Business Plan - Operations

What is included in the operations section of the business plan

Well, to start with operations concerns all of the day-to-day activities of the business

Every action or tasks that takes place along the value chain, from production or development, all the way to delivery of the value proposition and the receipt back of value

Someone plays a role in carrying this out. other resources and things like that at play

So the first step here is to lay out the value chain

All of the steps that take place as part of the process, production, packaging, logistics

customer satisfaction, collections, payments, everything of this nature. If you identify all the steps in the process, then you can go on to the next step

of identifying who is responsible for each of those tasks, whether it be a

a primary activity which goes directly to the delivery of value or a support activity which does not create value in itself except to the extent that it supports the value delivery process

such as accounting or legal or something of that nature, any of the other professional services, finance, marketing to some extent

So anyway, you move on and then identify the sequence of actions as they occur

In this scenario, you go from simply having a laid out value chain

to using things like a Gant chart to show what is the sequencing of activities and how they overlap

the timing at where did these activities occur throughout the value chain

and importantly, the responsible party, who is overseeing, what section of the company

what individuals, not by name, but by group or function, are part of this process of the value chain

Next you going to look at all of the resources you need at each of the steps in the value delivery process whether it raw materials parts supplies machining and equipment packaging other things of that nature computer systems whatnot

All of the materials, all of the equipment, all of the otherwise physical resources that you

will need to carry out each of these steps along with the sequence and timing as to when

those resources will be needed in the process. You're also going to outline as part of this

You've identified responsible parties or groups who are accountable for the individual

task as part of the value delivery process. Well, you need to somehow show the organizational structure how these groups interact with

each other. What is the reporting structure? How are they managed that type of thing

And you will identify within there what are the specific skill sets and individual types

of positions that are needed to carry out these functions. Some of the functions may need an engineer, others may need a coder, others may need someone

who has ability to do physical labor or skilled services like welding or something of that nature Or if you a service business skilled service providers with licensures or education in a given field or area that type of thing

So once again, you're going to give your organizational structure and the human resources component

What are the skilled positions needed there? Now, oftentimes, the human resources component is

broader than just employees. It will include third parties that are, somehow partner with or carry on services on behalf of the company

You may have an outside sales force. You may have outside accounting, outside legal

The accounting and legal are support activities where the outside sales team is part of the actual value delivery process

You may outsource manufacturing, which is part of the core value proposition

So once again, you'll identify all of the key third parties within the network

that satisfy all of the task or functions that need to take place as part of that value delivery process

Now, all of this taken together is what makes up the operations portion of the business plan