This week you will:
Peer Review your colleagues sites. 
Review the websites of two of your colleagues (you will be assigned your groups in Brightspace). You will review the sites of two colleagues and then generate a list of questions about their plans and ideas thus far. You will approach this from two perspectives and put two headings in your document.

Perspective 1 – As an investor (Minimum 5 questions)
Imagine your colleague is seeking investment dollars from you to start their business. What would some of the key questions you would need answered about the business up until this point? You know they have only completed the set up of the site, the business canvas and the marketing mix and target market infographic but what questions do you have thus far from an investors point of view?

Perspective 2 – As a potential customer (Minimum 3 questions)
Imagine you are a potential customer of your colleague. What questions do you have about their service or product from this perspective? 
What questions You will submit this as a comment on their blog. 

Once you have the list of questions you want to pose to your partner you can email it to them via brightspace. Please put the same questions you send to them in the assignment drop box in brightspace under “Activity 5 – Questions for Colleagues”.  This is due to your colleagues and the in the drop box Monday February 21st.

Complete your operating plan. 
This week you will also create the operating plan for your business. Each of the bolded text areas should be considered as potential headings for your operating plan. Not all will be relevant to your planning but consider what your business is and add what you see as relevant for your business. Give the information around the timing, the flow of the work related to the operating plan and the objectives of each. 

You will want to consider the location requirements of your business, the size required and any ownership, leasing or rental arrangements for equipment, furniture, inventory  or other fixtures you will need. Give the details about what you need and in this section you can make some assumptions about where you will be locating or having your business set up if location is important it can be helpful to have samples of properties that would be suitable for your business. Give an overview including the projected costs based on your research. 

Consider the future requirements of your business with a three year outlook. You may not need something in year one but you know you will need it in year three so make sure you have this laid out in your operations plan. For example, many businesses start in year one in their home but then expand into a location in year two. Discuss these considerations. 

Will your business need to undertake research and development? For example, in my cheese works co-operative plan my intent is to have two products in year 1 and during year 1 also develop two other products. I am going to discuss this in my plan as research and development of new product lines once the facility is set up for creating the first products. 

What environmental regulations need consideration for your product? Are you producing something that needs permits for land use or health and safety licenses and certification? Will you pay an environmental levy and how do you recycle your product once it needs to be disposed of? 

Once your operating plan is complete update the link in the Assignment 5 Drop Box. Due – February 21-ish. 

Materials to support your operating plan development this week are here:
This is a good article that gives an overview of the operating plan
Ward, S. (2020). Writing the Operations Plan Section of the Business Plan. The Balance Small Business.
https://www.thebalancesmb.com/operating-section-of-business-plan-2947031

Now Enjoy Your Reading Break!