Business planning

Learn why business planning is an essential exercise if your business is to start and grow successfully, attract funding or target new markets.

A well-researched and written business plan is an essential tool. Discover how to structure and write a business plan and what information to include.

A business strategy will help you look at the bigger picture and plan your business' long-term future. Discover how to prepare a business strategy.

Business planning is not just for start-ups, says Russell Streeter; business owners should review progress and plan strategy regularly.

From describing your market and researching customers to preparing sales forecasts and budgets, learn how to create a marketing plan.

A key task when starting up is drawing up a sound business plan that outlines your idea, strategy for achieving your aims and other key information.

No-nonsense jargon buster explaining many of the key start-up words and terms you might come across when starting, forming and running your business.

A business plan outlines your strategy - from the market you operate in to your staff and marketing activities. Our guide to writing a great plan.

A business plan is the roadmap for how you run your business. Here's how to write yours.

Unless you are happy as you are, you will be looking for ways to develop and grow your business. These 10 steps will lead you in the right direction.

In this short YouTube video clip, Business Wales explains how to create and lay out a business plan.

Writing a business plan forces you to consider many different issues, and this can help focus your thinking. Chris Wildman, director of Town End Farm Shop, tell us how he created his start-up business plan.

Some firms struggle to achieve significant growth, staying much as they were at the start-up phase. So how can you make the move to the big league?

Emma Warren of business development services provider Portfolio Directors explains how key performance indicators can help small businesses.

Writing a business plan can seem daunting if you've never done it before but you can't afford to put it off. Here's how to get it right.

Unless you are happy as you are, you will be looking for ways to develop and grow your business. These ten steps will lead you in the right direction.

Key performance indicators can help you measure how your business is performing in particular areas, so that you can track and improve this over time.

Some great ideas fail, while what appeared marginal businesses have enjoyed great success. So what mistaken beliefs do many new owners have?

Benchmarking provides a way to measure how effective your processes are, compared to competitors. Here's how to set up benchmarking in your business.

These business plan templates can help you think about your business ideas and get a plan together.

A SWOT analysis means looking at your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, so that you understand your key advantages and disadvantages.

Jake Xu of creative design and brand communications agency Ready explains the benefits of planning your approach to marketing.

Part-time businesses are booming. According to research, 20% of UK adults use their spare time to grow a new business or earn extra income.

Sales forecasting is key to cash flow control, but it can be difficult for new businesses, because they don't have any past sales figures to go on.

Strategy simply means having a plan of action to get your business to where you want it to be. The key is to focus on what you're trying to achieve.

Even a successful business can expect a few ups and downs. Will yours weather the storm? Anthony Main tells us what he's learned from adversity.

Although the rate of business failures is dropping, failures are still well above the rates seen before the start of the economic crisis.