Task 3

Produce an Outline Business Plan

In this task, you should use strategic planning tools to develop an outline business plan for a specific housing service. (AC 3.1)

3. Be able to apply strategic planning techniques to develop a business plan for a housing organisation.

3.1 Develop a business plan for a housing service using strategic planning.

Guidance:

• Your outline business plan should include the following:

Identify a specific service area rather than the whole organisation*. For example, this could be a service to increase the sustainability of tenancies for instance, or a service to prevent the occurrence of homelessness.    *If your organisation is very small, it may be more appropriate to consider the whole organisation

• Identify an aspect of this service which you aim to develop, improve or change in some way, and why these changes need to be made. Is there a particular element of the service that could be changed or improved? Is there a need to respond to new legislation, regulation or policy? What are the aims and the vision for this service? You do not have to be too specific, but it may help to have a particular service area in mind.
• Identify and explain relevant strategic planning tools, such as SWOT, or PESTLE. Remember that these tools are different from theories. They are practical methods of identifying internal and external issues that you need to address when selecting options for your plan. What are the benefits and limitations of using such tools?
• Apply these strategic planning tools in order to identify the key issues that need to be addressed in your plan. You should consider internal issues, such as your organisational strengths and weaknesses, and any relevant external issues, such as political or social questions that need to be addressed.
• Your plan should also identify any relevant financial issues that need to be considered. Would there be additional costs? How would this be financed? Could the changes bring about future cost savings? Are there any risks that need to be identified and managed?
• Your plan should set out your priorities and tasks in an outline action plan (this will be extended in Task 4)
• A brief conclusion should be included, which summarises the key issues you have covered in your outline plan.
• Please remember that this is an outline plan – not a full and detailed business plan. You therefore do not need to go into great detail on any of the above points. Just a sentence or two under the headings should suffice, keeping your points clear and concise. Imagine that this is an outline that could be used as a basis for developing a more detailed plan in the future.
• When producing your business plan, keep in mind the challenges that you may need to address in order to implement your plan, and following this, to monitor the performance of your plan. These issues should be covered in the following task.