There are innumerable articles and templates for preparing a business plan for start-ups. But what I found is that most of them are too exhaustive and so a strong de-motivator for an enthusiastic individual who wants to pen down his ideas and present it to his potential investors/advisers. Immaterial of the scale of the business viz., financial size or employee size, the below business plan is a good starting point. When one has got this right, a large part of planning has been accomplished. Depending on one’s purpose, additional information and more details can always be added. Being simple and providing essential elements, this business plan is called as Individual Hoshin Plan. The name is derived from ‘Hoshin Kanri’, a Japanese methodology of policy deployment used for several large corporations to successfully deploy their strategies on the ground.

1. All rights reserved. Copyright 2011@ Canopus Business Management Group
www.collaborat.com | +91 4442851080
Essential Business Plan for Start-ups –
Individual Hoshin Plan – Part 1
There are innumerable articles and templates for preparing a business plan for start-
ups. But what I found is that most of them are too exhaustive and so a strong de-
motivator for an enthusiastic individual who wants to pen down his ideas and present it
to his potential investors/advisers.
Immaterial of the scale of the business viz., financial size or employee size, the below
business plan is a good starting point. When one has got this right, a large part of
planning has been accomplished. Depending on one’s purpose, additional information
and more details can always be added.
Being simple and providing essential elements, this business plan is called as Individual
Hoshin Plan. The name is derived from ‘Hoshin Kanri’, a Japanese methodology of
policy deployment used for several large corporations to successfully deploy their
strategies on the ground.
There are pre-requisites to writing this business plan. Depending on whether this is
being written for an existing business of a big company or by an aspiring entrepreneur,

2. All rights reserved. Copyright 2011@ Canopus Business Management Group
www.collaborat.com | +91 4442851080
the quantum of information available may vary. For more details about the pre-
requisites, check out ‘What I need to have before writing a good business plan’.
Unlike many other sites, there are no free templates that I am going to offer, that you
can download and start filling. I’m sure you will understand that writing a business plan
isn’t as easy as filling a template. It’s more about thought leadership and flushing ideas
to workable strategies.
There are 5 sections which have been logically split. Following are the key elements of
an essential business plan:
Section 1
1. Business Vision – A good vision is drawn for a period of 3-5 years. So it is
medium to long term. In essence a good vision should explain ‘What are you
building?’ So it can be expressed in terms of objective, scale, profits, etc.,
1. It should be concise and expressed in 3-4 bullets
2. Business Mission – Yes, this answers the question ‘Why does your business
exist?’, so it talks about how uniquely you want to provide value to your
customers. In future this will help you prioritize diversifications, alliances, etc. And
more than all that, after setting up the business, you customers still sense value
in your product/service, then its not going to be long before you will wind up.
3. Annual Objectives or Measures of Success – ‘What will you measure in your
business?’ – Something this can helps you to quantify business vision and
mission.
Section 2
1. Strategies – Strategies are your broad approaches of how you would accomplish
your Business Vision and Mission. So it addresses What, How and Why aspects
of your business model. It is advised to complete this section as a group and
involve a facilitator who can guide you through this sector. Key areas to cover in
defining strategies are:

3. All rights reserved. Copyright 2011@ Canopus Business Management Group
www.collaborat.com | +91 4442851080
 Positioning (What will you want your customers to know you for?)
 Revenue Model (What are your sources of revenue)
 Marketing Strategy (How will your market your brand and services)
 Alliances & Intermediaries (How will help your get new sales leads)
 Sales (What are your sales channels?)
 Diversification ( What would you want to diversify in the next 5 years)
 Talent Management (Your approach on managing talent – Recruiting,
Retaining & Remuneration)
2. Benchmarks (Who will you want to be in next 5 years)
3. Services (What are the services you are going to offer in first phase)
4. Proposition (How will your package your service and offer them to customers so
that they get a value)
Section 3,4 & 5 will be covered in Part 2
About the Author:
Neil started Canopus Business Management Group in 2009.
He helps a range of large enterprises in services and manufacturing, with particular emphasis on
execution of business & functional strategies, customer experience & process transformation. He
has worked with banking, outsourcing, IT, discrete manufacturing & telecom business processes.
He draws on extensive experience (15 years) in Hoshin Kanri, Blue Ocean Strategy, Lean, Six
Sigma, Outsourcing, Change Management and Touch point Management to deliver composite solutions that put
client’s business in an Advantageous & Profitable position.
Client engagements aim at eliminating the barriers for seamless execution of strategies, carpet bombing customer
touch points, diagnostic interventions on customer churn & retention and implementation of transformational
projects.
He can be reached at neil@collaborat.com or +91 9176616766.