Every year, tens of thousands of aspiring men and women set up in small business, and launch straight into their chosen trade - many do not consider a thorough Business Plan and how technology can now take a lot of pain out of this exercise. Firms that use technology tell us that this provides an invaluable aid for the day to day running of their business. The number of businesses turning to technology is increasing as PC's can save a business owner time and really help them stay in charge through planning and cashflow control which are key to business survival. NatWest aims to harness IT for the benefit of its customers by developing complementary tools such as our Business Start-Up Planner. Because statistics tell us that four out of five small businesses in Britain fail to survive beyond six years and with just a little bit of planning, a little bit of time spent talking to experts and taking advice, many of these personal tragedies could be avoided. It's our job at NatWest to do our bit to show people the paths to profitability using technology to assist wherever possible. The Small Business Planner, developed in conjunction with Microsoft, guides you through the basic principles of business planning using your PC. The software brings the NatWest Business Start-Up Guide to life by providing all the necessary information for you to construct a Business Plan. The Planner uses plain, easy to understand language to take you step by step through the planning process - cashflow, market research, profit margins, turnover - it all sounds so alien, more suited to multi-national giant corporations than you and your office in the spare room. But in fact it's all pretty down-to-earth stuff and on the Planner it takes you through this process step by step and it could mean the difference being a successful small business - and being out of business. Planning ahead is always sensible, but for businesses it is absolutely essential. The Business Plan is a basic tool for the survivor in the business jungle, and for two very good reasons. First, anybody who is going to part with cash to help set up your business is going to want to see a Business Plan. Second, drawing up a Business Plan allows you to ask some serious questions - questions you might have been avoiding because you suspect you might not like the answers. Who wants to buy what I'm selling? How good is the competition? What's the right price to charge? Am I going to run out of money before that sales start to come in? Have I and my partners got the skills and strengths needed to win? Sitting down and preparing a Business Plan will help you focus your mind on these questions. All this can seem a little daunting, but at NatWest we have seen literally millions of Business Plans - from glossy, multi-page documents the size of housebricks, down to a few numbers jotted down on the back of a grubby envelope (actually, we try to discourage the envelope approach) - and our long experience means that we know how to show you the best way to go about preparing your Business Plan. We have produced the software-which is absolutely free, in conjunction with our comprehensive Business Start-Up Guide which includes an entire section on making plans for your business. Some people say that Business Plans are just number-crunching devices to keep the bank happy. Have a heart. We're human too, and we don't like wasting our time ploughing through long, dull documents that bear no relationship to reality. Yes, we like to see a Business Plan, but it's also there to help you, to make you think - hard - about the fundamentals of your new business. Nor are they just about numbers, although there are quite a few numbers involved. As much as anything, the Business Plan helps you think about what is perhaps the most important aspect of business - the human factor. It is people who make or break businesses - people and their skills, their experience, their selling ability, their intelligence. As bankers, we can use the Business Plan to provide you with better advice, with ideas as to how you can avoid the pitfalls ahead. It is crucial to remember in all this that NatWest is on your side - we want you to succeed, because as a business ourselves we want thriving, contented customers. Another thing to remember is that a Business Plan is for life. It's no good preparing a Plan when you start up, and then leaving it to gather dust on a high shelf somewhere; a good business will review its Plan regularly, perhaps twice a year, to see how it's doing, and to work out where it's going, having this capability on your own PC allows you to amend and change information as often as you like to give you additional flexibility at this crucial time. That's a business in control. That's a business with a Plan. |