Planul de afaceri – itinerarul succesului

Este mult mai uşor să ajungi într-un loc necunoscut, dacă ai informaţii precise şi o hartă bună. La fel stau lucrurile şi în cazul înfiinţării unei firme. Ştiţi deja că doriţi să fiţi propriul dvs. şef. Poate că ştiţi şi ce fel de firmă doriţi să deschideţi. Dar puteţi atinge acest ţel?

Itinerarul pe care îl urmează întreprinzătorii se numeşte „plan de afaceri”. Planul de afaceri este alcătuit din răspunsuri sistematice la o serie de întrebări bine cumpătate, vitale pentru iniţierea unei afaceri viabile.

Cînd vorbesc despre un plan de afaceri, oamenii se referă, de obicei, la un document scris.

Dar planul de afaceri nu este numai un document. El este procesul de definire şi evaluare a viitoarei companii. Alcătuirea acestui plan este prima ocazie de a vă organiza firma. În ciuda importanţei sale, perspectiva cercetărilor necesare elaborării unui plan de afaceri îi agasează pe mulţi viitori proprietari de mici firme. Aceştia vor să deschidă firma acum, nu să stea să răspundă la întrebări referitoare la o idee despre care sunt siguri că le va aduce bani. Ei nu văd rostul analizării unei firme care nici măcar nu există încă.

Rostul este următorul: un plan de afaceri este esenţial, pentru că va scoate în evidenţă eventualele probleme, încă înainte ca acestea să se ivească, şi va sugera soluţii, făcîndu-vă să economisiţi timp, bani şi dureri de cap.

B) Business Communications

When one applies for a position with an American company, the letter of application cannot and should not contain all the information a prospective employer wants to know about you. The resume will accompany your letter of application, and this is where most of the details about you will appear. The letter of application should serve as a suplement to the resume.

You may begin your letter of application by stating exactly what work you are seeking. Be very specific about this. If you know of a job opening within the company, refer specifically to that position. Also, if some person from that company told you of the job opening, you may want to begin your first paragraph by mentioning this person by name. At any rate, you should begin your letter by mentioning the job you are seeking and perhaps by mentioning your source of information about the job.

The second paragraph is important becuse this is where you tell more about yourself than the resume can tell. In this paragraph you should try to distinguish your application from all the others. Here you may elaborate on some job experience or training which does not stand out on the resume but which may particularly qualify you for the job. Be careful not to make this paragraph too long. Like all good business communications, the letter of application must be concise and to the point.

To help you write the second paragraph, find out all you can about the company and the job opening before writing the letter. If you can make specific references to the company’s needs and how you can fulfill them, your chances of getting a job interview will be much better.

Close the letter with a request for an interview. Be careful to clearly state your desire for an interview and your willingness to accomodate their schedule in arranging the interview.

The overall tone of the letter should be pleasant and honest. You do not want to attempt to over-impress the employer with your talent or knowledge.

Review the sample letter of application given below. After studying its sections and tone, write your own. In writing this letter, assume you are writing to some specific company for a specific position. You may want to write to one of the utility companies explaining how you may be of service to them (some of the utilities needed managers while others needed investment bankers).

January 23, 19-

2987 E. Peach St.

Dallas, TX 74639

Ms. Joan B. Willis

Personnel Department

Diamond Oil Company

New York, NY 10003

Dear Ms. Willis:

I have spoken to your Dallas representative, Mr. James Schultz, and he informed me that your company is in need of someone having an FCC Communication Technician license.

As my resume indicates, while working for the Magnolia Oil Company, I have used my FCC technical skills for eight years. In fact, I was among the first technicians to receive this training. Not only did I use my training in performing my work duties, I also served as an in-house trainer for those technicians planning to apply for FCC licensing. In the course of these eight years with Magnolia Oil, I have gained experience with most of the electronic testing and maintenance equipment used in the oil industry.

Please refer to the enclosed data sheet for details on both my education and work experience. There you will also find the names of persons willing and able to comment on my ability and character.

Because of the extreme distance between Dallas and New York, I will be glad to interview with your dallas representative or with you by telephone. I can arrange either at your company’s convenience.

Respectfully,

Mark T. Riley

Enclosure: Resume

VI. Match the characteristics of „great managers” with their explanations.

How to be a great manager

Great managers accept blame	Weak managers feel threatened by other people’s strength. Great managers see strength as things to be built on, and weakness as something to be accomodated, worked around, if possible, eliminated.
Great managers give praise	Not as drastic as it sounds! What great managers do is learn new skills and acquire useful information from the outside world, and then immediately pass them on, to ensure that if they were to be run down by a bus, the team would still have the benefit of new information. No one in an organisation should be doing that work that could be accomplished equally effectively by someone less paid than themselves.
Great managers make blue sky	This is probably the most under-used management tool. Great managers are forever trying to catch their people doing something right, and congratulating them on it. Managers who regularly give praise are in a much stronger position to criticise or reprimand poor performance. If you simply comment when you are dissatisfied with performance, it is all too common for your words to be taken as a straightforward expression of personal dislike.
Great managers put themselves about	The old-fashioned approach to management was rather like the old-fashioned approach to child rearing: „Go and see what the children are doing and tell them to stop it!” Great managers have confidence that their people will be working in their intersts and do everything they can to create an environment in which people feel free to express themselves.
Great managers judge on merit	When the big wheel from head office visits and expresses displeasure, the great manager immediately accepts full responsibility. In everyday working life, the best managers are constantly aware that they selected and should have developed their people. Errors made by team members are in a very real sense their responsibility.
Great managers exploit strengths, not weaknesses, in themselves and in their people	A great more difficult than it sounds. It’s virtually impossible to divorce your feelings about someone – whether you like or dislike them – from your view your actions. But suspicion of discrimination and favouritism are fatal to the smooth running of any team, so the great manager accept this as an aspect of the game that really needs to be worked on.
Great managers make things happen	Very few people are comfortable with the idea that they will be doing exactly what they are doing today in 10 years’time. Great managers anticipate people’s dissatisfaction.
Great managers make themselves redundant	Most managers now accept the need to find out not merely what their team is thinking, but what the rest of the world, including their customers is saying. So MBWA (management by walking about) is an excellent thing, though it has to be distinguished from MBWAWP (management by walking about – without purpose), where senior management wander aimlessly, annoying customers, worrying staff and generally making a nuisance of themselves.