Business Plan Services

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Business Plans

When it comes to Business Plan drafting in South Africa, we can safely and proudly say that we are amongst the best and most consistent consultants. Our business plans are of high quality and are very acceptable in all South Africa’s main funding entities. In addition to assisting you in getting funding, we are confident that our business plans will guide your business operations enhancing your chances of succeeding in your sector.

Afregarde Strategies offers assistance to organisations seeking to raise capital through both conventional and government-related debt markets. Our focus is on assisting businesses that may not immediately have the collateral required by private sector financiers. Afregarde Strategies will help you to present a complying application package for capital raising from appropriate financiers in South Africa. Our services are offered across all economic sectors notably:

• Property development
• Green economy projects
• Manufacturing
• Retail and distribution
• Services
• Mining
• Agribusiness
• Tourism
• Social development
• And many others

Afregarde Strategies offers start-up business support services to SMME entrepreneurs across South Africa. Our new entrepreneur support services are designed to reduce business risks and enhance the possibilities of success. We recognise that new businesses can face experiential and capacity challenges that often result in failure. Financiers have also become averse to funding new businesses as a result of both perceived and actual risks.

We understand why and how important a business plan is to you. It is your hope of getting investors and funders. It is your business guide into the future – and it is your weapon against competitors. As a result, we take due care in researching, writing and producing a high-quality business plan that reflects an equally high level of professionalism in your business. Investors, funders, partners etc, will judge your preparedness to get into the proposed venture from what is written about it.

• Small Enterprises Development Agency (SEDA)
• National Youth Development Agency (NYDA)
• Department of Trade and Industry (DTI)
• Business Partners South Africa
• Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC)
• Gauteng Enterprise Propeller (GEP)
• Industrial Development Corporation (IDC)
• National Empowerment Fund (NEF)
• Limpopo Enterprise Development Agency
• All commercial and Investment Banks
• And many more…

Afregarde Strategies can prepare various types of business plans compliant with the requirements of the South African financial markets. We prepare Business Plans for:

• Start-ups
• Business Expansions
• Franchising
• Joint Ventures
• Venture Capital/Angel Financing
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Product Development
• Agribusiness

What do we normally require from you?

While every business plan is unique, there is basic information that will help us to get the ball rolling. This includes:

• Business/franchise name/preferred name & location
• The current stage of operation: Is it an operating business, if yes what is there in terms of assets
• Products/services will you provide (names/types/classes)
• Assets available to the business
• Equipment, tools and machinery
• Your management and leadership team
• Financial requirements

This information is important as a guideline for the economic, industry, market, financial and operational research processes.

What to expect?

Business plans are all about research, analysis and presentation. You can expect the following from an Afregarde business plan:

• Well, researched and verified content
• Detailed content – all sections expected of a business plan
• Originality of content
• Professional presentation – spellings, grammar, document flow
• Professionally drawn financial projections with valid assumptions
• Format flexibility (PDF, MS Word, MS Excel)
• Finer document touches – references, footnotes, table of contents, etc.

We normally require you to identify an investor/funder so that we can tailor your business plan to their needs. There is never a one-size-fits-all approach when a business plan is involved. For this reason, we do not believe in the use of templates to represent each business project.

Business Plan and Project Proposal Research

As highlighted earlier, various types of research are undertaken in creating valuable, credible and trustworthy information for business plans, business proposals and project plans. PESTEL research is generally the umbrella of this research. Industry and company-specific researches include:

Product & Market Research

This focuses on information relating to the buying patterns associated with a product or service. This includes the market size, market location, market segments within it, market demographics and expectations amongst others. Information from this research is presented under the marketing chapter of a business plan.

Industry Research

Industry Research is important in business plan drafting. It provides information relating to the peers of the particular company and the industry environment within which they interact. Common industry research interests include industry size, competition, industry trends, SWOT analysis, industry key success factors, industry growth rates, industry seasonality amongst others.

Operations Research

The focus of Operations Research is to provide adequate data for the operations and technical sections of a business plan. These include industry technology, systems and processes and operational resources that are necessary for the successful implementation of a business plan. Custom research may be necessary for custom business plans that may require a different informational and presentation angle.

Financial Research

Financial research is critical for the development of realistic financial projections that give an estimation of how your financial situation may turn out if you pursued recommended strategies.

Our offices are located at the Lakeview Building in Centurion Mall. We can schedule a meeting between Monday and Saturday. We can also discuss your business plan and transact on it via online means. We guarantee that this will still produce quality results if the information is provided expeditiously and in full.

Business Proposals

Business Proposals are more or less like Business Plans with a slight difference that these are mostly presented to entice another party to partake in a business venture. This could be as a partner, as investors or as funders.  Within the South African context, Business Proposals are less used in capital raising though they can be.  Typical examples of Business Proposals that are drafted by our business proposal consultants are:

• Introduction of New Products/Services/Processes
• Partnerships in Business and Social Ventures
• Provision of Support Services
• Community and Charity Projects
• Economic Development Projects
• Social, Political and Economic Interventions
• Private-Public Partnerships

Whatever your proposal is, we can produce a Business or Project Proposal that will ensure that your targeted audience will consider your case.

Project Proposals

A project proposal, as the name suggests is drafted for a project instead of a business. The differences between a business and a project are that a project is not a going concern. This means that a project has specified or determinable starting and ending dates. A business has a starting date buts it is assumed that it will continue without a planned end date.

A project proposal is centred on the need to represent the viability and sustainability of a mooted project. It makes references to the project triad i.e. Quality, Cost and Time. A project, under the best-case scenario, is supposed to churn out expected quality output at a specified cost and within the expected time frames. A project proposal attempts to reconcile how these 3 pillars will be balanced out to ensure that project goal are achieved.

Other areas of a project proposal, however, may be very similar to those of a business plan. In fact, it is common for clients to request “a project proposal for a business”. Like a business plan, a fair amount of time is spent researching the content and context of the project. A project occurs in a political, economic, sociological, technological, ecological and legal (PESTEL) environment just like a business. Adequate studies to ascertain or at least professional estimate the effects of this environment on project outcomes is critical.

At Afregarde Strategies we have handled projects proposals in various economic areas and sectors. These include:

• Alternative Energy Management
• Infrastructure Development
• Rural Entrepreneurial Support Projects
• Educational Support Projects
• Public-Private Partnerships
• Agribusiness Projects

While every project proposal is unique, we guarantee that yours will be prepared to meet or even surpass the expectations of your intended audience.

Financial Projection Models

While every business plan from Afregarde comes with fully explained financial projections, we also prepare stand-alone financial models for businesses and institutions. These models are meant to guide the strategic and business planning process by providing predictive data that is based on current and historical trends.

These models are prepared for common types of financial and management accounts i.e.

• Cash flow Projection Models
• Balance Sheet Models
• Income Statement Models
• Financial ratios
• Sales Projection Models
• Break-Even Analysis Models

Their purpose is to aid businesses in proactive budgeting that is required as a pre-condition for funding by most public and private funding institutions. These models can be designed to represent different types of scenarios commonly:

• The normal case scenario – which mimics the current business environment
• The best-case scenario – which represents the current business environment plus an attainable, realistic improvement given past trends
• The worst-case scenario – which represents the worst state that the current environment can come under, based on a historical trend of between 5 to 10 years

These cases are critical in assisting businesses to assess the kind of risks that may come with sources of funding shall the business environment change.

Scenario Analysis can also be qualitatively presented as part of customised business plans when required. They help to see the business plan from various possible scenarios that may come about due to changes in PESTEL (political, economic, sociological, technological, ecological and legal dimensions) as well as in the industry and the individual company itself.

Business Plan Pricing

Like any other product or service, business plan prices are often reflective of the effort applied in writing them and the quality expected of the final document. While it is possible to get a professionally drafted business plan at very low prices, most lowly priced versions of these documents often mean that the quality of research, content and output is low. This is a very huge disadvantage in a competitive funding market. In a market characterised by few funders and infinite fund-seekers, the bar for business plan quality expectations is set at very high levels. Funders expect more convincing and substantiated detail to sway them towards funding a particular business plan. This challenges business planners to come up with high-quality documents. These unfortunately may not always come at a low price because of various reasons.  These include:

• The time in terms of hours spent preparing a business plan
• The level of expertise required in coming up with a standard document
• Operational costs associated with research, stationary and administration

These costs add to the final hour or flat fee charged for a business plan. This however does not mean that business plans have to be unaffordable. It simply means that clients need to hunt for the right-priced business plans that are prepared by qualified and experienced professionals.

 

View a our Business Profile standard below (click and flip):