Business Plan For Your Industry

What is an Industry Analysis? An industry analysis is a marketing process that provides statistics about the market potential of your business products and services. This section of your plan needs to have specific information about the current state of the industry, and its target markets. An industry analysis may contain reference materials such as spreadsheets, pie charts, and bar graphs in order to represent the data. Step-By-Step Breakdown: STEP 1:  Identify your industry and provide a brief overview. You may need to explore your industry from a variety of geographical considerations: locally, regionally, provincially, nationally, globally, etc. Be sure to define relevant industry codes. Provide statistics and historical data about the nature of the industry and growth potential for your business, based on economic factors and conditions. STEP 2:  Summarize the nature of the industry. Include specific information and statistics about growth patterns, fluctuations related to the economy, and income projections made about the industry. Be sure to document recent developments, news, and innovations. Also, discuss the marketing strategies, and the operational and management trends that are prevalent within the industry. STEP 3: Provide a forecast for your industry. Compile economic data and industry predictions at different time intervals (5, 10, 20 years). Be sure to cite all of your sources. Note: the  type and size of the industry will determine how much information you will be able to find about a particular industry. For example, it is much more difficult to locate published information about specialized niche or emerging industries. Define if this is a new and emerging, growing, maturing or decling.  STEP 4: Identify government regulations that affect the industry. Include any recent laws pertaining to your industry, and any licenses or authorizations you would need to conduct business in your target market. This section may include information about fees and costs involved.  STEP 5: Explain your unique position within the industry. Once you have completed your Competitive Analysis (in the next section) you can list the leading companies in the industry, and compile an overview of data of your direct and indirect competition. This will help you communicate your unique value proposition. STEP 6: List potential limitations and risks. Write about factors that might negatively impact your business and what you foresee in the short-term and long-term future.  Outline what you know about the driving forces: new regulations, technology, globalization, competitors, changing customer needs. STEP 7: Talk to people! Go to tradeshows, do cold calls, talk to people in relevant associations and go to business events.