If you think you only need a business plan to go fishing for capital, you are sorely mistaken.

A business plan--thoughtfully assembled and diligently updated--is the very blueprint for any company. It sets direction, facilitates communication and establishes performance metrics. Better yet, well-articulated business plans force business owners to constantly weigh the strengths and weaknesses of their operations.

And, yes, these documents are de rigueur when courting professional investors.

In Depth: 10 Tips And Traps In Making Great Business Plans

Investment-grade business plans--usually about 20 pages long--are grounded in deep knowledge of an industry and the money-making opportunities within it. I can't do that work for you, but I can highlight the 10 key elements that matter most--to business owners and their investors. (For important tips and traps in creating these plans, check out the accompanying slideshow.)

1. Definition Of The Problem. Every plan must start with an explanation of the problem the business aims to solve--not a description of the company and product. Lay it out in terms your mother could understand, and quantify the "cost of pain" in dollars or time. Avoid airy assertions like "every customer needs this" and gobbledygook like "next generation platform"--they mean nothing and undermine your credibility.

2. Solution and Benefits. This is not the place for a detailed product specification. Instead, explain how and why the product works, including a customer-centric quantification of the benefits. Again, skip the technical jargon and hyperbole.

3. Industry & Market-Sizing. Without compiling a tome, capture the evolution of the overall industry, market segmentation, market dynamics and customer landscape. Relevant charts and graphs, with figures from accredited sources, sell a story very efficiently.

4. Explanation Of The Business Model. This section should explain (again, clearly) how you will make money: who pays you and how much of that you get to keep after expenses. A mere glance should yield a decent grasp of the business' growth potential.

5. Competition and Sustainable Advantage. List and describe all of your competitors, including substitute products or services. (Simple example: If you're selling a car, don't forget about motorcycles and trains.) Then detail your sustainable competitive advantage, and highlight barriers to entry which will keep your competitors at bay.

6. Marketing and Sales Strategy. Here you sum up how you will go to market, including your pricing and distribution channels (which could also include strategic partnerships). This is a good place to map out a timeline of key milestones.

7. Executive team. Investors ultimately bet on people, not ideas. Convince investors that your team has the chops and determination to start new businesses, and demonstrate deep knowledge in the company's specific domain. Include members of the Advisory Board and key industry players involved in the company.

8. Funding Requirements. Explain how you arrived at the amount of capital you are asking for, and describe in depth how you plan to use that money. Show the amount of financial commitment founders and equity owners have in the company, including sweat equity (hours slaved in exchange for a percentage of the company, as opposed to cash salary).

9. Financial Forecast. Include revenue and expenses for the last three years (if relevant), and project them for the next five. Clearly show--and justify--any growth assumptions. Highlight the break-even point.

10. Exit Strategy. This section is required when courting outside investors eager to know when and how they will get their money out, and what sort of return they might expect. (Initial public offerings--the exit of choice for many investors--are few and far between these days.) Plan to keep the business in the family? Ignore this section. Trap: Plenty of entrepreneurs have built companies only with an eye to sell them. For many, this is the greased path to perdition. Focus instead on building a truly sustainable business. The money, fame and stock tickers will come.

A final word on great business plans: Longest and fanciest doesn't win the race. These documents are meant to enlighten and reassure, not entertain. The best plans anticipate and answer every question an investor could possibly ask, except maybe: "Where do I sign?"

author: Martin Zwilling

soruce : Forbes

In today’s business world we are familiar with seeing women in senior and managerial roles, but being a woman in business brings whole new elements into play in the terms of values and attitudes in the business world. If you were to ask men if they regard women in business as equal most of them would probably concur that they do. If you ask women in business if they feel equal to the men, I think you will find they do not. A common reaction amongst men is that they do not feel comfortable working for a woman boss, although some men say they do not mind.

Although there have been a great many advances since the days of my mother who was not expected to work once she had children, women have still not reached the level of equality you would expect in this day and age. During the sixties, seventies and eighties there was a huge shift from the down trodden woman who was kept by their husband, to the independent woman of today who can fend for herself. But somewhere along the line I feel we have lost something that is of value and that there is still some way to go to get the balance right. Studies have shown that women in business in many cases still receive less pay than men for the same work in spite of the legislation introducing equal pay.

Historical Attitudes

When I was young my mother stayed at home and looked after the children while my father was the bread winner. In those days young women who did work were expected to leave their jobs once they got married. It was seen as a slight on the man if he could not afford to support his wife. It did not matter how poor you were the woman still did not go out to work and she was expected to manage on the wages the husband brought home. In fact my parents got married and moved in with my grandmother because her husband had just died and she had lost her income. This way my dad took on the support of both women although my grandmother did some work, helping out two or three days a week for my uncle who was a butcher. Old attitudes die hard and it has taken several generations for it to become the norm for women to share in the burden of earning income.

My paternal grandmother who was also widowed however was a natural business woman. She used to have a ‘pack’ of clothes, mostly underwear which she took around the local area to sell and the customers paid the cost of their purchases off weekly. Her business was a cross between door to door selling and a clothing catalogue. She had an instinct for business but lived out of her time so she only ever made a pittance compared with the opportunities of today. Years ago women were not expected to be business orientated, so any natural talent they may have had in that direction would have been neglected or suppressed.

Women owned 6.5 million businesses that generated $950.6 billion in revenues, employed 7.2 million workers, and had $179.6 billion in payroll in 2002.

In addition, another 2.7 million firms are owned equally by both women and men; these firms add another $731.1 billion in revenues and employ another 5.7 million workers.

Modern woman nowadays capable to achieve any task, entrepreneur, strong and creative has significant role in business. It’s hard to image how would be the world of business without direct intervention of women.

Let’s analyze which is the true and significant role of women in the business world. We know in all business relationship exists two fair parts that keep the economic balance in a business: consumers and retailers. Society demands us to be consumers and it forces us to induce the generation of income either like employees or like entrepreneurs.

Women these days have been forced to be more active in the business world and that can be proved daily by seeing women working day by day either to maintain a family or just to seek a better life. So, what is meaningful role of women in business?

-Women provide required resources to economic growing by giving manpower; this is because they tend to be more dedicated and perfectionists therefore they are the perfect element for manufacture labors.

-The women as entrepreneur maintain the perfect relation in a business giving dynamism and fresh ideas, unique from nature of women.

Unfortunately women have grown and barely been recognized as symbol of businesses just a few decades ago, before that they were treated in a demeaning way. Today there are some groups and persons that stupidly keep the same “macho idea: Only men is symbol of success” but even if it’s hard for these people to accept, women have grown and will keep growing , either way biologically speaking the most notorious difference between women and men is that women are more equipped of brain neurons than man.

WHAT IS CARIBBEAN REGION???

The Caribbean region consists of eight departments linked by culture, by their similarity and their potential geographical. It is a region rich human talent that shoots in joy, disposition, intelligence in each of the departments: San Andres and Providencia, La Guajira, Cesar, Magdalena, Atlántico, Córdoba, Bolívar and Sucre.

Economic level are highlighted industrial activities, commercial, financial, tourism, exploitation of natural resources like coal, natural gas and ferro-nickel. It is also a region in which agriculture and livestock.


LAND MANAGEMENT LAW ???

The Organic Law of Land Management should set the initial development policy framework of Article 287 of the Constitution which reads: "local authorities are empowered to manage their interests, and within the limits of the Constitution and the By virtue of Law have the following rights:
1. Authorities to govern themselves.
2. Exercise their respective powers.
3. Managing resources and raise taxes is necessary for the performance of their duties.
4. Participate in national income.

IMPORTANT TERRITORIAL LAW???

The Law of Land Management is an important instrument for development. It is associated with the political and administrative organization adopted by the state to govern geographical disparities arising from the economic, social, political and cultural life and, secondly, with changes in physical occupation of territory as a result of human action and the same nature.

The Law of Land Management is a means to start developing as a tool for management, planning, regulation, transformation and occupation of space by society.

The Constitution of 1991 shows how local authorities to departments, districts, municipalities and indigenous territories. Also, allows the creation of regions and provinces as territorial entities and the establishment of partnership arrangements for the promotion of development.

WHAT MEANS THE FLAG AND WHY WERE CHOSEN THOSE COLORS???

Because they are the same colors of Colombia, because we have symbolized that we do not want to separate, also ordered the colors differently because for us it is more important the ocean blue.


WHAT IS REGIONAL AUTONOMY???

It is a form of government in which there is self-government, self determination, self-management of public affairs by a region without its key decisions of a superior government, these are forms of government studied and advanced in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, where there are forms of regional government with much success and correspond to processes of governance that enable further development a region that drives this. We glimpse a Caribbean region that can self-government, which has a greater capacity to promote their own development, to plan, manage their resources and invest all that relates to the process of economic and social development.

AUTONOMY IS THE SAME AS SEPARATION???