The Management Section of Your Business Plan

A business plan must present a clear set of actions showing what the business will do, as well as how these activities will be managed.

Executive Management

At the top of the business’s organization chart must be a CEO with a vision for what the business can be, leadership experience, and, hopefully, industry expertise qualifying him or her to work in the business’s sector. The management team description should spend most of its space detailing the qualifications of this CEO, whether it is the founder, a partner the founder has brought on, or a hired director. If readers of the plan are convinced of the ability of the CEO to lead, they will be much less concerned that other plans be written in as explicit detail. They will put much more trust in the CEO in these cases.

Quality and Financial Controls

Statements in the plan about how high the quality of the product or service will be must be presented alongside descriptions of the quality control measures in place in order to be convincing. Management must show their commitment to quality control and supervise the systems which check and insure product or service quality at key points in the manufacturing, sales, or service delivery process. The operations plan should include mention of quality control systems.

Functional Management

Finally, each functional department of the company needs a manager assigned to it, although this can all be the same manager or the CEO for a small company. The business plan must show an understanding of what these key functions are that will require management time, short descriptions of management work will be required, and the assignment of these responsibilities. For example, the marketing may be assigned to the CEO because of its great importance in the early days of the business while a separate day-to-day operations or store manager may be hired to handle logistics and staff training.