Developing business plan for software companies using constructive discussion and industrial experiences

• Authors: Pasi Ojala
• Venue: CSCC'11 Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Circuits, Systems, Communications & Computers
• Year: 2011

There are several different plans which are needed for managing software business. One of the most important ones is a software business plan. The importance of it bases on the underlying idea that it forms up the foundation of the software business as well as it discusses how important challenges should be solved. In addition it gives needed information for third parties like financing institutions about the future targets of the company. Firstly, this paper discusses of the nature of the software business. Secondly, it discusses of the important issues and topics needed in preparing any business plan and thirdly, using the discussion as a basis it formulates a business plan model for the software companies. As all business plans are practical tools for managing businesses the developed business plan is discussed also in industrial context. The industrial discussion shows that developed business plan is useful for the software companies. It also reveals rather well the practical order how industrial managers are running their businesses. Finally, discussion comments show that the proposed business plan serves software companies and financing institutions as action plan, road map and sales tool as well as informs customers about the software company's ways of working. The theoretical discussion in this paper is constructive in nature. Therefore the theoretical part of this paper constructs a new reality by using results which in part have been presented before and have proven to be usable. The industrial experience part of this paper is a case study in nature. The case study method has been chosen because it offers a natural and practical tool for presenting chronologically the results of the industrial experiences discussion.