Introduction: Creating a Business Plan

In the industries today, many productions are developed rapidly, some are successful and may prosper for a long time while others are short lived and will eventually fail.  Whether it'd be a media based project like for a film, television programme or advertisement or for a product that is designed for a particular purpose, the effective way to determine its outcome and get it successfully sold or used in a certain industry is by planning it in advance. And for that, a business plan must be created where all aspects of production are covered and handled by several people in different job roles.


For such a project, each member of a group that produces it undergoes several distinctive job roles in arranging and developing each different stage of putting the project together. Here is a few examples of the major job roles involved.


CEO (Chief Executive Officer) or Project Manager
The big cheese, so to speak. The CEO is responsible for all aspects involved in running a company, including developing, making corporate decisions, managing overall operations within the company and acting as the main communication of the board of directors. Simply put, the CEO is the boss of everything. More information from the link below.


http://www.steverrobbins.com/articles/ceojob#part1



Marketing Strategist
The marketing strategist is responsible for the process that allows a company to concentrate on deciding the best opportunities to increase sales of a product by using limited resources and make sure that the company gains an effective advantage that is both competitive to others and sustainable. More information on the link below.


http://www.easy-marketing-strategies.com/definition-marketing-strategy.html



Finance Director
The CFO (Chief Financial Officer), or Finance Director, is responsible for overseeing all the financial matters of the project, including the financial health of the corporation. More information on the link below.


http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Finance+Director


Head of Brand
The head of brand is in charge of the process of articulating unique value propositions for the company, whether they be professional or personal, and placing them among several platforms with messages in order to achieve a goal. More information on the link below.


http://personalbrandingwiki.pbworks.com/w/page/16005465/FrontPage

Head of CSR
The head of CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is responsible of the decision making that guides all activities of the company under the protection of human rights, labor, environmental standards and legal requirements. More information on the link below.


http://www.bench-marks.org/glossary.shtml


Well, all that aside, for this assessment we had to form a group and produce a business plan for a product of our choice and assign ourselves to different job roles. I acquired the role of Finance Director so it was my job to cover as much of the financial side of the project as possible. To start with, since I was quite naive about the subject of finances, I looked some research on the subject.

Researching

According to minor details, my group has decided to sell a product called Eclipse Glass, a dimmable glass that dims automatically to a electronic signal, therefore blinds and curtains will no longer be needed. But to produce such a product, you have to find and purchase the correct materials. Also, you have to determine how the finished product would sell, whether successfully or not. Below are a few links I have done on researching the subject of financing and some references to existing dimmable glass.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/Budget-planning

http://www.touchstone.co.uk/products/microsoft_dynamics_gp/product_overview.aspx?gclid=CNi1mNvk5KgCFQoa4Qods3KoCw

http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?topicId=1074416511

http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/StaticBS?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1223410025361&cachecontrol=immediate&ssbinary=true&maxage=3600

http://www.dawconsulting.co.uk/business-plan/index.php

http://www.dawconsulting.co.uk/part-time-finance-director/index.php

http://www.dawconsulting.co.uk/part-time-finance-director/discover-how-to-manage-your-business-pr.html

http://www.dawconsulting.co.uk/smaller-businesses-and-the-executive-interim.html

http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter%2021.htm

http://www.simplelighting.co.uk/products/IP44-Dimmable-Glass-Flush-Bathroom-Ceiling-Light-Endon-657%252d15.html

http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/dimmable-glass.html

Finance Directing - Budget Plans

This here is a series of images of the finance plans I have produced based on a similar template I discovered during research. Using the concept of sales, production and direct materials, I produced a false estimate just to see how our product would sell at what price and how the annual Recap might increase or decrease throughout the first year of production.

Based on a template I discovered in my research, I have taken the liberty of producing this sales budget, making a few estimates of how our product would sell in the first year starting with how many items we sell at a certain price and how much we would receive out of the quarter sales.
The bottom part here shows of how much cash collections we would obtain from the sales total. Each of these sums is about 2/3 of the sum above it.  And the sums above are 1/3 of the sum.

This here is a production budget, which of course estimates the level of production.

The Direct Materials budget, which of course shows how much materials we would need to develop the finished product and the total costs of it all. If we are to produce it from scratch. The numbers at the top are from where the production budget left off, so we would require about 6 square feet of the materials so we would maintain about 20% of raw materials needed for the items.

This here is an expenditure budget, the estimates of how high the rates of everything that would be required, including telephone, printing, travel, etc would be in the first year.  

This here is the original sales budget with a few details pointed out.