Comprehensive Business Plan

Download TEF’s suggested Start-up Business Plan.doc (56 kb) and the Business Plan Competition Financial Worksheets (123 kb) to guide your submission to the Business Plan Competition.

Feasibility Study

Before you start developing your comprehensive business plan, you should have completed a feasibility study that assesses your idea at the organizational, business and social level.

1. Organizational Feasibility
   This section assesses the fit of the business with your organization.
   
   
2. Business Feasibility
   This section assesses the potential of your business idea to generate significant sales revenue, and achieve business breakeven (referred to as “100% business cost recovery” by TEF) after three years.
   
   
3. Social Feasibility
   This section assesses whether your enterprise is likely to succeed in helping participants build a sustainable livelihood, and in particular (i) earn additional income as a direct result of working in the enterprise, and (ii) connect to permanent employment opportunities.

Click here for more information on conducting a feasibility study.

Business Plan

A comprehensive business plan consists of detailed investigation and explanation of:

1. Organizational Structure: The ownership, legal structure, management and systems your enterprise will have.
   
   
2. Market Assessment/Research: The results of your business feasibility study, showing both the primary and secondary research you have conducted into your idea and including a detailed competitor analysis. Click here for resources on Market Assessment/Research.
   
   
3. Marketing Plan: A marketing plan covers the “4Ps” of marketing: product, price, promotion and place. Click here for resources on Marketing Plans
   
   
4. Business Operations Plan:The operations plan shows in detail how you will provide your products and services and how much it will cost you to provide them. Click here for resources on Business Operations
   
   
5. Human Development Plan: This is the point of your social purpose enterprise. Show how you will ensure participants are appropriately trained, accommodated, paid and connected to the mainstream labour market. Click here for resources on Human Development Plans
   
   
6. Risk Assessment: Review the organizational, business and social risks, and explain how you will address them. How will failure affect your parent organization and your participants?
   
   
7. Financial Plan: Your financial plan is your budget. It includes a sales forecast, cash flow forecast and 3-year budget. It is based on your marketing plan, operations plan and human development plan. Click here for resources on Financial Plans
   
   
8. Executive Summary: Summarize your research, marketing, operations and financial plans in two pages or less.