December 2nd, 2011  Posted at   Strategic Planning
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Are you wondering if you really need a business plan for your catering business? Perhaps you are thinking that as you only plan on starting a relatively small business it won’t really be necessary. Many people think like this and, of course, many people end up failing in their first year of business.

We highly recommend that you avoid becoming yet another business that underestimated costs or found that the market wasn’t ready for what they had to offer. Below we have outlined ten reasons why you must prepare a catering company business plan. We explain how if you do take the time to prepare a plan you will be increasing your chances of being successful with your catering startup.

1) Start in the Right Direction

Many entrepreneurs think that they can start out without doing a lot of planning and research. They feel that they can always pick up a feel for the business as they go. However, some of the early decisions that you make in the life of your business can be difficult to reverse at a later date. You need to have a clear path set out ahead of you so that you can make the right decisions about how to set up the business right from the start.

2) Reinforce Your Ideas

As you slowly get ideas about the catering company that you want to start you will find that these thoughts start floating around in your head. What you imagine yourself doing is often very different from what you are able to do realistically. Nothing is impossible but you just need to work out how to get there.

By putting your ideas down on paper you will be clarifying them in your mind. As you write you will find that you do additional brainstorming. You may get new ideas about what you want to do with your business and you may decide that some of the ideas that you had initially are not really feasible.

3) Figure Out How to Do It

Every entrepreneur has a very idealistic image in their mind of the kind of business that they want. Getting to that point is a process though and you need to work out a path to get there.

One great way to figure out how you will proceed is to first write down what you want to do. Next, write down as many questions as you can about how you are actually going to do it. These will include questions like ‘Will I do on-site or off-site catering?’, ‘How will I get access to kitchen facilities?’ or ‘How many catering jobs will I need to land each month to break even?’. As you slowly work out the answers to the problems that you come across you can write them down in the appropriate sections of your business plan.

4) Know Your Startup Requirements

When you prepare a business plan you will get an accurate idea of exactly what is needed before you launch the company. You will need to consider all of the things that you will need to pay for prior to opening such as catering equipment, initial advertising and so on. When you have calculated the total cost you will then know exactly how much money you need and can look at where this funding will come from.

5) Increase Personal Productivity

You have to be organized when you start a business. Rather than writing things down on loose scraps of paper and hoping for the best you need to have somewhere to compile all of the important data that you collect. A business plan is ideal for this purpose. If you store the business plan as a document on your PC you can simply add new information as you come across it. If you have done your research and have all of you information stored in one convenient location you will be more organized throughout your business launch and you will avoid a lot of unnecessary headaches. Read more… »

December 1st, 2011  Posted at   Entrepreneurialism
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Introduction: Think as big as a Roman Emperor and start with small steps towards your own empire. The reason for a big vision is to have clarity of purpose. The reason to take baby steps is to get results quickly. The sooner you can get ‘returns’ the better. Returns may come in the form of feedback as much as from income or saved expense. There is no business that goes according to (business) plan. If you take those initial steps without having the big picture, you’ll soon be lost.

Plan for the Horizon: Be very concerned about what’s on the horizon-that’s where you’re headed, but be preoccupied with what’s on the agendaâEURothat’s what will get you there. Live your future now; if you don’t, it’ll soon be your past. The returns are going to be bigger if your plan is writ large. While planning is vital, allow yourself to grasp the unexpected-don’t avoid opportunities that pop up simply because they weren’t in the plan.

Sell Your Prototype: If that’s all you’ve got ready, sell it, at a big discount maybe. Or, even give it away (protecting your invention, of course). Getting feedback on prototypes early ensures you get the return of buy-in from others later and will ensure that you can make ‘Mark II’ better. That’s the whole idea behind software developers launching Beta versions for free. It’s the next best thing to being your own customer.

Work with Lead Users: You can collaborate with lead users, offering them special deals in return for being available for reference once your definitive product is on the market. When I started in business, I was very pleased to work from Day 1 with a company that was always being asked by others for advice. I offered more in use-value than was paid for, but the ‘return’ was generated over a long period.

Offer Service Before Products: There may be a way that you can sell a service before your product is ready. There are many services that you can perform if you have the expertise to produce products. Your knowledge will enable you to offer your time for sale more quickly than perfecting something that you have to manufacture. The fee that you earn generates the revenue that you can apply to the production process. the return may be smaller, but it’s sooner.

Stick to a Simple Range at First: You may have conceived a grand plan for your product range, but you should not wait until everything is in place before you start selling. Selling a few items will get the revenue flowing and more importantly, you’ll start getting customer feedback before you are fully committed. You can even go out and sell a spec that you fulfil once you have a signed order. This way you’ll avoid unnecessarily scrapping things that have not worked or were unacceptable to clients on a larger scale.

Test Drive Procedures: If you plan to open a restaurant to offer meals throughout the day, start by opening just for one meal only, say in the evening. Then you can use the day time for doing all the many things you need to get done before the full launch, like visiting suppliers. Your kitchen procedures that have let you down in the evening can be perfected in the closed hours the following day, without getting in the way of food preparation when you have customers waiting. Read more… »

November 20th, 2011  Posted at   Strategic Planning
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Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) has been considered a best practice in the manufacturing industry for the past 25 years. Initially started as a process to balance demand and supply, retail S&OP has evolved to a more robust Integrated Business Planning (IBP) process that links Strategic Plans, with product portfolio reviews and new product introductions, unconstrained demand plans, supply plans and capabilities, and financial appraisals of the Integrated Business Plans over a planning horizon of 24 months or more.

Significant benefits, both financial and strategic, have been the result of S&OP implementations in the manufacturing sector. However, in the retail sector, S&OP has not been adopted or at least not adopted in what would be defined as Class A Best Practices. This is currently causing the Retail Supply Chain network to remain unpredictable, minimizing some of the benefits a retail supplier would see from S&OP as well as the benefits a retailer would see if it adopted retail S&OP Class A Best Practices.

This article on Retail S&OP will describe recent developments with retail’s migration towards integrated business planning implementations. In detail, we will discuss:

1) Why Retail S&OP?

2) What is Retail S&OP (in detail)?

3) The impact of Retail S&OP on the retailer and the retailer’s suppliers.

The Role of Effective Integrated Business Planning and Communication

Retail S&OP is a step-by-step process that includes monthly reviews, product reviews, and category management. Before it was introduced, however, plans were always kept on the short term horizon, a nightmare for effective planning initiatives. Today, VICS, or Voluntary Inter-industry Commerce Solutions, is a standards body that almost every major corporation, such as Walmart, Lowe’s, and Target, abides by. Before VICS introduced these best practice measures, suppliers were pushed to implement integrated business planning in some form or another into their existing processes – whether they worked or not – in order to reduce costs and encourage in-house efficiency. Essentially, it was to keep up with the competition.

Reciprocation and trust remain vital in keeping the supply chain strong, but these elements have to trickle down to every stepping stone for integrated business planning to work. With VICS heading up retail S&OP initiatives, the process established a more direct approach to integrated business planning, at least two years out, that involved all partners and links in the chain. Information was shared to promote reciprocation. With a more proactive sharing strategy in place, companies using retail S&OP are often more adept at balancing and forecasting supply and demand and product launches, making the entire retail supply chain significantly less reactive and, thereby, saving money for everyone involved. Read more… »

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