail and eCommerce business rolling. Some common examples of expenditure in this category are market research costs, building physical infrastructure (store, warehouse, interior and exterior design, etc.), purchase of office equipment, IT purchases and integration, etc.
The margin factor eventually boils down to the estimated purchase and selling price per unit. But what also needs to be considered here is the broader picture i.e. the average margin from the entire product line. In retail business plan development services, our business plan writers will carry out this assessment to give a comprehensive picture of the margins associated with various product lines and the average margin.
Some startups choose to be conservative while many others exhibit enthusiasm in estimating their sales turnover. Both can prove to be risky approaches because there are certain methodologies of estimating sales turnover and involve statistics driven by market research and observations. Various factors that can come into play here are market size, competition, pricing strategy, etc.
The output of a good purchase plan is to ensure that the required stock is available for sale whether via the eCommerce order fulfilment route or at the retail stores. With YRC, you will get a sorted purchase plan to meet your demand forecasts thereby granting you a favourable inventory position to fulfil customer orders accordingly.
Based on the purchase plan and inventory management techniques, YRC will also assess the incoming flow of inventory over a given period to give better control over managing the opening and closing stock.
Salaries constitute a huge chunk of a company’s operational costs and thus it qualifies to be accounted for with utmost precision. You will have to consider its impact on the year-end financial statements. At the same time, if skilled and productive employees are to be retained, they will also need to be adequately remunerated with competitive salaries on a revised YOY basis. In preparing salary budgets, YRC keeps in consideration all these factors so that the salaries to be paid remain in tune with the overall company budget, HR goals, and job market competitiveness.
The pinnacle of answering whether a business idea or project has commercial viability or not is reflected in the estimated profit and loss statements. However, reading these forecasts can be tricky and are closely knitted with the business concept, business model, environmental factors, marketing strategies, business decisions made over time, etc. Sometimes it could be about product modifications, adoption of new technology, capturing new market opportunities, market entry barriers and emergence of new competition, etc. Numbers that may not appear to be so impressive in the initial years may flip the other way round later or vice-versa.
We are a boutique retail consulting firm. To know more about our services or if you have any query, drop us a message and we will get back to you.