Tag Archives for business planning

The business analysis models come into play when understanding the requirements of stakeholders in every organization whilst identifying opportunities for growth and problem-areas which needs attention. While there are many areas to look at, it would consume more time unless you have the correct tools at hand.

In this guide, we have compiled a list of business analysis models that you can use during a strategic, tactical or operational business analysis. They are as follow,

Analyzing Organizational Strengths and Weaknesses

Organizational Charts

Organizational charts help to visualize the hierarchy of your organization and the reporting relationships among employees. Org charts are useful when planning a project, allocating resources, planning for future projects or organizational developments.

Any change you want to make to your organizational structure should start with an organizational chart template like the one below.

More Organizational Chart Templates

MOST Analysis

Business analysts use the MOST analysis to plan and analyze organizational activities and make sure that they are centered around your business goals.

How to do it

MOST stand for,

Mission – Mission is basically what your organization wants to accomplish or its purpose. It should be centered around your stakeholders and benefits.  Write down your mission statement in the Mission box of your MOST analysis template.

Objectives – These are the individual goals that will help you complete your mission.

Strategy – This section includes the different tasks you have to do to reach your objectives.

Tactics – Here you need to identify and list down the specific tactics you need to get your activities done.

Once you’ve filled out the template, you can get a quick overview of how you need to plan your organizational strategies.

PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE analysis is a tool that is used to identify and examine the external factors that affect a business. These macro environmental factors the analysis try to identify are

• Political factors such as government policies, trading policies or elections
• Economic factors such as economic trends, taxes, or import/export ratios
• Social factors such as demographics, lifestyles, or ethnic issues
• Technological factors like advancing technology or technology legislation
• Legal factors such as employment laws or health and safety regulations
• Environmental factors such as climate change or environmental regulations

More PESTLE Diagram Templates

SWOT Analysis

SWOT analysis can be used to identify both internal and external factors that may affect a business. These are Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Refer to our post on SWOT Analysis: What, Why and How to Use Them Effectively to learn about the technique in more detail.

Check out our post on Marketing Strategy Planning Tools to learn about more useful tools and techniques for business analysts.

Analyzing Competitors and the Market Trends

A competitive analysis lets you identify what makes your product or service unique from that of your competitors and develop strategies to attract your competitors.

There are many competitor analysis techniques like Porter’s Five Forces, value proposition canvas, radar chart etc. to conduct a research on your competitors. Refer to our post on Visual Techniques to Conduct a Competitive Analysis to learn about these techniques in detail.

Analyzing Products and Services

Product Roadmap

Product roadmaps are a great way to analyze the development or the evolution of a product over time. They highlight the goals, milestones, and deliverables of your product development project.

They can also be used

• To communicate product related details to stakeholders and customers
• As a guiding document for strategic planning
• To coordinate the product development process
• To track your progress in achieving your objectives

How to create it

Step 1: Decide the duration of your roadmap and who you are designing it for. While you need to tailor your roadmap for your audience (i.e. if it is for your product development team the map should detail all specific tasks and features and dates), the timeframe should be reasonable.

Step 2: Collect the information you need to create the roadmap. These include goals, tasks, deadlines, key milestones etc.

Step 3: Using a product roadmap template like the one below, you can easily visualize these details for quick reference

More Roadmap Templates

Mind Map of Product Features

The initial phase of a product development process or any other project usually make up of brainstorming sessions. There are a lot of ideas and opinions shared and requests made. Business analysts can use mind maps to capture and organize these ideas shared.

Analyzing Systems and Processes

Activity Diagrams

Activity diagrams visualize use cases at a more detailed level. Business analysts can use them to illustrate the flow of events in a business process, or the flow activities through a system.

How to use it

Step 1: Identify the various steps in your business process or the activities in your system

Step 2: Identify the actors involved in the process. If you know who they are, it would be easier for you to decide the steps performed by them

Step 3: Find the order in which each order the process steps flow

Step 4: Add swimlanes to your activity diagram to highlight the responsible actors

To learn about activity diagrams in more detail, refer to our Easy Guide to Activity Diagrams.

Activity Diagram Templates

Use Case Diagrams

Use case diagrams let you identify the different roles in a system and how they interact with it. These come in handy when you want to communicate how a system functions to your stakeholders etc.

Here’s our use case diagram tutorial to learn how to draw a use case diagram.

Use Case Diagram Templates

Navigation Map

The website navigation map helps you design your wireframes and UI mockups. It basically outlines how the user interface flows, or how your customer would interact with your website.

To draw a navigation map, you need to know the touchpoints your ideal website visitor would interact with upon visiting your site. You can use a customer journey map to identify these touchpoints and then use the following navigation map template to outline the website journey of your visitors.

Wireframe and UI Mockup Templates

User Interface Wireframes

Wireframes present a blueprint of your website or application screen. It will help you define the information hierarchy of your design and in turn letting you plan your website or app in a user-friendly way.

How to use it

Step 1: Decide on all the details you want to add to your design.

Step 2: Create the layout by drawing boxes on the grid. It would be easier for you if you start adding information from top to bottom and left to right. Or you can simply select a wireframe like the one below from the Creately UI mockup and wireframe templates to get a head start.

Step 3: Add text to define the information hierarchy. Here you can use different font sizes to see how it would look.

Process Maps

With process maps, it’s easier to understand processes and identify bottlenecks and blockers that might be slowing your business processes, as they visualize a process step-by-step.

You can use a current-state process map and future-state process map to identify gaps in your processes and communicate how your work gets done to your stakeholders.

Check out our process map tutorial to learn how to draw a process map. Our post on process map improvement techniques covers 9 process improvement methodologies that you can use to streamline your business processes.

Analyzing Stakeholders and Their Interests

Stakeholder Map

When planning a project, it’s important to know who the stakeholders are and why the project is important to them. It helps identify stakeholder roles and responsibilities.

How to use it

Step 1: Identify the stakeholders of your project. These are the people who may be affected by your project directly or indirectly. Remember to consider those who come from outside your company as well.

Step 2: Based on the stake they have in your project, group and prioritize them.

Step 3: Using a stakeholder map, categorize your stakeholders.

Threats and Opportunity Matrix for Stakeholders

Threats and opportunity matrix is used by business analysts to examine how project stakeholders will be affected by implementing and not implementing a proposed solution. It helps to make better decisions with regard to your stakeholders as it helps you look at things from their perspective.

How to do it

Step 1:  Get a list of stakeholders and have a look at your project charter

Step 2: List down the reasons for the change you want to implement. Then list down the threats of not implementing the change, and the opportunities you can gain by implementing the change.

Step 3: Think of the reaction of stakeholders who would not like the change and list down the threats of implementing the change and opportunities of not making any changes.

Step 4: Get together your team and discuss the results. Arrive at a conclusion that won’t negatively affect your key stakeholders.

MoSCoW Method

MoSCoW method is used to understand priorities. With it, you can quickly decide which to prioritize when it comes to your customer requirements, projects, project tasks, and products etc.

While the o’s are added to make pronunciation easier the rest of the letters stand for

M – Must Have (a requirement you must have to meet a business need)

S – Should Have (a requirement you should have if possible)

C – Could Have (a requirement you could have if it doesn’t affect other project activities negatively)

W – Would Have (a requirement that you would like to have later)

By categorizing your requirements with a matrix like below, you can decide which requirements to prioritize, which you can do later and which to exclude.

Managing and Dealing with Change

In the context of business, implementing change is never easy, especially as it may affect so many aspects. By using the correct tools, you can make sure that you adapt to new changes seamlessly.

In our Guide to Change Management Tools, we discuss change management techniques that you can use to plan ahead for the changes in your organization.

Add to the List of Business Analysis Models

Whether planning a project, developing strategies, or improving business processes, you can use the business analysis models in this list, for quick solutions.  These are just a few business analysis techniques from those that are out there.

What other business analysis models do you use in your organization? Do add them in the comment section below so we can expand this list.

If you’ve got a business you need a business plan. It’s so obvious, the statement should be inane. After all, without a business plan, people won’t know where you’re heading or what they can do to get there.

It will be harder to make informed decisions about what fits in with the core of your company concept and what you shouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. And there is a much greater likelihood that your company will drift away from what it’s good at and lose its competitive edge.

And that’s a sure route to failure.

At the same time, numerous companies don’t have a business plan – largely because they struggle to write one up. Instead, at best they’ll have a couple of dozen drafts floating around which kind of get at what they’re trying to do, but don’t really manage to capture it, while at worst it’s right at the bottom of somebody’s ‘to do’ list, right next to getting the company registered at the chamber of commerce.

If either of those situations describes you, then I’m here to help. Today, let’s talk about how you can write the perfect business plan.

Do your research

You need to know as much as possible about your product, the product of your competitors, the market and your audience. Don’t skip this part. It is absolutely essential that you know what’s going on. This is the foundation of your business plan. And without a foundation you’re building castles in the air.

A poorly researched business plan can be more harmful than not having a business plan at all, as it doesn’t serve to identify your key strengths and the dangers on the road ahead. And that can blind you to both.

What is your plan for?

Over at Entrepreneur they’ve a good definition of the business plan. It, “describes the nature of the business, the sales and marketing strategy and the financial background, and contains a projected profit and loss statement.”

At the same time, that doesn’t have to be how your plan works. There are many variations around this theme. For example, it can serve as a roadmap to steer your business in the right direction. Alternatively, it can serve as a tool to pull in investors.

Before you sit down to write your plan, write down your goals that you’re trying to achieve with your goals. Possibly put them on a sticky note that accompanies the plans as you write them.

Write up a company profile

In this document you summarize the history of your organization, the products and services that you offer, the market segment that makes up your target audience, what resources you’ve got available and what it is about your business that makes it unique.

The great thing about your company profile is that it’s not just for your business plan, it can also serve to inform people about what you’re up to. You can include it in a newsletter, turn it into a blog post, or even put it on your about page. So there you go, you’re killing two birds with one stone (poor birds).

Document everything

This is particularly important if your goal is to attract investors. After all, investors are in the business of making money and that means that they’re not just going to throw money at you because they like the cut of your jib.

Instead, they’re going to want to know everything. And they’re not going to be at all impressed if you don’t already have it ready for them or if you don’t know the answer to their questions.

So, make sure you know your cash flow, your expenses and your industry projections. Write down all the property, products and patents that you own and everything else that can be considered an asset.

The marketing plan

Sure, some businesses get lucky with fans going mad about their product and letting the whole world know. You can’t (and your investor won’t) assume that’s you. So create a marketing plan. The goal here is to explain how you’re going to do such things as

• Raise brand awareness
• Introduce new products
• Enter new territories and new markets
• Cross-sell several products together
• How you’ll increase market share for a specific product in a specific price range
• Find and hook desirable clients
• Increase revenue

The plan should include objectives for each of your sections. Here you focus on the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ of that point. With that I mean, ‘why is this an objective (and why at this point in time)’ and ‘what are you going to do to achieve it?’

Don’t forget to create a cost projection. After all, marketing costs money and you’ve got to have at least  a decent estimate of what it’s going to cost you to achieve your goals.

Don’t just do one version

Different audiences will be interested in different things, have different levels of expertise and different expectations. For example, a banker is going to be interested in a completely different set of values and numbers than a potential partner might be.

For that reason, make sure that you adjust your business plan to the audience you are dealing with. The first step in adjusting your business plan is to figure out what are the most important numbers and ideas for this audience and then make those easily available.

You can do this by re-arranging the document to put those numbers near the top, or by supplying a separate sheet that contains summaries of these points and indicates where the reader might find them in the main document.

Don’t forget the passion

Numbers will back up your idea. They won’t, however, define it. For that reason, make sure that you include why you believe in what you’re doing. Show the people why you care and why you are uniquely capable of doing what you’re outlining in the business plan.

After all, the goal isn’t just to sell yourself, it is also to make certain that they understand that you should be the person to do it. You’ve got to sell the package. And that means showing them that you care.

With all of that together, you’ll have the perfect business plan – one that doesn’t just sell the business, but one that also sells you, so that the investors won’t think ‘what a great idea, I’ll go do that myself’ but rather, ‘what a great idea, I’ve got to do it with them’.

 

About the author:
Rick Riddle is a marketing consultant and an up-and-coming blogger whose articles aim to help people with digital marketing, blogging, entrepreneurship, and career. Feel free to follow Rick on twitter and LinkedIn.

In business, there’s a temptation to grow beyond your niche. Most businesses start out highly focused, and at some point, they want more. They figure the easiest way to get more profit and exposure is to start offering more products and services. This doesn’t always work well. In fact, it can limit your ability to generate profit efficiently.

There’s nothing wrong if this is the approach you want to take, and it’s not to say you won’t be successful. It’s just that you may not be as successful as possible. There’s a danger in being too many things to too many people: you’ll mean nothing to any of them.

Here’s why specialization can really help you.

Generalization vs. Specialization

Again, it’s worth noting that there’s nothing wrong with generalizing. It’s just usually not the road that would generate the most profits. Usually, when you’re good at a whole lot of things, you need a whole lot more business to make it work. Different customers from different niches demanding different services puts a lot of pressure on you, especially if you are a startup.

When you specialize in something, it gives you a real advantage both in marketing and generating profit.

A Generalization Example

Take a local business owner who offers services in furnace repair, lawnmower repair, small engine repair, framing, plumbing and laying flooring.

In an average week he’ll do a little bit of everything.

Pros:

• Having more services means there are more things people can call you for.
• Doing many different things well means you can handle almost every task with some proficiency.
• Some tools that you use for one trade can often be used in another trade.

Cons:

• You’ll be good at many things, but never truly great at any one of them.
• People looking for any of the services you offer are likely to hire people who are the foremost experts in that field before you.
• Your prices will be lower in order to compete with the specialists.
• You have to have many tools to do all the jobs you do.
• None of the tools will be highly advanced and expensive since you only do a few jobs a week with them and it’s not cost effective.
• Advertising is a nightmare. How can you get across everything you do in a limited space?

A Specialization Example

Take a local business owner who only handles furnaces. He’ll repair, install, and service them – but that’s all he does.

In an average week, he’s busy with furnaces.

Pros:

• People call him first. He’s the expert.
• Much like a brain surgeon, he specializes in this one thing, so he knows more about it than anyone else. That level of expertise is expensive. He makes more per service call than the other guy.
• He has very expensive and highly specialized equipment because he only needs to have the equipment required to do this one job.
• When people think furnace, they think of this guy. He’s the furnace king in his town.
• Advertising is highly focused, targeted to the right demo, and only has one message.

Cons:

• He can’t do everything. He’ll never make money at lawnmower repair.
• If furnaces become obsolete, so will his business.

Why You Should Specialize

As you can see in the example above, when you specialize, it really allows you to become the expert in something. I know it seems more intuitive to be able to attract as many people as possible, but people gravitate towards those who know what they’re talking about.

When you’re looking for answers to a specific question, the best results in Google are the ones from a niche website. If you’re looking for parenting advice, you will not go to a general forum about everything; you will go to a parenting forum or a website. Those people are most likely to know what they are talking about.

The same is true with your career. People seek out the advice of experts first. It’s why so many companies have blogs now. It’s part of a content strategy for producing amazing content that positions them as the experts in their field.

Here’s how specializing will benefit you:

• Focus. You only need to focus on dominating one area. It’s much easier to focus on targeting a parenting website than targeting everyone. You can put all your energy into one thing and be amazing at it.

• Money. You can get paid more by being the expert in one area. Customers tend to pay a jack-of-all-trades an average rate for an average job, but they are ready to pay a higher sum of money for the expert in the field, because they trust him to get the job done without failure. Specialists in all fields make more money.

• Efficiency. If you’re constantly doing the same type of thing, you’ll invest in the specialized training and tools that will help you be most efficient at it. You’ll also be able to solve problems quicker than generalists as you see them more often.

• Demand. Most people want the best mechanic, best website builder, best adwords guy, the best writer. If you can get the results they’re looking for the first time, people will pay more for that. Your services will always be in demand.

Specialization doesn’t limit your business, it helps it become more efficient and gain more profit. Where the generalist will show up in the middle to bottom of all packs, you’ll show up near the top of yours. People will come to you first.

Growth will happen from reputation, advertising and the service you deliver. All of this is much easier when you specialize instead of generalize.

If you have dreams of starting with a simple notion and turning it into a billion-dollar industry in under a year, chances are you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. But, you don’t need deep pockets or a fancy set-up to start a business. You can begin with nothing more than a great idea and a little support from like-minded individuals. And if you’re looking for some inspiration or motivation then just have a look at these 4 info-graphics.

No Money, No Problem

The first thing entrepreneurs often think they need a ton of right out of the gate is money. Marketing and SEO are two of the most expensive aspects of starting a business, but the advent of email marketing and the use of social media for brand-building have helped businesses reach a wide target audience without spending much and have influenced purchasing decisions.

On top of this, there’s a whole host of SEO tips and tricks available to business owners that can get their websites noticed and give them credibility.

According to this Forbes article Appster began with an initial investment of $3000, and Carol Craig of Craig Technologies started with $150 and is pulling in nearly $45 million a year today.

If you don’t have a hefty life saving lying around, there’s more than one way to gain moderate amounts of capital without generating business revenue first, which is good news, because according to below infographic by QuickBooks, 64% of businesses start with an initial investment of $10,000 or less:

You Don’t Need a Huge Office to Get Started

Google, Apple, HP, and Amazon all started in a garage, and Craig Newmark of Craigslist worked out of his living room for the first five years.

Having access to a fancy office building may seem necessary, but a space to work is really the only crucial part. You may be going after customers that you need to impress, but waiting until you have enough money to acquire an impressive home base is not the way to get them.

No matter what service you’re providing or what product you’re selling, you can start with little more than a single room. Some of the biggest names began in unconventional places, as this Washington State University infographic illustrates:

No Time? How about 30 hours per week?

The third thing most people don’t think they have enough of is time. While there’s no way to launch a successful business without a substantial time commitment for the first several years, it’s not necessary to quit working altogether and sink everything into a business.

It’s possible to start planning, developing, and implementing in your spare time and then save the satisfying show of saying goodbye to your boss for good for when your business is stable. Rest assured, if you have passion and determination, you have the time:

It’s Now or Never

No matter your perceived limitations, there are steps you can take to get your dream off the ground right now. The last thing to consider is this infographic, which describes the anatomy of a successful entrepreneur, and says nothing about money, space, or time:

Are You Going to Start a Business This Year?

We sincerely hope these info-graphics will help you to start a business. With crowdfunding, shares spaces, co-working spaces and many other facilities it’s now easier than ever to start a business so you have absolutely no excuse not to pursue your dreams.

And finally keep in mind that ideas are cheap, its the execution that matter.

SWOT analysis is used across industries to measure Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of a business venture. Although it’s mainly used to assess business ventures, it can also be easily used to measure almost anything that is influenced by external and internal factors. Now that you know what a SWOT analysis is, let’s look at why you should use them and how to use them.

Why Use SWOT Analysis?

With hundreds of methods to assess a business venture you might wonder why use SWOT analysis over other methods. Well here are few reasons

• First introduced by Albert Humphrey in 1960’s it has stood the test of time and still effective as it was in 60’s and 70’s.
• It’s simplicity allows anyone to participate without prior knowledge of the methods and encourages participation.
• It can be used to assess places, competitors, businesses and even to do self assessments.
• Clearly differentiates between internal ( strength/weaknesses ) and external ( opportunities/threats ) factors to help decision making.

There are many more but these are the main reasons why you should choose SWOT over other methods. Keep in mind though that some specialized methods like BPMN offer different advantages.

How to Use SWOT Analysis Technique Effectively

Now you know what and why it’s time to learn how to use them effectively.

Creating a SWOT Analysis Diagram

SWOT diagram comes in various shapes but the key thing is to list down the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in an easily identifiable manner. You can get started easily by using one of our professionally designed SWOT analysis templates.

You can modify any of those templates online using our SWOT analysis software. If you prefer there are some templates in PDF form so you can easily download and take a printout for offline usage. Below is a blank template you can start using immediately.

Now lets look at how to enter data to the SWOT diagram.

Adding Data to the SWOT Analysis Diagram

The first thing you can do is add strengths and weaknesses. Because they are internal factors they are generally easy to identify. Depending on what you’re using the SWOT diagram these factors can vary significantly.

In a business environment they can be

• Human resources – size of your workforce, skill level of your employees, language barriers, geographical distribution
• Financial Situation – Capital, investment capacity, income, predicted profit, seasonal income
• Distribution – sales partners, regional distribution, supply chain efficiency, production capabilities
• Operations – Efficiency of software, operation and implement cost of software, efficiency of reporting processes

Depending on the organization there can be many more areas that can be a strength or a weakness. For example for a company like Apple brand loyalty is a great strength while for Samsung it could be low production cost.

As mentioned above adding internal factors are somewhat easy. The hard part comes when adding external factors, opportunities and threats.

Fortunately there is a formal process called PEST analysis to assess those opportunities and threats. Check out our SWOT vs PEST article to learn about similarities and differences.

PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. Sometimes it’s referred as PESTLE analysis with Legal and Environmental factors added to the mix.

PEST provides you a structured and a formal way to assess the opportunities and threats. Different departments can work on different areas and come up with the necessary data needed for the final SWOT diagram. For large projects there is simply no option but to direct these to different departments.

Below is a breakdown of different areas and some important factors in those areas.

• Political – Government stability, corruption levels, trade controls, import and export restrictions
• Economic – Exchange rates, interest rates, income levels of population, wealth distribution
• Social – Education levels, religious harmony, attitude towards health, social welfare programs
• Technological – Internet penetration, access to basic infrastructure, software piracy, technology competency of workforce
• Legal – Tax laws and regulations, labor laws and firing policies, copyright and anti-piracy laws
• Environmental – Weather patterns, attitude towards recycling, attitude towards organic and green products

Obviously all the factors don’t apply to every organization. For example if you’re selling computers then weather patterns might not interest you but they are definitely important if you’re selling rain coats.

Who Needs/Creates SWOT Diagrams

SWOT analysis are used by decision makers who are part of the planning of a venture. So most of the time they’re used by managers and senior executives. But as I mentioned before they can be applied in many scenarios so almost anyone can be creating SWOT diagrams.

If it’s a large project then they are usually created during lengthy multiple meetings. Managers of different departments, senior level executives and many others might get together and work on the SWOT analysis.

A software like Creately with it’s real-time collaboration tools helps teams to collaborate on SWOT diagrams easily while always visualizing the changes made by others. The revision history is preserved so it’s clearly visible who made the changes and this makes it easy to reverse decisions as well.

Different Uses of SWOT Diagrams

SWOT can be used to cater to hundreds of scenarios. Here’s a look at some common situations where SWOT analysis becomes very useful.

I personally feel personal SWOT analysis is underutilized. It’s a great way to prepare for an interview. Especially so if it’s an internal interview for a promotion and you know who you’re up against. This enables you to focus on your strengths and how those strengths align with opportunities for the company. And it helps to stay clear or talk less about your weaknesses. Check out this FORBES article for a in depth look at doing a personal SWOT analysis.

Another area where SWOT analysis is heavily used is marketing. Marketing is all about getting ahead of your competitors and knowing their strengths and weaknesses helps to focus your message and highlight the strong points.

For example in our case we’re the only diagramming software that offers an online solution and an offline desktop solution that syncs with each other. This is obviously useful for frequent travelers who want access to their diagram from anywhere in the world. And we make sure to highlight this in conferences and meet-ups. Check out this article about using SWOT in marketing to see how you can apply them to your marketing plans.

I hope this article has helped you to understand what SWOT analysis are, why it’s used around the world and how you can use it make better decisions. As always if you have any question feel free to ask them in the comments.