What is a Business Plan, What is its contents?

A long & short term business plan, personal finance, a company, - Advertising and Marketing.

In broad terms, a business plan is a document which sets out the road map of what a company will do, outlines how the company will achieve what it has set out to achieve and outlines the involvement of external and internal stakeholders.
A business plan is critical to the success of a business and is a key management tool.
The key components are business description, market plan, products and service offering, operational plan, organization plan, financial plan and a SWOT analysis.

As usual, the answer is under your nose on Yahoo:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-subCat-...

A simple business plan covers the nature of your business:

Who you are
What you will be doing
How you will be doing it.
Who you will be targeting
How much you plan on making.

The SBA has several good resources about business plans- http://www.sba.gov.

There are also several software packages out there that will step you through writing a plan, one is Business Plan Pro - http://www.paloalto.com.

A business plan should be a work-in progress. Even successful, growing businesses should maintain a current business plan.
Every Successful business plan should include something about each of the following areas since these are what make up the essential elements of a good business plan.

Executive Summary :The Executive Summary is the most important section of your business plan. It provides a concise overview of the entire plan along with a history of your company. This section tells your reader where your company is and where you want to take it. It's the first thing your readers see.Contents of the Executive Summary is:The Mission Statement,
Date business began
Names of founders and the functions they perform
Number of employees
Location of business and any branches or subsidiaries
Description of plant or facilities
Products manufactured/services rendered
Banking relationships and information regarding current investors
Summary of company growth including financial or market highlights.

Market Analysis:

Company Description
Organization & Management
Marketing & Sales Management
Service or product Line
Funding Request
Financials
Appendix
I hope this help's.All the best

Simply put it is what you intend to do, how, when, where and why?

However, my experience is most people slave over one of these start their business and use it for something useful, eg propping up a wobbly table. Pointless, this is a live document, look at compare what you thought would happen with what is happening, if there is variance why, this aids in highlighting problems before they become serious, we hope.

It should contain:
executive summary - an overview
business idea - fleshed out in detail
key people - who is who and why these people were chosen
market research - who is in the market, why are you better,
who will buy from you, how, where, when, what sales advantages do you offer, what method of sales will you employ how is this better than the competitors, detailed accurate information on competitors.
building premises - costs and quotes,
insurance - cost and quotes
CV's of important people
financial assumptions - how you believe the sales and cost will be generated.
financial models- cash flow forecast three years, based on assumption shown in the business plan, profit and loss from the cash flow, and most importantly a nice choc biscuit for the poor bank manager who has to read this!

Templates can be obtained from business eye, high street banks, enterprise agencies and some council economic regeneration department are able to help. If in doubt contact the Institute of Business Adviser for your local professional, but they will charge, as will an accountant, solicitor, etc.

Good Luck