Examples of Company Summaries in a Business Plan

What to Include in the Company Summary

The company summary in the business plan should include the following:

• Company Name
• Location
• Legal Structure (such as sole proprietorship, LLC, corporation, or partnership)
• Management Team
• Mission Statement
• Company History (when it started and key milestones)
• Description of products and services and how they meet market needs
• Target Market (who will buy your product or service)
• Competitive Advantage (what sets you apart from competitors in the market and allows you to succeed)
• Goals and Objectives (Plans for growth)

Getting Started with the Company Summary

The Small Business Administration (SBA) website in the United States has a lot of information available if you haven’t written a business plan before. The SBA provides examples of business plans for different types of businesses.

Before you begin, you should decide whether you want to go with a traditional business plan format or a lean startup format. The traditional format is suitable if you want a comprehensive and detailed plan or if you are seeking funding. The lean startup format is better for those with a relatively simple business and who want to start quickly or as a starting point for those planning to regularly improve and change the plan.

Regardless of the type of business plan you choose, you will need to include a company summary.

Examples of Company Summaries

While there are many templates for writing a company summary, here are some examples to get you started:

Consulting Firm

You can choose a brief opening paragraph like this:

XYZ Consulting is a new company offering expertise in search marketing solutions for businesses around the globe, including website enhancement, online advertising, and search engine optimization techniques to improve their clients’ visibility in search engines. We serve the higher education market, including colleges, universities, and professional education institutions.

Many elements of the company summary are covered here, including the name (XYZ Consulting), the history (new company), a description of services (website enhancement, search engine optimization, advertising), the need for them (to improve visibility in search engines), and the target market (higher education).

Overview of Starbucks Coffee Company

Starbucks divides its company overview on its website into the following sections:

• “Our Heritage”: Here the company describes how long it has been in business, mentioning its roots and founder Howard Schultz, and how he was inspired to open the first Starbucks in Seattle after visiting Italy. It briefly mentions the growth in customer numbers and how the company’s heritage continues to be important to its long-term success.
• “Coffee and Craftsmanship”: The overview describes the high-quality products and services offered and why they stand out from the competition by detailing the process of selecting and growing coffee beans. You will notice they do not refer to their product as a low-cost product but rather provide a high level of “tasteable experiences.”
• “Our Partners”: Starbucks describes its employees as partners who work together in an inclusive way to achieve success. It highlights how they are at the heart of the experience.
• “Striving for Good”: The company describes its values and how they benefit the community.

Overview of Tesla, Inc.

Here are excerpts from the company overview pages in Tesla’s annual 10-K report as of December 31, 2021:

• Overview: “We design, develop, manufacture, sell, and lease high-performance electric vehicles and energy generation and storage systems, and we provide related services for our products. We typically sell our products directly to customers, including through our website and our retail locations. We also continue to expand our customer-facing infrastructure with a global network of vehicle service centers, mobile service technicians, repair shops, fast charging stations, and destination charging stations to accelerate the adoption of our products. We emphasize performance, appealing design, and user safety and productivity in the design and manufacture of our products, and we continue to develop full self-driving technology to enhance safety. Our mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy, and our engineering expertise, vertically integrated business model, and focus on user experience set us apart from other companies.”
• Competition:
  Tesla highlights the competitive automotive market and how the company stands out from larger, more established competitors. “The global automotive market is highly competitive and we expect it to become even more competitive in the future with the launch of additional vehicles across a wider range of passenger and commercial vehicle categories and expanding the capabilities of our vehicles. We believe our cars compete in the market based on their traditional class rating as well as their specific powertrain technology. The competing products typically include internal combustion vehicles from the more established automakers; however, many established and new automakers have entered the electric vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles markets or announced plans to enter them.”

• Intellectual Property: The company emphasizes its intellectual property, including trademarks and patents. “We place significant importance on our innovative approach and designs that bring intrinsic and unique value to our product portfolio. As part of our business, we seek to protect the core intellectual property rights of these innovations and designs such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and other measures, including through non-disclosure agreements with employees and third parties and other contractual agreements.”
• Mission Statement: The company highlights its mission statement and goals in the area of sustainability using environmental, social, and governance (ESG) resources and human capital resources. “The real purpose of Tesla’s existence is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. We believe that the world cannot reduce carbon emissions without addressing energy production and consumption, and we design and manufacture a complete energy and transportation system to achieve this goal. We build every new factory to be more efficient and sustainably designed than the last, including in terms of waste reduction and water use, and we are focused on reducing the carbon impact of our supply chain.”

Tips for Writing a Company Summary

There are other elements you can include in the company summary to expand the areas you want people to focus on, depending on your objective.

You may provide more information about the company’s location, legal structure, and management team. You can also include more information about:

• The company’s history, such as the family-owned company that has been in operation for several generations
• Business goals, including short-term and long-term objectives
• Business strengths, focusing on anything that can give your company a competitive advantage in the field

You can also customize the summary if you have a specific goal or target audience. For example, if the aim of your business plan is to secure funding, you might focus on areas targeted at investors and financial institutions, including:

• Why you are the right person to run the business
• Your experience in the field, along with your management team’s total years of experience
• Your team’s expertise or talents, including training, licenses, and certifications
• How you plan to make the business successful
• Financial information, such as a high-level discussion of your revenue growth record and financial opportunities that may be realized as a result of securing funding

You may also want to address any perceived weaknesses by explaining how you plan to overcome or compensate for them.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How do you write a company overview?

You can provide a description of the company, its location, legal structure, and management team. You can also focus on the company’s objectives and goals and its strengths. You can also customize the summary for a specific audience, such as a bank or lender, focusing on your competitive advantages and notable recent financial successes.

What should be included in an organization overview?

Some discussion points that can be included in a company overview may include: the company name and location, the legal structure such as a sole proprietorship or limited liability company or partnership, the mission statement and management team, a description of products and services and how they meet needs, the target market or who will buy your product or service, and the competitive advantage or what makes your company different from others.

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Source: https://www.thebalancemoney.com/business-plan-1794223

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