12 Stakeholders You Should Engage in Your Business Startup

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We asked a team of BAM experts to give some practical advice for BAM practitioners creating business plans. For this post we asked them about key stakeholders in the business planning process.

A stakeholder is anyone with an interest in a business. Stakeholders are individuals, groups or organisations that are affected by the activity of the business. – BBC

Mats Tunehag, Larry Sharp and Garry all actively mentor frontline BAM companies – as well as  teach and write on BAM. We also asked business woman Julia to share about a stakeholder she has found helpful in her business in Mongolia. Read more about them below.

Here are 12 stakeholders they mentioned, there are others:

  1. Investors – owners, bank or investment company
  2. Business people – in companies working cross-culturally in your business or industry
  3. Business consultant – someone with specialist knowledge
  4. Colleagues – management and staff
  5. Customers – those likely to be your clients
  6. Suppliers – of essential materials and services for your business
  7. Community – local society and also the physical environment
  8. Cultural expert – someone with insight into engaging with local community
  9. Government official – someone who can give you insight and be an advocate for you
  10. Body of Christ – local church community, mission organisations and supporting churches
  11. Spiritual advisor or mentor – someone with wise counsel you can be accountable to
  12. God – the most important stakeholder

Read more

Discovering the Right Thing to Build: How to Get Started with Business Planning

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by Colleene Isaacs

In every new business I have had the pleasure of being able to build, or at least participate in the process, the ultimate plan that proved successful for the business was not the original idea that got the team on board. My partners and I started out on one path and soon found in each case, for a variety of different reasons, that if we didn’t “pivot” or change course the business had a high probability of failure. Fortunately, we did change course quickly enough, such that resources were preserved and we were able to build and scale the business to a successful outcome. Other start-ups in which I participated made assumptions based on existing businesses and markets, and unfortunately never tested those assumptions. The businesses ultimately failed, because the assumptions were wrong.

I have met MBAs that have plowed considerable resources into researching and defining a business model, only to take so long and be so far off mark, they never got the business off the ground. Read more

Integrating Spiritual Impact Through Company Values

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Once a month, our panel of mentors answer your practical business questions. Send us your questions!

 

Dear BAM Mentor,

How and when do I go about my spiritual impact plan? Do I write this at the same time as my business plan? Any practical advice about writing an integrated plan?

~ Perplexed Planner

Dear Perplexed,

Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grants sleep to those he loves. (Psalm 127:1-2 NIV)

I would be hesitant to create a separate plan that speaks to spiritual impact within my business, rather I would look at how every aspect of my business is structured and operated to provide the space for spiritual impact to occur. It’s my belief that corporate culture and how culture is articulated and modeled daily creates the opportunity for spiritual impact to occur within your organization. The Bible is clear in expressing that the world will know followers of Christ by our fruit – fruit is manifested through actions.

Integrating Spiritual Impact through Values

When you think of spiritual impact within your business you are really speaking to the culture of the environment and how culture is lived out daily between management, employees, customers and vendors. At the core of culture are the values which drive your organization. How those values are communicated within and without the organization establish the foundation for spiritual impact. Your values represent your philosphical views as well as well as your organizational priorities and sense of purpose. Your values will directly impact your mission, goals and objectives. What will be key is understanding and defining how these values integrate into the daily work life of your employees. Read more

7 Key Elements of a Business Plan [Infographic]

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Business Planning Infographic BAM

Created by Evan McCall for The BAM Review

 

10 Questions to Ask Yourself When Evaluating a Business Idea

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By Robert Andrews

I would ask questions like these in a couple of iterations, meaning I would go through them once quickly to see if there is some clear deal breaking problem, and then again in more detail, and finally as part of the development of a detailed and researched business plan:

1. Is it a product or service that honors God?  (Helping society, is good for the environment, etc.)

2. Is the business viable? Is there a market need for the product/service? Is the market ready and able to pay for the product/service?

3. Are there ways in which the business can make a positive contribution to the needs of the kingdom in this city/country?

4. Are staff, suppliers and other essential services available?

5. Are there legal restrictions or other government regulations that would make it unworkable?

6. Do I have the skills and other resources necessary to run the business and, if not, can I get them through training, hiring, consulting or other partnerships?  (This would include management skills, technical product skills, local business knowledge, language and culture skills, just to name a few.)

7. How much capital will it take to start and maintain?  (Estimate the capital requirement. Then double it. Then double it again!)

8. What happens if it all goes the wrong way… can I afford the loss if it comes?

9. Do I have the time and energy to make this work and is my family willing to make the sacrifice with me?

10. Are there other opportunities available that will bring a better financial and/or spiritual return on my invested time, money and effort? Read more

How to Approach a Spiritual Impact Plan for Your Business

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Once a month, our panel of mentors answer your practical business questions. Send us your questions!

Dear BAM Mentor,

How and when do I go about my spiritual impact plan? Do I write this at the same time as my business plan? Any practical advice about writing an integrated plan?

~ Perplexed Planner

Dear Perplexed,

A business plan is intended to help you work through the key issues you will face in running your business and should include all of the factors that have critical importance. It should addresses the design of the product, distribution, manufacture, finance, marketing, purchasing, and capitalization. It should also address how all of these business functions fit in to the work God is doing.

The spiritual impact of the business is one of the key objectives for a BAM business and as such it ought to be integrated in planning right from the beginning. Much like marketing or distribution, you can’t possibly have all the answers when you start to plan, and likely you won’t have many of the right questions either, but as you flesh out your vision of the business you and your partners will see questions that need to be answered which drive you to find answers.  And in finding those answers you will discover deeper questions. That’s the process that moves a good plan forward. Read more

5 Stages of the Birth of a New BAM Company

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by Peter Shaukat

Peter Shaukat, CEO of Transformational SME (TSME), identifies five stages in the emergence of a new business as mission company. Each stage, from conception to launch, involves the integration of missional and commercial elements.

Preparation Stage

This is before the ‘baby is born’, the preparation that has taken place even before the business journey starts. It is about recognising what God has already done in the practitioner’s life in regards to their sense of missional call and life experiences; the tapestry woven together in their life before the BAM entity begins to be incubated. Preparation includes both business preparation and missiological preparation. What has God been doing to both missionally and professionally prepare the person, in terms of their skills and competencies?

This is where mentoring should begin: Tell me what God has been doing in your life? Tell me what your sense of call is? Tell me how God has been preparing you? The incubation process needs to begin there. The incubation of a new BAM business is the result of the process that God has already been doing before that.

Perception Stage

The perception stage is the next step. This is about gaining an understanding of what is going on in the environment that God has called you to do business as mission within; and what God wants to do through the business. What is going on in that environment in commercial terms? What are the needs? What is the market? What is the specific missional element? What is the missional calling to the people group? How is God raising up your business? The perceiving stage addresses the question: What is your business going to be about, commercially and missionally? This is the beginning of the gestation stage of the new business. Read more