Elaborate your business plan

The new Montpellier Business Plan application enables to you create your business forecasts online over an ultra-secure connection.  Designed as a true learning experience, this application gives you an opportunity to test different business models easily.

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WHERE TO START?

A business plan is a reference document that presents your company's startup project, its goals, and the resources required to make it a reality.  A business plan is generally comprised of two sections:

  • A written section, in which you provide a general presentation of the project, your team, the target business environment, and an action plan covering the first years in activity.
  • A financial section with details regarding forecast budgets, profit & loss (income) statement, and the financial and cashflow plans. This exercise generally covers the first three to five years.

A LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Montpellier BIC has developed an intuitive tool that will guide you step-by-step through the process of elaborating a business plan. You will be guided through both the financial and written sections by following a simple and logical progression accompanied by document templates. A Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is also available.

ASSISTANCE FOR WRITING A BUSINESS PLAN

Every business plan created online contains a Files icon that gives you access to 3 downloadable documents:

  • Methodology guide: a framework for asking yourself the right questions, organized logically into chapters. These questions help make sure that you consider every aspect of your project. You may refer to already-written examples at any time.
  • Glossary: if the vocabulary seems new and unusual to you, check out this document!
  • BIC Advice: To help make your business plan more powerful, BIC is pleased to share its recommendations on what to include and how to present each section.

FINANCIAL FORECAST

  • The financial forecast is comprised of a series of interrelated tables that provide figures for the company's performance based on monthly (detailed entry) or yearly (global entry) information.
  • Enter forecast amounts for sales, purchases, general expenses, investments, and loans. This data will help you estimate your company's financial plan, profit & loss (income) statement, and cashflow plan. Remember that you must save the data you enter in each section before moving on to another section.
  • For already existing companies, you may choose simplified entry to take prior elements into account.
  • Those of you who wish to seek investment from venture capital firms will appreciate the application's ability to apply data entered into "French" style tables for creating summary tables in Anglo-Saxon format (Profit & Loss, Cashflow).

A BUSINESS MODEL APPROACH

In order to take into account the complexity of emerging business models (pay per click, recurring annual subscriptions, sales of equipment and related consumables...), you may now associate each of your products with the appropriate business model.
For every product you enter, you may choose from the following four types of business models:

  • Products invoiced individually (with consistent pricing over the year).
  • Products with variable invoicing (providing services whose rates vary with each client).
  • Products with recurring invoicing (subscriptions or maintenance over several years).
  • Products with mixed invoicing (generating different revenue for the same type of sale, such as selling a software application that includes related training services and a maintenance subscription covering several years).

Created products are then automatically taken into account in the business plan's SALES section, where you may enter quantities and prices based on the business model you choose to apply.

SIMULATION TOOL

With Montpellier Business Plan, you can easily simulate new scenarios by creating duplicates: starting with a base version, create one or more copies that you can make changes according to your strategy. You may also:

  • Test multiple business hypotheses (sales) easily.
  • Test multiple business models without changing sales.
  • Add / delete periods to measure the impact of your decisions over time.

FLEXIBLE FEATURES

Detailed forecasts covering at least two years, with the ability to add as many years as necessary.
Unlimited number of products, loans, etc.
Ability to break down global year into monthly cashflow automatically.

AVAILABLE ANYWHERE ON ANY WEB BROWSER

No more installation hassles, operating system incompatibilities, or upgrades! Montpellier Business Plan is an online tool that you access with your regular Web browser. You may also access other complementary tools online developed by the Montpellier Business and Innovation Centre.
Are you going to taking a plane, or maybe want to isolate yourself on a desert island? Or are you simply concerned about backing up your data? Export your data locally and upload the results of your work the next time you have access to a connection.

SHARE WITH COMPLETE SECURITY. OR NOT. YOU DECIDE.

  • Your data is stored securely on Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole servers.
  • You can choose to share your work online with other people you trust. You manage their read and write access privileges directly. For example, if you want to work with your associates or a consultant to elaborate your business plan, you may choose to give them full access to your work.  If you just want to show the business plan to financial partners, consider giving them read-only access.
  • In addition, Montpellier Business Plan includes a space in which you can share comments with other people and write notes to facilitate communication with partners.

Connect now!