Business Plans

 Like a strategic plan, the idea of creating a business plan often scares people off usually because it either seems like hard work or they don’t see the benefit of it.
 
  • A business plan is the second of three steps when creating an organisations long term plan.
  • Creating the strategic plan is the first step
  • The third step is an annual plan and this extracts info from the business plan on a year by year basis, so it is easy to manage, and implement.
 
An operational or business plan is the bigger picture.  It is a map or a blueprint for the association, its employees, subcommittees and its members to work from. It fleshes out the strategic plan with the additional detail we require. 
In a nutshell, it is “HOW” the association will reach their long term goals. 
 
A business plan will include;
  1. An overview or statement of the current position of the association or they key theme behind the plans (ie: Softball NZ Strat document is called “growing the game”. In their business plan there is a quick blurb about SNZ and why this is important)
  2. The Strat Plan info (your priority areas, what you aim to achieve, your objectives) plus
  3. information on how exactly you are going to “action” each objective listed in your strat plan,
  4. the measures/results you expect to see for each action
  5. The resources that will be required to complete each action (person, money, etc)
  6. When each action will be achieved by
Key benefits of creating a business plan

1. ​Prioritises goals and objectives
2. Establish performance and evaluation criteria for board, staff and or subcommittees
3. Assists with creating role descriptions for employees, key volunteers or subcommittees
4. Enables you to assess progress / development
5. Help volunteers and staff better understand the business of running a club or association
6. Enables you to allocate resources more efficiently or show gaps where you need further resources
7. Show what your club or association can offer potential new players/members or how they can get involved
8. Assists with creating / forecasting budgets
9. Makes your association stronger and allows for succession planning.

Please find below that will get you well on your way with creating your Business Plan
 
Please contact your appointed SNZ Softball officer for further assistance and remember they can assist you with any stage of the process, including start to finish if this is required.
Additionally you can also contact them if would like soft copies of any of the templates provided in the resources
 
Resource or link Description
Softball NZs Business Plan Coming soon.
Softball NZ’s Business plan 2014 - 18
Business planning working template A template that allows you to input your goals and objectives from your strategic plan. It will also allow you to input
  • how you will achieve each objective (called an action)
  • who is responsible for completing the task (try to use committee or role names not individuals names)
  • the timeframe and
  • what resources you need to get the job done
Work Plan and KPI template A template enabling you to populate information from your Business plan in relation to key roles (paid / voluntary) and highlighting what their Key Performance indicators (KPIs) or requirements are.