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Welcome to Africabiz Online Synopsis RSS Feed edition. Previous issue available atthis link

- THIS DELIVERY STANDS FOR TWO ISSUES

Africabiz's Editorial Team is taking one month break from September 1 to September 30. Therefore, this delivery covers two months: August 15 to September 14 - Issue N° 76; and September 15 to October 14 - Issue N° 77. The next issue N° 78 will be online on October 15, 2005.

WHY YOU NEED A BUSINESS PLANNING NOT A BUSINESS PLAN

Dear reader,

Click here for the beginning of the article

In line with the last delivery that dealt with the fact that Developing Strategies Implemented In African Countries are Inadequate, we have guest author David Coffman who exposes why one needs business planning to succeed running an operation and not a simple business plan.

Guest Author: David Coffman

When someone mentions business planning we have been conditioned to think about writing a business plan.

There are hundreds of books and articles, tons of software, an army of consultants, and a multitude government programs to help you write a business plan. There are virtually no resources to help you set up what today’s business environment really demands – a continuous, ongoing planning system.

A commonly accepted theory is that for a business to survive and prosper it must be flexible and nimble. It must be able to turn on a dime as conditions warrant. Having a written five-year plan is not part of this picture. In fact, trying to follow a long-term plan during rampant change is not logical. It is applying linear thinking to a non-linear situation. It just doesn’t work.

Having a formal, written business plan is so accepted as being crucial to success that there haven’t been many studies or surveys to test this premise.

If business plans were such a wonderful thing, there would be a significant and conclusive difference between businesses that have them and those that don’t. Interviews of 100 founders of companies on 1989s “INC 500” list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S. found only 28 percent had “full-blown” business plans. The 1993 AT&T Small Business Study found that 59 percent of small businesses that grew over the previous two years used a formal business plan. A 1994 survey of the country’s fastest growing companies found 23 percent lacked a business plan. “The Relationship between Written Business Plans and the Failure of Small Businesses in the U.S.,” by Dr. Stephen Perry, surveyed 152 failed and 152 non-failed small businesses in 1997. He found that 64 percent of the non-failed firms had no written business plan. He also found that non-failed firms had more extensive written plans than failed firms, 23 percent compared to 9 percent, respectively.

As you can see the results of studies and surveys are all across the board and don’t prove anything. Clearly, a significant percentage of successful businesses don’t have written business plans. None of these studies reveal the nature of the process that created the plan. Was it the result of an annual process with occasional updates or an ongoing, continual process? As Professor Albert Shapero said, “Companies that plan do better than companies that don’t, but they never follow their plan.”

The focus needs to be on the PROCESS not on the plan. If a continual, ongoing planning process is in place, a written business plan is just not important. Writing a business plan without a planning system in place is a massive effort that is done very infrequently. Many businesses write three to five year plans and update them annually. The plans are reviewed periodically during each year to analyze the plan vs. actual variances. Little, if any, thought is given to strategy between the annual updates. Strategy should be the focus everyday. Setting up a planning system allows and sometimes forces you to focus on strategy.

A planning system consists of two functions. One is a goal setting and attaining process, and the other is a trend watching or environment scanning process. Setting up a planning system takes several steps. The first and foremost task is to set aside or make time for planning on a regular, ongoing basis. It must become part of your routine, not an occasional event that can be easily postponed. In the evaluation phase, the owner or management team and the company are analyzed. From the analysis, key or critical areas of the business are identified. These areas are filtered down to focus on the most important ones. Performance measures are determined and systems to gather and process the necessary data are set up, if needed. A base of current performance is used to set goals.

Now the regular, ongoing stuff begins. Strategies are formulated, tested, implemented, monitored, and reworked until the goals are achieved. Each planning session is split between working on strategies and trend watching. As goals are achieved, the goal setting and strategy formulation process begins again.

Let’s put the focus back where it belongs on continuous, ongoing planning instead of writing business plans. As Karl Albrecht said in his book Corporate Radar, “The majority is not always right, the conventional wisdom is not always wise, and the accepted doctrine could well be flawed. The more fashionable an idea, the more it is likely to be exempt from critical evaluation. Breakthrough thinking sometimes calls for contradicting the most widely held assumptions and beliefs.”

Copyright 2005 David Coffman

David E. Coffman CPA/ABV, CVA has authored a number of articles, reports, white papers, and books about small business valuation and planning topics. He founded Business Valuations & Strategies in 1997 to work exclusively with small businesses in these areas. His “Power to Prosper Small BusinessPlanning System” is available at http://www.bus-val-strat.com

"CONTRIBUTOR'S GUIDELINES"are available here. We invite you to contribute to AFRICABIZ ONLINE MONTHLY ISSUE - with articles related to "How Africa Could Bridge The Developing Gap".

Your feedback / objection / contribution is welcome. Visit WorldWide BizCenter, and choose General Information (as topic) to create a thread for discussion. On the top of the WorldWide BizCenter page, there is a HELP link to assist you making an efficient use of the discussion board. This link also is useful

Many thanks for subscribing to Africabiz. See you here on October 15, 2005.

Dr. B.M. Quenum
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Business Opportunities

FOWL BREEDING AS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY - PART X: - THE BREEDING OF RATITES AS ALTERNATIVE TO CLASSIC LIVESTOCK - INVESTMENT BRIEFS ABOUT A SMALL SCALE EMU "NATURAL" BREEDIND OPERATION

Investment briefs here described are related to production organization exposed in previous issue and particularly to the following considerations:

Five pairs of females and males ready to mate - unrelated i.e. originating from different stocks - to limit the degeneracy of the flock.

Table below gives an idea of the flock's evolution (yearlings, eggs and adult birds ready for slaughterhouse); assuming an average of 30 eggs laid per female, 50% eggs' fertility and birth's parity (50/50) between males and females.

The eggs hatch in 52 days, producing a chick that walks right away. From twelve to sixteen months of age, they will reach their full weight of 120 to 150 pounds (Source):

To summarize, for the investment briefs' calculation reported in table below we consider that a pair of Emus produce an average of thirty eggs a year, which yield on average 15 chicks bred for final stage at the end of 18 months. Each bird ready for slaughterhouse would yield 4m2 of leather, 54 kg of meat, 5.5 kg of feathers, and 2.7 liter of oil - generated by 20 pounds / 9.070 kg of fat.

Items	Amount US$
INVESTMENT
Total investment	209,000
REVENUES OVER 18 MONTHS
a- Three-month chicks sold: 175 chicks at US$ 150 each	30,625
b- Meat from mature birds ready for slaughterhouse - package for the export market: 54 kg x 50 x US$ 10	27,009
c- Emu oil: 2,7 x 50 x US$ 100	13,500
d- Infertile eggs for consumption: US$ 50 (per dozen) x 31 dozen	1,562
e- Leather for the export market: 4 sq meter x 50 x US$ 25	5,000
f- Feathers for the export market: 5,5 kg x 50 x US$ 10	2,750
Total revenues (over 18 months)	80,446
OPERATING COSTS
Operational Expenses: one supervising staff salary and flock feeding (US$ 50 per bird)	60,000
GROSS PROFIT	20,446

REMARKS: Gross profit reported on above table's last line does not reflect the reality of the operation's profit making potential.

Figures reported gives just an idea of the beginning of the business. For instance, operational expenses expand over the entire flock. However, to be accurate calculating gross profit, one should consider only the number of birds that provide Revenues listed as a- b- c- d- e- and f- in above table, which is something around US$ 5,000 (supervising staff salary plus the feeding's cost of 50 mature birds bred to final stage and ready for slaughterhouse. That amount helps evaluating the production cost of one kg of Emu meat: [US$ 5,000 divided by (50 x 54) = 1.85 US$)].

The production cost of one kg of Emu meat as above briefly outlined, gives an idea of the profit margin available raising Emu in tropical countries.

For more on the Investment Briefs About A Small Scale Emu's Breeding Operation Click here

MORE ON FOWL BREEDING

1- Poultry Breeding and Genetics by R.D. Crawford 2- The Dollar Hen: The Classic Guide to American Free-Range Farming. by Milo M. Hastings, Robert Plamondon 3- Small-Scale Poultry-Keeping: A Guide To Free-Range Poultry Production. By Ray Feltwell 4- The Encyclopedia of Farm Animal Nutrition by M.F. Fuller, et al 5- The Mating and Breeding of Poultry by Harry M. Lamon, Rob R. Slocum. 6- Modern Livestock and Poultry Production by James R. Gillespie

7- Success With Baby Chicks: A Complete Guide to Hatchery Selection by Robert Plamondon. 8- The Classic Guide To Poultry Nutrition: Chickens, Turkeys, Ducks, Geese, Gamebirds, and Pigeons. By Gustave F. Hauser 9- The Strange History of The Ostrich In Fashion, Food and Fortune. By Rob Nixon 10- Ostrich's Avian Incubation: Behaviour, Environment and Evolution. By D. Charles Deeming

Control Your Desktop

EXPAND THE CAPACITIES OF THE ORIGINAL CLIPBAORD THAT COMES WITH YOUR COMPUTER

You know, the stuff that assist you perform Cut and Paste on the fly. I am not satisfied with the original one loaded with my computer because, a Cut or item is deleted by the one that follows suit; and when you need the first one you have to cut again to paste. If the sequence of Cut and Paste is done right away on the same page, there is no problem to worry about and no time is really wasted.

However, if you are performing said sequence on many pages updating your website for instance, the sequence may not be in oder. Suppose you need a Cut made three to five levels above the previous one, then you realise the original Clipboard that comes with your system does miss something.

Now, you do not need to worry anymore. Here is a little utility that tracks and extends the Cut's history of your original clipboard. It is called Hamsin Clipboard.

Hamsin Clipboard is three-in-one easy-to-use clipboard extension utility that allows for :

- The tracking clipboard history of the last ten "cuts" which can be later returned back to the clipboard or directly pasted into applications, - Pasting several copied "cuts" automatically one after another or merged together, - Saving favorite or commonly used clips for future pasting.

Isn't that fine? Anyway I really appreciate the little utility. The interface is very simple and all the functions are accessible from any application via hotkeys and/or a pop-up menu invoked from a tray icon. All the hotkeys and the menu are customizable. Adding new clips to the history can be suspended so that undesired clips do not clutter the history. Click here to download your free copy of Hamsin Clipboard

Freebie Of The Month

ANYTHING YOU WANT, ANYTHING YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR

The "Freebie of The Month" is not a software that stands out of the crowd. It is a amazing website that had tons of useful links. Whatever you are searching for is here listed - directly or indirectly through the page you load.

What do you want? A calculator? Online calculator? How about 20,000 online calculators?You'll find calculators for every type of project imaginable. You'll also find translators, patent and trademark information, and world maps. Health science guides and anything about the cyberspace. Education and Fashion. The list is virtually endless.

You name it you have it thanks to Martindale's reference centre