Writing 109EC: Business Plan Proposal Memo and Outline

(Assignments #4 and #5)

By now you will have selected your product or service, the city, state or country in which you plan to market your product or service, and the name of your company.

The next step is to write a proposal to your company’s president, J. Parsifal Funk (if your plan to set up your business as a subsidiary of the larger company), or to the head of an investment capital firm (if you plan to make your company an independent business entity) describing how you plan to carry out your project. The plan should be in memo form on your company’s memo stationary. The proposal should contain the following elements, as a minimum, although the order in which you address them is up to you. Strive for the most effective structure, considering your audience and the purpose of the memo.

• Purpose

• Brief Summary (of the memo)

• Describe the product or service

• Describe the organization of your project group

· Identify your Project Facilitator

· Identify each of the Project Members and their roles

• Describe how you will go about preparing the Business Plan

· What research will be conducted

· Where you will get your information

· Who you will contact and, possibly, interview for information

• Provide an argument for selecting your product or service

· Why it will appeal to your investors

· What makes it a good choice for that particular city, state, or country

· If appropriate, how it fits in with the company’s other products or services

• Provide a schedule for the preparation of your Business Plan—one that shows the milestones (dates) for each of the proposal tasks, including your group meetings, between today and the due date for your Business Plan. The schedule should take the form of a Gantt chart .

• As an attachment to the memo, include an outline for your business plan. (This outline is Assignment #5.) Identify each major section by number, section title and writer. (Use heading and outlining format, as covered in the IC lab.) This overall business plan outline is a compilation of each individual section outline. In fact, you may simply staple together the sheets containing each section outline.