Business Plan Company Overview
How to Write the Company Overview Section of a Business Plan
The company overview section can make or break your business plan. If you're new to business plans, here's everything you need to know about writing a company overview section that will knock them off their feet.
Whether you know it or not, you have a lot riding on the success of your business plan.
Investors and lenders rely on business plans for information about the present and future condition of your company. If your business plan fails to impress them, you will have a hard time securing necessary funding - no matter how much you believe in your business.
The real meat of the business plan is found in the company overview. In this section, your business plan will describe why your business exists and how it operates. Drop the ball here and your company's future could be in serious jeopardy.
State Your Mission
A mission statement clearly and succinctly makes the case for your company's existence. With just a few words (not more than a sentence or two), your mission statement has to communicate passion, commitment, and focus to the reader - a pretty tall order.
Discuss Company History
A business plan is primarily a forward-looking document. But in the company overview section, it's necessary to briefly recount the company's history in compelling prose. Talk about your reasons for starting the business as well as your historical position in the industry and the marketplace.
Identify Critical Strengths
What does your business do better than anyone else? If the reader leaves the company overview without an answer to that question, your business plan writing efforts have failed. Go into detail about your company's core competencies and make sure the reader understands the strengths that set your business apart from your competitors.
Review Goals & Strategies
The people who read your business plan want to know where your business has been and where it is now. But more importantly, they want to know where your business is going over the next five years. Provide comprehensive - yet realistic - details about your goals and objectives for your business, using objective analysis whenever possible.
Specify Company Details
Somewhere in the company overview section you will need to spend a few sentences describing your company's legal structure and ownership information. Since you don't have to expand on this information, the logical place for it is either at the beginning or end of the section.
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What else should be included in a company overview? We welcome your comments, questions and tips regarding how to write the company overview section of a business plan.