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• 12 Responsibilities of a Small Business Owner
• Learning Center
• Business Owners

R unning a business comes with exciting opportunity, flexibility, and independence, but it’s also a major role to take on. Depending on your unique business situation, you’re probably doing much more than overseeing operations. Even when you’re involved in all the different everyday tasks, it’s important to remember your core responsibilities.

Why is it important to know the responsibilities of a small business owner?

Being a small business owner means wearing many hats and juggling many responsibilities each day. Understanding your responsibilities helps you stay organized and on the track to growth. Here’s why it’s important to know your responsibilities:

• Increased efficiency. Knowing that your responsibilities include the hiring and training process and overseeing your current employees means you’ll never neglect one group at the other’s expense. As a result, everyone will have all the resources they need to complete their work. With full resource access, your employees will get their work done more quickly, and your company will be more efficient.
• Less time wasted. When you sit atop the chain of command, your actions (or inaction) often affect your work environment and output. For example, if your development team can’t offer new goods or services without you approving the budget, your company loses precious time if you neglect your financial responsibilities. This possibility is far less likely if you know all your responsibilities.
• More knowledge. If you’re aware that business owners oversee customer service, marketing, finances, and all kinds of other tasks, you build knowledge in all kinds of areas. This means you have a stronger foundation to pull from when drafting a business plan for any new initiatives. It also means knowing what will and won’t work when executing your social media marketing strategy . For small business owners, knowledge is power.

12 responsibilities of a small business owner

Among the (many) responsibilities of a small business owner are the following:

1. Creating a business plan and strategy

As the owner of the small business, you decide the direction you’re heading and how you’ll get there. Setting benchmarks based on your long-term vision can help you understand what you need to achieve your dreams, whether that be time, resources, strategies, or a helping hand. If you do have a team supporting you, they’ll be empowered in their work when you’re transparent about your plan of action.

It can take a brainstorming session or two, or five, to narrow down what your most meaningful goals are and how they translate into actionable steps. Don’t hesitate to set aside time for high-level planning sessions where you measure progress, gather insights, and readjust the game plan if necessary.

2. Keeping track of finances and accounting

Most small businesses ( 81%, to be exact ) apply for a business loan or an SBA loan at some point. Depending on your needs and financial history, you’ll probably have to weigh your options when it comes to outside financing. Unless you’ve hired an accountant or bookkeeper, you’re also responsible for establishing and maintaining business bank accounts, payment processing systems, taxes, and day-to-day costs.

Not sure how you can apply the funds from a small business loan? Read our in-depth guide on the SmartBiz Resource Center: Determining Use of Proceeds .

3. Handling legal and compliance responsibilities

Running the ship comes with a new level of freedom, but it also means complying with rules and regulations. From the very beginning when you’re forming a business structure to the daily routines like drafting contracts and agreements, you should have at least some knowledge of the laws specific to your industry, location, and business type. When you need professional advice, it might be worth working with an attorney.

4. Managing marketing and sales

Even with a standout product or service, you’ll need to establish solid marketing strategies to bring customers through the door and drive your sales up. With so many available options out there, it’s up to you to decide the approach that fits best with your business goals. Some opportunities include social media, print advertising, PR, and event marketing.

5. Ensuring outstanding customer service

Next, once you’ve built a customer base, consider keeping them engaged throughout the sales process. Forming a relationship with the individuals who use your product or service is key to keep them coming back and even referring more customers. Whether you have a sales team or you’re wearing all the hats, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you manage and automate your processes. Looking into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms is a great place to start. For inspiring customer service stories, check out this post: 6 Best Examples of Customer Service .

6. Identifying hiring and HR needs

As your small business grows, you might find that it’s time to hire help. Before you take the plunge and start placing ads, consider how much you’re willing to offer for potential candidates. Just like any other venture, this decision is probably a major turning point for your business so don’t underestimate the impact that hiring can have. Some of your responsibilities as the owner include identifying your company’s needs, crafting job descriptions, interviewing candidates, and making key hiring decisions.

7. Overseeing the team

The work doesn’t stop there—once you’ve hired the employees you think are a good fit, it’s your job to train, manage, and lead by example. When questions or concerns arise, you should be there for your team. Be sure to comply with local hiring laws to avoid any missteps that can result in big consequences. Visit the U.S. Department of Labor to learn what it takes to hire employees in your area.

8. Managing day-to-day operations

As a small business owner, you need to identify and manage all processes that keep your customers happy and support healthy growth, from manufacturing products to signing off on invoices. Although you don’t necessarily need to be hands-on in every process, you do need to make sure your team completes every step in a timely, thorough manner. Without this management, your products or services might not reach your standards.

9. Planning new initiatives

If your day-to-day operations aren’t getting you where you want to be, maybe it’s time to branch out. The responsibility for planning this expansion falls on you, though you can seek help from your employees or business partners. Market research will come in handy here, as will identifying other companies with which you can partner. So too will drafting a business plan for your new initiatives. Learn more via the SmartBiz Loans blog Ultimate Guide on How to Start A Business Plan .

10. Training your team

Employee training doesn’t stop after the initial onboarding process. Continued training is highly recommended, as it can minimize employee mistakes and prepare your team for any new paths your company might take. However, even if you task certain employees with executing your training program, it remains your responsibility to ensure everyone is receiving adequate instructions. After all, it’s your business – you wouldn’t want anyone working for you without being fully prepared.

11. Addressing technology issues

Small business owners like yourself should know the ins and outs of all the technology their company uses. This way, both new and longtime employees can go to you for quick, thorough answers. The result is a more efficient team that doesn’t fall behind when technological obstacles arise.

12. Staffing and management

As the owner of your company, you’re the final step for all human resources, customer service, and employee management concerns. Depending on the type of company you own, you may have sole discretion over these concerns. Alternatively, if you’re small enough that you’ve outsourced your HR to a third party, this entity may handle it. However, if you’re unhappy with how things are handled, you still get the final say.

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As you see continued business success, you’ll probably identify key areas where you can grow. A boost in cash flow means that you can expand your programs and build your operations. Interested in receiving personalized recommendations and tips that can help you take your business to the next level?

Get started with SmartBiz Advisor today. Our free, AI-powered tool will be your Intelligent CFO, providing you with the insights and resources you need to strengthen your lending profile and qualify for the funding you deserve.

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The SmartBiz® Small Business Blog and other related communications from SmartBiz Loans® are intended to provide general information on relevant topics for managing small businesses. Be aware that this is not a comprehensive analysis of the subject matter covered and is not intended to provide specific recommendations to you or your business with respect to the matters addressed. Please consult legal and financial processionals for further information.

Responsibilities and Liabilities of a Company or Business Owner

• Abdullah Al Mamun
• December 19, 2023
• Company Formation , Legal Structure

Table of Content

Are you a seasoned entrepreneur? Like, do you get the urge to be an entrepreneur occasionally? Or are you just starting out in business, permanently and for real?

Whoever you are, understanding your role as a company owner is important to your success. Because, as a business owner, you have a lot of control over your business and how it works. But you already know that with great power comes great responsibility, right? And it’s important to know your responsibilities and risks as a business owner. You have many responsibilities to run a successful and honest business, like ensuring your employees are safe and keeping your company’s assets safe.

Also, you need to know about your legal and financial responsibilities to keep yourself and your business safe from lawsuits and other legal problems. This blog post will discuss the most important responsibilities and liabilities of being a business owner, as well as tips and best practices for doing these things well.

Who Is a Company or Business Owner?

A company’s owner runs the business, decides how it works, and makes money. A business is any place that sells things or provides services for money, like an online store or a freelance writer.

A business owner can work alone or with others, but they are responsible for making plans, teaching employees, and ensuring the business runs daily. A business owner oversees how the business runs and how well it does.

Bill Gates is a well-known business owner because he co-founded Microsoft, one of the world’s biggest software companies. As the business owner, he was a big part of deciding where it was going and making important decisions that helped it do well. Jeff Bezos, who started Amazon, and Elon Musk, who started Tesla and SpaceX, are also owners of businesses. 

Roles and Responsibilities in a Business

There are different types of roles in a business, and every role has certain sets of responsibilities to maintain. Some of these roles and responsibilities are divided into three levels:

• Operations and production.

Let’s talk in detail about those three levels of roles and responsibilities. Please take a look below:

1.  Executive Or Top-Level Business Roles

There are different executive-level positions in a business or company. Those are discussed below:

• Chief Executive Officer (CEO): A CEO makes top-level decisions, gets the company’s resources, and makes operational and structural changes that directly affect the organization’s growth. Either the president or the owner can carry out this task in smaller businesses.
• Chief Operating Officer (COO): A Chief Operating Officer oversees the company’s operations. In smaller businesses, the general manager can fill this role, which is similar to a COO. These top-level business jobs make sure that things run smoothly and often oversee different departments to ensure employees do their work right and on time.
• Chief Financial Officer (CFO): The CFO, also called the controller, oversees a business’s cash flow and how well it does financially. A CFO and a controller are usually two different jobs within a large company, but smaller companies may combine these two jobs into one job title. The CFO usually finds investors and other ways for the business to get money from outside sources, while the controller controls the company’s expenses and assets. When one person takes on both financial roles, they are in charge of both money coming in and money going out.
• Chief Marketing Officer (CMO): The chief marketing officer (CMO) oversees a company’s marketing campaigns, budgets, and the whole marketing department. This job may be in charge of multiple marketing teams, each with its own team leader or marketing manager. Also, the CMO usually makes the final decisions about how marketing projects are planned and carried out.
• Chief Technology Officer (CTO): The Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is in charge of the organization’s technology. They often use new technology trends and ensure that any new technology meets their company’s needs. The CTO oversees the most important tasks in companies with big IT departments.
• President: Some organizations don’t have a CEO but do have a president. Even though the president and the CEO have many of the same responsibilities, the president may also have other tasks that the CEO may not. They could do some of the things that a COO and a CFO do in bigger companies. As a company grows, the president may take on more specific responsibilities, such as making top-level decisions and leading the management teams, instead of a wide range of executive duties.
• Vice President: For the president, the vice president makes decisions and plans by telling mid-level managers and team leaders what to do. They can, among other things, be in charge of how a business runs and sets up its organizational structure.
• Executive Assistants: Most of the time, an executive assistant works directly for the CEO and does most of the CEO’s administrative work. A business often needs an executive assistant to keep the CEO’s schedule, agenda, and appointments in order.

2.  Managerial Business Roles And Responsibilities

The responsibilities of managerial business roles are discussed below-

• Marketing Manager: Depending on the company’s size, the marketing manager oversees the whole marketing department. In a large company, the marketing department might have more than one team, and each team might have its own marketing manager. Every manager reports directly to the CMO. In smaller companies, the marketing manager may be the only person at the top level who is in charge of marketing.
• Product Manager: Product managers research product markets and streamline product development processes. A product manager may spend most of their time researching customer markets, evaluating popular products, analyzing how products are made, and working with marketing teams to develop product promotion strategies.
• Project Manager: Project managers are in charge of much of the planning and making of business projects. These people are responsible for planning, designing, monitoring, controlling, and finishing projects. Project managers may examine and minimize risks on various projects. They often work with other department managers, like marketing and product managers, to plan and develop all parts of a project, such as its budget, resources, and timeline.
• Finance Manager: Finance managers often look at costs and income and use this information to make financial reports. In smaller businesses, this job may be in charge of a number of financial tasks, such as figuring out how much money is coming in and how much it will cost the company. In larger businesses, the finance manager may be in charge of the accountants and bookkeepers on staff, and they depend on their work to make accurate financial reports and forecasts.
• Human Resources Manager: Human resources managers oversee the department of human resources. In larger organizations, they may be in charge of a lot of people, but in smaller ones, they may only be in charge of a few people. This business role is important for operations because they look for, interview, hire, and start working with new employees. HR managers often talk to top-level executives to develop strategic plans and act as a link between top-level management and the rest of the company’s staff.

3.  Operational Roles And Responsibilities

• Marketing Specialist: The marketing specialist is an important part of the marketing team. Specialists do many different things, like gather customer information, research target demographics, and optimize content for SEO. In the marketing department of many companies, there is more than one marketing specialist, and this person usually reports directly to the marketing manager.
• Business Analyst: Many companies hire business analysts to evaluate how their businesses grow and change. This job analyzes market trends, predicts future revenue, and makes plans that help businesses track profitability, product viability, and the overall success of operations.
• Human Resource Personnel: Human resources personnel are an important part of any business, and the HR manager oversees them. Most of the time, the people in these business roles are in charge of payroll, employee schedules, performance reviews, and evaluations. In big companies, the HR department might have a few HR managers and a lot of staff who work under them.
• Accountant: A business’s day-to-day operations, such as sales, paying bills, and filing taxes–an accountant oversees all of these. Accountants in smaller businesses may have to do things that finance managers or chief financial officers (CFOs) do in large businesses.
• Sales Representative: Sales representatives talk to customers to sell the products or services of their company. Successful sales teams use good communication and people skills to build customer relationships and maintain loyalty. This has a direct effect on how much money the business makes.
• Customer Service Representative: Customer service representatives deal with returns and refunds, help customers figure out how to fix problems, and listen to customer complaints. These operational roles are important to the company’s reputation and building long-term customer relationships.
• Administrative Assistant: Customers and clients first talk to the receptionist, office assistant, or administrative assistant when they enter a business place or company. They might be responsible for important tasks like running the phone lines, coordinating communication between clients and partners, and setting up staff schedules. They might even be given tasks like data entry to help keep business documents correct and up-to-date.

What Are the Responsibilities of a Business Owner?

The owners of businesses do everything they can to ensure their businesses do well. This could mean doing things they’d rather not do, like filling out paperwork, taking orders to the post office, or making plans for marketing.

What business owner do daily depends on what kind of business they run and how they spend their time. Most of the time, though, they boil down to the following roles and responsibilities:

Creating and Managing Plans: As a business owner, you must consider what you need to do to make your business successful. This means planning how they will run their business, promoting their goods or services, and finding ways to keep their business profitable. To be successful, you need to do research and make good plans. Business owners must also be good at time management to meet deadlines and balance their work and personal lives.

Managing Finance: Managing money is important. To start a business, a person needs money, so they may need to get a loan or find investors. They must also pay for new products, advertising, and staff. It’s important to keep track of your bank accounts , taxes, and how much money you make and spend.

Compliance and Legal: A business owner must follow the laws and rules about how to run a business. This means getting the right licenses, registering their business as a legal entity, and knowing the rules about labor. A business owner should also have a lawyer on hand in case of problems with employees or customers.

Marketing and Sales: A business owner must ensure people know about their business and want to buy from it. This means making campaigns, approving ads, and promoting their business through social media and email. They also have to talk to people who might buy their products or services and make deals with them.

Regular Monitoring: The company owner needs to monitor how their employees are doing their jobs, how well the work is getting done, and how well their plans are working. They have to do this daily to quickly see where things are going wrong and fix them before they become big problems. This way, the owner can stay on top of any potential issues that may arise.

Supervising Customer Service: It is up to the business owner to ensure customers are happy with the service they get. This means making rules about how to treat customers and ensuring people think well of the business.

Hiring People According to the Company’s Rules: If you own a business, you must find and hire the right people to work with you. This means that the owner will decide what each person should do, give them feedback on how well they are doing, and decide how much they should be paid and what benefits they should get. The owner also helps them improve their jobs by providing training and support.

Liabilities of the Owner in a Business Plan

The liabilities of a business owner are the legal responsibilities and financial debts that the business owner is responsible for. Among these responsibilities are the following:

Business Debts: The owners of a business may have to pay for its debts themselves. If a business can’t pay its debts, the owner may have to use their own assets, like their home or savings, to pay them off.

To avoid this, business owners must separate their personal and business finances. They should keep their business transactions in a separate bank account and consider incorporating their business or making an LLC to limit liability.

Legal Claims: If a company owner’s business is sued for any reason, they could be held personally responsible for any damages given to the plaintiff. This can happen when someone hurts a worker, breaks a contract, or steals someone else’s idea.

To lower the chance of being sued, they should ensure their business follows all laws and rules and consider getting liability insurance to protect themselves in case they are sued.

Taxes: As business owners, they have to pay different taxes, such as income tax, payroll tax, and sales tax. If you don’t pay these taxes, you could face fines, penalties, or even be charged with a crime.

Maintaining accurate records of all business transactions, filing the owner’s tax returns on time, and considering hiring a qualified accountant or tax preparer can all help you avoid tax problems. 

Employee Obligations: If a business owner has employees, they may have legal and financial responsibilities like paying their salaries, giving them benefits like health insurance and retirement plans, and following employment laws and rules.

To ensure you follow all employment laws and rules, you might want to talk to an employment lawyer and assemble a handbook for employees explaining the owner’s company’s policies and procedures.

Liabilities of the Owner in a Business Plan Example

A liability is any debt that your business has to pay. And in a business plan, the owner’s liabilities mean the financial obligations or debts they are responsible for paying. These liabilities can vary depending on the business structure and the owner’s role and responsibilities. Some of the most common business liabilities for which a business owner may have to pay personally are:

• Personal investment
• Loans, mortgages, and other forms of debt
• Taxes on income and other taxes due
• Employee wages and salaries

Importance of Owner in a Business

The business owner is in charge of the big picture and is not involved in the day-to-day tasks of running the service. Instead, they look at the whole picture. They set goals and plans. They know how to make strategic decisions and have the power to get rid of political and financial roadblocks. They talk to the people who matter most and work closely with the service owner, who creates a roadmap that fits the vision.

But That’s Not All

We’ve reached the end of our blog, but that’s not all.

Remember that running a successful business takes a lot more than a good idea and a strong work ethic. As a business owner, you must know your legal and financial obligations and meet them. This means keeping good financial records, paying taxes, following rules and laws, and ensuring their business is properly insured.

By keeping their personal finances separate from their business finances, business owners can stay out of trouble with the law and protect themselves from liability. A business owner must also know their responsibilities to their employees, customers, and the community. For example, they have to follow health and safety rules and ensure the workplace is safe.

Lawyers, accountants, and insurance agents can help business owners understand their legal and financial obligations and ensure they are met. These experts can also advise them on making it less likely that they will have legal or financial problems.

Shortly, if you own a business or company, you need to work hard, take responsibility, and be willing to ask for help when you need it. By following these steps and doing what they need to do, business owners can build a successful business that helps their customers reach their goals and gives them value while avoiding liability issues.

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What Does a Business Owner Do?

• Updated January 19, 2023
• Published January 18, 2023

As a business owner, you are responsible for the overall success and growth of your company. You wear many hats and are involved in every aspect of the business, from creating a product or service to marketing and sales to finance and administration.

It is a challenging and rewarding role that requires a combination of technical skills, business acumen, and leadership abilities.

In this article, we will explore the various roles and responsibilities of a business owner and provide tips for those considering starting their own business.

Business Owner Duties and Responsibilities

The duties and responsibilities of a business owner vary depending on the size and type of business, as well as the owner’s specific role within the organization. However, some common responsibilities of business owners include the following:

• Setting business goals and strategies : As a business owner, you are responsible for setting clear goals and objectives for your company and developing a plan to achieve them. This may involve identifying new markets to enter, developing new products or services, or expanding your customer base.
• Managing finances : As a business owner, you are responsible for managing the financial aspects of your company, including budgeting, forecasting, and tracking profits and losses. You may also be responsible for preparing financial reports, seeking funding, and making financial decisions.
• Overseeing operations : Business owners are responsible for ensuring that the company’s day-to-day operations run smoothly and efficiently. This may involve managing staff, coordinating with suppliers and partners, and making sure that products and services are delivered on time.
• Marketing and sales : Business owners are responsible for promoting their products and services and generating sales. This may involve creating marketing campaigns, identifying potential customers, and negotiating contracts.
• Legal and regulatory compliance : Business owners ensure that their company complies with all relevant laws and regulations. This may involve obtaining necessary licenses and permits, following employment laws, and adhering to industry-specific regulations.
• Customer service : As a business owner, you are responsible for ensuring that your customers are satisfied with your products and services. This may involve handling customer inquiries and complaints and working to resolve any issues that may arise.
• Staying up to date : Business owners must stay up to date with industry developments and trends and be willing to adapt and innovate in order to stay competitive. This may involve continuing education, networking, and staying informed about new technologies and strategies.

Related : Management interview questions and answers

Business Owner Job Requirements

The job requirements for a business owner vary depending on the size and type of business and the specific industry in which the business operates. However, some common requirements for business owners include the following:

• Education : Many business owners have a bachelor’s or master’s degree in a field related to their business, such as business administration, marketing, or finance. However, it is possible to start and run a successful business without a college degree.
• Experience : Many business owners have previous work experience in their industry, which can be helpful in understanding the market, developing strategies, and building a network of contacts. However, starting a business without prior experience is also possible, particularly if you are starting a small business or are entering a field that does not require specialized knowledge.
• Skills : Business owners should have a range of skills, including financial acumen, leadership, communication, problem-solving, and decision-making. They should also be adaptable and able to think on their feet, as the needs and challenges of a business can change quickly.
• Personal characteristics : Business owners should be self-motivated, confident, and resilient, as running a business can be demanding and may involve facing setbacks and challenges. They should also be able to handle stress and work under pressure.
• License and certification : Depending on the type of business and industry, business owners may need to obtain certain licenses and certifications in order to operate legally. For example, a business owner may need a license to serve alcohol or a certification to work in a regulated industry such as healthcare or construction.

Business Owner Skills

Business owners should have a range of skills in order to be successful in their roles. Some of the key job skills for a business owner include:

• Financial acumen : Business owners are responsible for managing the financial aspects of their company, so they should have a good understanding of financial concepts and be able to create and manage a budget, forecast profits and losses, and make financial decisions.
• Leadership : Business owners are responsible for leading and managing their teams, so they should have strong leadership skills and be able to delegate tasks, motivate and inspire their employees, and make difficult decisions.
• Communication : Business owners need to be able to communicate effectively with their team, customers, and partners. This includes being able to articulate ideas clearly, listen actively, and resolve conflicts.
• Problem-solving : Business owners should be able to identify and resolve problems as they arise, whether they are related to operations, finances, or customer service.
• Decision-making : Business owners are responsible for making important decisions that can impact the future of their company, so they should be able to analyze situations, weigh the pros and cons of different options, and make informed decisions.
• Adaptability : Business owners should be able to adapt to change and be open to new ideas and approaches. This may involve staying up to date with industry trends and being willing to try new strategies.
• Organization and time management : Business owners often have a lot of responsibilities, so it is important to be able to prioritize tasks, manage your time effectively, and stay organized.
• Strategic thinking : Business owners should be able to think strategically and develop long-term plans for the growth and success of their company. This may involve identifying new opportunities, analyzing market trends, and developing innovative solutions.

Related : Problem-solving interview questions and answers

Business Owner Salary

The salary and job outlook for a business owner vary widely depending on the size and type of business, as well as the industry in which the business operates. Some factors that can impact a business owner’s salary include the company’s revenue, profits, location, and the owner’s level of experience.

According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median annual wage for a business owner is $80,000. However, this number can be higher or lower depending on the factors mentioned above. For example, business owners in the professional, scientific, and technical services industry tend to earn higher salaries, while those in the retail industry tend to earn lower salaries.

In terms of job outlook, the BLS projects that employment of business owners will grow 5% from 2020 to 2030, which is about as fast as the average for all occupations. The demand for business owners may be impacted by economic conditions and the overall health of the business environment. Starting a new business can be challenging, but those who are able to navigate the challenges and build a successful company successfully may enjoy strong job prospects.

Business Owner Work Environment

The work environment of a business owner can vary depending on the size and type of business, as well as the industry in which the business operates. Some business owners may work in an office setting, while others may work in a retail or manufacturing environment.

In general, business owners work long and irregular hours, as they are responsible for the overall success and growth of their company. They may need to be available to their team and customers at all times and may work weekends and holidays as needed.

Business owners also face a high level of stress and pressure, as they are responsible for making important decisions that can impact the future of their company. They may also face financial risk, as their personal assets may be tied to the success or failure of the business.

However, being a business owner can also be extremely rewarding, as you have the opportunity to create and grow a company that aligns with your values and goals. Many business owners enjoy the independence and flexibility that comes with being their own boss and the ability to make a positive impact in their community.

Business Owner Trends

It is difficult to predict specific trends that will impact business owners, as the business environment is constantly evolving. However, some general trends that may be relevant to business owners include the following:

• Digital transformation : Many businesses are adopting digital technologies in order to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reach new customers. Business owners should be aware of the latest technologies and how they can be used to benefit their company.
• Sustainability and social responsibility : Consumers and investors are increasingly looking for businesses that prioritize sustainability and social responsibility. Business owners may need to consider the environmental and social impact of their operations and consider ways to reduce their carbon footprint and give back to their communities.
• Remote work : Business owners should be prepared to adapt to a hybrid work model or fully remote work if necessary.
• E-commerce : The growth of e-commerce has led to an increase in online sales, and this trend is likely to continue in the future. Business owners should consider how they can leverage online platforms to reach new customers and sell their products or services.
• Talent management : Business owners may need to adapt their talent management strategies in order to attract and retain top talent in a competitive job market. This may involve offering flexible work arrangements, providing professional development opportunities, and creating a positive company culture.

How to Become a Business Owner

There are several steps you can take to become a business owner:

• Identify your business idea : The first step in becoming a business owner is to identify a business idea that you are passionate about and meets a market need. This may involve researching your industry, identifying trends and opportunities, and testing your idea with potential customers.
• Create a business plan : A business plan is a document that outlines your business idea, target market, financial projections, and marketing and sales strategies. A business plan can help you clarify your vision and ensure that you have a roadmap for success.
• Secure funding : Depending on the size and scope of your business, you may need to secure funding to get your business off the ground. This may involve using personal savings, seeking a loan or investment from a bank or venture capital firm, or crowdfunding.
• Choose a business structure : There are several business structures to choose from, such as sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or limited liability company (LLC). Each structure has its own advantages and disadvantages, so choosing the one that is right for your business is important.
• Register your business : You will need to register your business with the appropriate government agencies in order to operate legally. This may involve obtaining licenses, permits, and insurance and registering for taxes.
• Set up your business : Once your business is registered, you will need to set it up by creating a physical location, hiring staff (if applicable), and acquiring the necessary equipment and supplies.
• Launch your business : Once you have completed the above steps, you are ready to launch your business. This may involve marketing and promoting your products or services, establishing relationships with suppliers and partners, and building a customer base.

Starting a business can be a challenging and time-consuming process, but it can also be a rewarding and fulfilling career path. It is important to be persistent, adaptable, and willing to learn from your mistakes in order to succeed as a business owner.

Business Owner Advancement Prospects

As a business owner, you have the opportunity to advance your business and achieve success in a variety of ways. Some possible advancement prospects for business owners include:

• Growing your business : One way to advance as a business owner is to grow your business and increase its profits. This may involve expanding your customer base, entering new markets, or developing new products or services.
• Diversifying your business : Another way to advance as a business owner is to diversify your business by adding new lines of products or services, or by entering new industries. This can help to mitigate risk and increase the long-term stability of your business.
• Developing new skills : As a business owner, you have the opportunity to continuously learn and develop new skills that can help you to improve your business. This may involve taking courses or earning additional degrees, or seeking out mentorship and guidance from other business owners.
• Building a team : As your business grows, you may need to build a team of employees or partners to help you manage the day-to-day operations of your business. This can allow you to focus on strategic planning and decision-making, and can help to free up time for you to pursue other opportunities.
• Selling your business : Another advancement prospect for business owners is to sell their business for a profit. This can be a lucrative option for those who have built a successful company, and can allow you to retire or pursue other business ventures.

Business Owner Job Description Example

Job Title : Business Owner

Location : XYZ City, XYZ State

Job Type : Full-time, Self-employed

Pay : Dependent on business revenue and profits

As a Business Owner, you’re responsible for the overall success and growth of the company. This is a hands-on role that requires the ability to wear many hats and be involved in every aspect of the business, from creating a product or service, to marketing and sales, to finance and administration.

Responsibilities :

• Set business goals and strategies
• Manage finances, including budgeting, forecasting, and tracking profits and losses
• Oversee operations, including managing staff and coordinating with suppliers and partners
• Marketing and sales, including creating marketing campaigns and identifying potential customers
• Legal and regulatory compliance, including obtaining necessary licenses and permits
• Customer service, including handling customer inquiries and complaints
• Stay up to date with industry developments and trends

Requirements :

• Self-motivated, confident, and resilient
• Strong financial acumen, leadership, communication, problem-solving, and decision-making skills
• Adaptable and able to think on your feet
• Well-organized and able to manage time effectively
• Strong strategic thinking skills
• Education and experience may be beneficial but are not required

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How to become a business owner (and thrive in the role)

Business ownership can be an exciting, fulfilling and lucrative journey.

However, there’s so much to consider when planning your route that it’s easy to miss or forget important details. You risk wasting time and any early investment.

We created this business ownership guide to help you navigate those daunting first stages. Keep reading to learn why becoming a business owner is worth all the effort, how to make it happen and how to thrive once you’re the boss.

What is a business owner?

A business owner is someone who controls the operational and financial aspects of a business, including any organization that sells goods or services for profit.

Note: Some business owners also produce their products. They can sell these to consumers or other businesses to use or resell.

Business owners oversee companies of all sizes, from freelance operations to multinational corporations. They can also work alone or alongside co-owners to manage their companies’ strategies, hiring efforts, training and day-to-day business operations.

You might also hear business owners referred to as:

Proprietors

Chief executive officers (CEO)

Managing directors

While these roles often overlap, the terms aren’t interchangeable. A business owner can appoint a separate managing director, for example, or a founder (someone who starts a company) may sell to a new owner.

Business owner vs. entrepreneur: what’s the difference?

Entrepreneurs are often business owners, and vice versa, but the two terms are different. Understanding them will help you describe yourself correctly and have more productive conversations with peers and investors.

Non-entrepreneurial business owners typically start or operate companies built on proven ideas, like running a music venue, e-commerce store or cafe.

Entrepreneurs focus more on innovation. They take risks pursuing ideas that solve everyday problems and often start companies that disrupt established business models.

For example, two entrepreneurs founded the financial technology company Chime to simplify basic banking services for US consumers – and are now business owners. Were they to sell the company, they’d still be entrepreneurs but no longer business owners.

Here’s a simple table to show the key differences:

The benefits of business ownership

Having your own business gives you the autonomy to make decisions, implement your vision and enjoy the rewards of your hard work.

It leads to a long list of more specific benefits, including:

Financial freedom. Build a sustainable, successful business to control your income and grow your wealth and security.

Job creation. Contribute to your community and local or regional economy by building a workforce and supporting local supply chains.

Passion pursuit. Turn passions and interests into a professional pursuit, increasing your job satisfaction.

Challenges. Expose yourself to new challenges and responsibilities to build valuable skills and fast-track your personal growth.

Flexibility. Choose when, where and how you work to find the perfect work-life balance for your lifestyle.

Legacy building. Create a lasting legacy for future generations through a thriving and sustainable business, family tradition or both.

Of course, becoming self-employed isn’t without its challenges. There are almost always legal and financial risks to consider, while market competition and other uncontrollable factors can make success difficult to achieve.

You can minimize these issues to create the smoothest journey possible by building your new business in a careful, sustainable way.

How to become a business owner: step-by-step

Speak to any business owner and they’ll have a unique story about how they became their own boss. After all, every company and business plan is different.

However, most business owners and partnerships follow a similar general path initially. Treading the same proven steps can prevent avoidable mistakes and help you succeed sooner.

1. Find a great business idea

Whichever market you plan to enter, identify a product or service that fulfills a common or niche demand.

You could use an established business idea or disrupt a market with a unique solution. The former is easier to achieve as you’ll have a proven model to follow and plenty of inspiration, although you’ll likely face more competition.

Market research is essential at this stage. Study your target audience, competitors and industry trends to learn which products sell well and try to find what people are missing.

You can do this through personal conversations, industry media and social listening. Social listening means analyzing online conversations to learn more about your audience (it’s a form of customer observation ).

Validate ideas by seeking feedback from potential customers, friends and industry experts. You may be able to access expert advice via a local or online business hub or incubator.

Recommended reading

11 profitable small business ideas for aspiring entrepreneurs in 2024

2. Choose and register your business name

Once you have a business idea, pick a name.

While your business name is a very personal choice, it must be:

Distinctive

Compliant with local regulations

Different countries and regions have their own laws on using the names of other businesses but it’s generally not permitted. Check what’s available to ensure you don’t face any legal complaints from other companies further down the line.

In the US, business registration happens at a state level. You can search your state’s business entity database – like this one for New York – for existing businesses and often file your incorporation information there, too.

In the UK, registration happens nationally through Companies House, which has a “name availability” register . There’s more information on UK business naming requirements on the Companies House website .

3. Register your domain name

Look for a domain name to represent your new business, identical to your business name if possible. You’ll use this for your company website and email addresses.

You can build your website at any stage before launching but buying the domain name now ensures no one else can take it.

There are a couple of ways to purchase a domain name:

Through a dedicated domain registrar. Companies like GoDaddy and Namecheap offer simple, affordable packages for an annual fee – often with security features bundled in.

Via a website builder. Accessible website and e-commerce store builders like Squarespace and Shopify let you register your domain name as part of their website packages.

Whichever route you choose, there will be many different providers to consider. Compare them based on price, support options, security credentials and online reviews.

Another choice to make is your domain suffix, which is the final part of your domain after the last dot.

For example, Pipedrive’s domain suffix is “ .com ” as in: “ pipedrive.com ”

Using .com is one of the most common options and is ideal for global businesses as it’s geographically neutral.

On the other hand, regional suffixes like “ .co.uk ” (UK), “ .de ” (Germany) and “ .com.za ” (South Africa) tie your business to a specific place, which can make your company feel more authentic and trustworthy to local browsers.

There are also industry-specific suffixes. For example, “ .io ” (based on the computing term “input/output”) is synonymous with tech businesses.

You can even use “ .pizza ” or “ .fashion ” to make your web address hyper-relevant.

Note: If you have a very common business name, your domain might be taken. Consider creative ways to get a domain as close to your business name as possible, like using a regional suffix for local businesses or adding “co” for “company” (as in “baltimorepizzaco.com”).

4. Build a business plan

A well-structured business plan serves as a roadmap for your company’s success. You’ll use this to guide your decision-making first and foremost, but potentially also to attract investors and secure funding.

Business plans typically contain the following core information:

Business description

Value proposition

Key objectives

Market analysis

Risk assessment or overview

Business structure

Launch products or services

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial projections

If you want to use your business plan to seek investment, add a “funding request” section detailing how much you need and what you’ll use it for. Your financial projections should support your ability to repay any loans if you choose to borrow.

The information within your plan will be unique but aim to make it accurate and easy to understand. Stick to realistic goals, research your market thoroughly and back your financial projections with plenty of data on costs and the performance of similar businesses in your field.

How to create a sales plan in 7 Steps

5. Obtain any relevant licenses and permits

Research the licenses and permits required for your specific industry and location.

If you launch without getting the correct paperwork, you risk serious legal action that could quickly end your business journey.

For example, many American cities and counties require a general business license. In most countries, you’ll need additional verification to sell restricted products like alcohol, tobacco and medicines.

The list of licenses and permits that could apply is nearly endless, as every jurisdiction differs. Your local business authority should be able to tell you what you need before launching and guide you through the application process.

6. Arrange insurance and bank accounts

Business insurance and a company banking account will help you protect and organize your assets.

There are various types of insurance to consider, including:

These are just some of the insurance types available. Check in with other business owners in your location and field to learn about specific policy types.

If you don’t have any relevant contacts yet, consider joining a local business community on LinkedIn or Facebook. There, you can ask the question to see if anyone has useful insights.

Business banking accounts are a more straightforward proposition, as the main aim is to have somewhere to keep your company’s money. You still have a few options, so here are the key types of business products to have on your radar:

Most major banks offer business products. Inquiring with your personal account provider is a quick way to create a new company account but shopping around can get you better interest rates and rewards.

You could also consider a digital-first provider. The below graphic from Fintech America News shows some of these key “challenger banks” worldwide:

Many digital-first providers promise faster set-up processes, ultra-convenient apps and customer-centric service.

However, this convenience often comes at the expense of in-person service, so stick to a traditional provider if you value the ability to visit your local branch.

7. Launch and slowly build your business

Now that you’ve done the necessary groundwork, it’s time to launch your business.

Depending on your business type and scale, you may need to hire employees before launching, or you can start alone and build your team as you expand.

Either way, begin with a soft launch (i.e., only selling a small volume to select customers) to gather valuable feedback on your products and services, so that you can address any issues before you scale up.

As you gain momentum, focus on marketing and growing your customer base. Implement marketing strategies to reach your target audience and build strong online and offline presences.

The following digital marketing techniques benefit new businesses:

Search engine optimization (SEO). Making your website search-friendly will put you higher in Google’s search results pages, helping internet users find your business for the first time. It takes time to see results, so it’s best to start early.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. PPC ads on search and social media sites offer immediate results with minimal financial risk, as you only pay when someone clicks your link.

Email marketing. Building an email list of consenting subscribers lets you directly communicate with your audience. Use it to send company updates, promotions, targeted offers and more.

Social media marketing. Connect with your ideal customers on the platforms where they’re most active. Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) are great starting points.

There’s plenty of technology available to support your early sales and marketing efforts.

For example, you can use email marketing software to manage your promotional email campaigns and a customer relationship management (CRM) system to measure the impact on sales. We’ll cover new business technologies in more detail shortly.

Being successful as a small business owner: 4 invaluable tips

Your business ownership journey is just getting started.

Once you’re up and running, the following tips will help you thrive at the helm of your own company.

Prioritize customer centricity

Above all else, focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences (CX) and building strong relationships so that you can:

Gain an excellent reputation that convinces people to try your products

Turn first-time customers into loyal buyers

Turn loyal buyers into brand ambassadors who feed your excellent reputation

Notice how these three outcomes form a cycle. It’s a repeatable process that’s the most efficient, sustainable way to market your business.

CX has many aspects but studies repeatedly prove that customer service and convenience are two of the most important.

In a 2023 US consumer survey , almost half (47%) of respondents said they’d pay more for a product if they knew they’d get great customer service and 91% consider convenience an essential factor.

So make your products easy to buy and your support services easy to access.

Manage your finances carefully

Keeping meticulous financial records is vital. It involves documenting all income and expenses, saving receipts and invoices and organizing financial data.

Clear records make it easier to monitor your company’s financial health and ensure compliance with tax regulations.

Careful budget control should be a priority here.

A budget outlines your expected revenue and expenses, helping you allocate resources effectively. Regularly reviewing your budget lets you identify areas where you may have to cut costs or increase investment.

For example, if after your first year, you’re generating more revenue than expected, you could invest more heavily in:

Repaying small business loans

Expanding your salesforce to close more deals

Supportive technology, like CRM and marketing software

Managing business finances will get more time-intensive as your company grows. Many people assume it’s a non-negotiable part of every small business owner’s job description, but outsourcing these responsibilities to a professional bookkeeper or accountant gives you more time to spend on day-to-day operations.

Use technology to streamline your processes

Zylo reports that the average organization uses 291 different pieces of software (dropping to 172 for those employing 500 people or fewer).

For a new business, this might be excessive, but it shows how much-established companies depend on and benefit from technology.

A collection of carefully chosen applications will:

Streamline your processes

Keep your company and customer data secure

Turn data into insights you can use to make better business decisions

The enterprise tech market can be daunting if you don’t know what you’re looking for. The best system types for a new business to prioritize are project management, CRM and marketing:

Project management software helps businesses plan, execute and track projects efficiently, ensuring everyone completes tasks on time and within budget.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software enables businesses to manage and track sales performance and customer interactions so they can optimize customer service and sales processes to strengthen buyer relationships.

Marketing software helps businesses plan, implement and measure various marketing campaigns, including email, social media and content marketing .

Investing in software covering multiple functions can simplify your tech stack. It’ll also speed up your processes by preventing the need to switch apps for different tasks.

For example, Pipedrive is a sales CRM tool with built-in email marketing software .

Project management tools: How to choose the right one (and 4 we recommend)

Practice self-care to stay at your best

Leading a business, whatever its size, takes plenty of energy and resilience. Caring for your physical and mental health ensures you have enough of both.

Balancing self-care and business is a struggle many company owners face. A Simply Business study found that 56% of UK small business owners have experienced poor mental health over the past 12 months, with financial stress being the most common cause.

In another business owner survey , 50% of respondents said stress and mental health issues affect the success of their business.

Even small self-care actions can make a big difference. These include:

Taking regular time off

Delegating tasks to employees (or outsourcing)

Limiting your working hours

Talking to friends and family

Professional help is valuable too, as She Means Profit founder Melissa Houston explains in this Forbes article :

For ideas of where to find mental health support, speak to your GP or check out mental health charities’ websites. The US-based Mental Health America and UK-based Mind are great starting points.

Final thoughts

Business ownership at any level is a journey. Patience and persistence are key ingredients for long-term success.

Be prepared for challenges and setbacks as the early stages of business ownership often involve a learning curve. It’s important to keep learning from the experience and expanding your skill set.

As long as you keep putting customers first, leverage the right technology and continuously refine your business strategy, you’re almost certain to find success.

Still looking for information? Here are some frequently asked questions (FAQs) on becoming a business owner:

Sources of business finance include personal savings, loans, investors and crowdfunding.

Business owners pay themselves through a combination of a regular salary, owner’s draw and dividends, depending on the company’s legal structure.

You can run a company yourself but it’s important to consider your workload and business owner responsibilities carefully. Outsourcing work to freelancers is a helpful compromise between working alone and building a permanent team.

The main difference between a sole proprietorship and an LLC (limited liability company) is that the latter provides liability protection for the owner’s assets, while a sole proprietorship does not.

Self-employment is a form of business ownership where an individual works for themselves. Business ownership, by definition, covers a spectrum of business structures, including larger operations.

Driving business growth

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Business Plan Example and Template

Learn how to create a business plan

What is a Business Plan?

A business plan is a document that contains the operational and financial plan of a business, and details how its objectives will be achieved. It serves as a road map for the business and can be used when pitching investors or financial institutions for debt or equity financing .

A business plan should follow a standard format and contain all the important business plan elements. Typically, it should present whatever information an investor or financial institution expects to see before providing financing to a business.

Contents of a Business Plan

A business plan should be structured in a way that it contains all the important information that investors are looking for. Here are the main sections of a business plan:

1. Title Page

The title page captures the legal information of the business, which includes the registered business name, physical address, phone number, email address, date, and the company logo.

2. Executive Summary

The executive summary is the most important section because it is the first section that investors and bankers see when they open the business plan. It provides a summary of the entire business plan. It should be written last to ensure that you don’t leave any details out. It must be short and to the point, and it should capture the reader’s attention. The executive summary should not exceed two pages.

3. Industry Overview

The industry overview section provides information about the specific industry that the business operates in. Some of the information provided in this section includes major competitors, industry trends, and estimated revenues. It also shows the company’s position in the industry and how it will compete in the market against other major players.

4. Market Analysis and Competition

The market analysis section details the target market for the company’s product offerings. This section confirms that the company understands the market and that it has already analyzed the existing market to determine that there is adequate demand to support its proposed business model.

Market analysis includes information about the target market’s demographics , geographical location, consumer behavior, and market needs. The company can present numbers and sources to give an overview of the target market size.

A business can choose to consolidate the market analysis and competition analysis into one section or present them as two separate sections.

5. Sales and Marketing Plan

The sales and marketing plan details how the company plans to sell its products to the target market. It attempts to present the business’s unique selling proposition and the channels it will use to sell its goods and services. It details the company’s advertising and promotion activities, pricing strategy, sales and distribution methods, and after-sales support.

6. Management Plan

The management plan provides an outline of the company’s legal structure, its management team, and internal and external human resource requirements. It should list the number of employees that will be needed and the remuneration to be paid to each of the employees.

Any external professionals, such as lawyers, valuers, architects, and consultants, that the company will need should also be included. If the company intends to use the business plan to source funding from investors, it should list the members of the executive team, as well as the members of the advisory board.

7. Operating Plan

The operating plan provides an overview of the company’s physical requirements, such as office space, machinery, labor, supplies, and inventory . For a business that requires custom warehouses and specialized equipment, the operating plan will be more detailed, as compared to, say, a home-based consulting business. If the business plan is for a manufacturing company, it will include information on raw material requirements and the supply chain.

8. Financial Plan

The financial plan is an important section that will often determine whether the business will obtain required financing from financial institutions, investors, or venture capitalists. It should demonstrate that the proposed business is viable and will return enough revenues to be able to meet its financial obligations. Some of the information contained in the financial plan includes a projected income statement , balance sheet, and cash flow.

9. Appendices and Exhibits

The appendices and exhibits part is the last section of a business plan. It includes any additional information that banks and investors may be interested in or that adds credibility to the business. Some of the information that may be included in the appendices section includes office/building plans, detailed market research , products/services offering information, marketing brochures, and credit histories of the promoters.

Business Plan Template

Here is a basic template that any business can use when developing its business plan:

Section 1: Executive Summary

• Present the company’s mission.
• Describe the company’s product and/or service offerings.
• Give a summary of the target market and its demographics.
• Summarize the industry competition and how the company will capture a share of the available market.
• Give a summary of the operational plan, such as inventory, office and labor, and equipment requirements.

Section 2: Industry Overview

• Describe the company’s position in the industry.
• Describe the existing competition and the major players in the industry.
• Provide information about the industry that the business will operate in, estimated revenues, industry trends, government influences, as well as the demographics of the target market.

Section 3: Market Analysis and Competition

• Define your target market, their needs, and their geographical location.
• Describe the size of the market, the units of the company’s products that potential customers may buy, and the market changes that may occur due to overall economic changes.
• Give an overview of the estimated sales volume vis-à-vis what competitors sell.
• Give a plan on how the company plans to combat the existing competition to gain and retain market share.

Section 4: Sales and Marketing Plan

• Describe the products that the company will offer for sale and its unique selling proposition.
• List the different advertising platforms that the business will use to get its message to customers.
• Describe how the business plans to price its products in a way that allows it to make a profit.
• Give details on how the company’s products will be distributed to the target market and the shipping method.

Section 5: Management Plan

• Describe the organizational structure of the company.
• List the owners of the company and their ownership percentages.
• List the key executives, their roles, and remuneration.
• List any internal and external professionals that the company plans to hire, and how they will be compensated.
• Include a list of the members of the advisory board, if available.

Section 6: Operating Plan

• Describe the location of the business, including office and warehouse requirements.
• Describe the labor requirement of the company. Outline the number of staff that the company needs, their roles, skills training needed, and employee tenures (full-time or part-time).
• Describe the manufacturing process, and the time it will take to produce one unit of a product.
• Describe the equipment and machinery requirements, and if the company will lease or purchase equipment and machinery, and the related costs that the company estimates it will incur.
• Provide a list of raw material requirements, how they will be sourced, and the main suppliers that will supply the required inputs.

Section 7: Financial Plan

• Describe the financial projections of the company, by including the projected income statement, projected cash flow statement, and the balance sheet projection.

Section 8: Appendices and Exhibits

• Quotes of building and machinery leases
• Proposed office and warehouse plan
• Market research and a summary of the target market
• Credit information of the owners
• List of product and/or services

Related Readings

Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to Business Plans. To keep learning and advancing your career, the following CFI resources will be helpful:

• Corporate Structure
• Three Financial Statements
• Business Model Canvas Examples
• See all management & strategy resources
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Tasks & Responsibilities of a Small Business Owner

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• Running a Business
• Small Business Owners
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• Decision-Making Strategies for Plan Implementation
• Technology Implementation Plans for Businesses

As a small business owner, you can have a lifestyle of freedom and flexibility not offered to an employee. However, being a small business owner also carries greater responsibility with many more tasks to juggle. Most small businesses have limited resources when launching, which means that, as the owner, you have many hats to wear, depending on the nature of your business.

Planning and Strategy

First, a small business owner must be the principal strategist and planner. To understand the new business, as well as the necessary resources and strategies, it makes sense to start with a business plan and a marketing plan. You’ll need to do research, planning and writing to develop a plan, and expect to revisit and change it as needed.

Finance and Accounting

Most small businesses need start-up capital to get established and grow their products and services. Depending on the business, some owners can bootstrap and start with a smaller budget. Other ventures require a small business loan to fund expenses for retail space, office equipment and hiring employees. You’ll also need to set up and maintain business bank accounts, payment processing, accounts payable and accounts receivable, and taxes.

Compliance and Legal Responsibilities

Small business owners must comply with federal and state business licensing laws. From forming a limited liability company to creating legal contracts, they must know basics of the law and have access to an attorney if legal problems with customers or employees arise. You might need to write, review and sign legal contracts and sales agreements. When legal issues occur, you’ll need to consult a lawyer.

Marketing and Sales

No matter how good your product or service is, you need marketing and sales to drive business. Marketing and sales strategies and implementations vary widely, depending on the business, and could include tactics such as print advertising, public relations, online marketing, networking, cold calling and commissioned salespeople.

Customer Service Duties

In the beginning, many small business owners are responsible for providing all or most of the customer service duties. These include phone calls, email messages and follow-ups concerning product delivery and quality issues. As the business grows, it makes sense to automate and hire customer service people when possible to scale operations and growth.

Employees and Human Resources

As a small business grows, so do its hiring needs to accommodate more orders and faster growth. The owner needs to identify human resources needs, write job descriptions, screen and interview candidates, train, manage and pay employees. For some businesses, it makes sense to hire a dedicated HR manager to handle screening, hiring, training and employee-related processes.

A small business owner has many broad and diverse tasks and responsibilities that are essential for starting and managing a successful business. Depending on the type of business and the stage it is in, the roles and responsibilities change and the owner continually must adapt to thrive.

• Small Business Administration: Business Guide
• Tips for a Successful Small Business

Ivy Liu graduated from New York University Stern School of Business with a Master of Business Administration in marketing and a Bachelor of Science in information systems and finance. With more than a decade of writing experience, Liu has written for hundreds of websites and publications on business, travel and many other topics.

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Small Business Trends

What does an entrepreneur do the roles and responsibilities of small business owners.

A reader from Anchorage, Alaska asks:

The short answer is:  small business owners and entrepreneurs do whatever is required to make their businesses a success. This could mean doing everything from emptying the trash cans, to picking up the mail at the post office, to making sales calls , to changing the go-to-market strategy.

What Does an Entrepreneur Do? Main Duties and Responsiblities

To better understand, let’s break this down into specific activities of a small business owner under each of the six areas.

1. Staffing and Management

2. financial.

Small business owners are responsible for the fiscal health of their companies. It’s up to the owner to establish a viable business model for how the company will earn money. The owner is responsible for establishing budgets and sales forecasts — and making sure the company meets them. The owner may actually invoice customers, collect overdue accounts, keep the accounting system up to date and reconcile bank statements.

3. Planning and Strategy

As part of planning and strategy, entrepreneurs keep tabs on marketplace trends, competitors and changing customer tastes and needs. After all, any good entrepreneur knows that you must deliver what the market wants and is willing to pay for.

4. Daily Operations

Every company has inefficiencies and waste. Every company has processes that could be tighter. Part of the owner’s role is to identify where that occurs and find solutions. This includes automating tedious manual procedures, or adopting new technology to drive cost out of your bottom line.  It may mean outsourcing non-core functions.

5. Sales and Marketing

6. customer service.

“In the early years, it’s common for the owner to be the person answering the phone or manning live chat to solve customer issues. Later as the business grows, smart entrepreneurs put in place a customer service organization and empower them to solve problems,” says Campbell.

Duties and Responsibilities of a Small Business Owner Summary

What Does An Entrepreneur Do? Some Examples

The owner of a restaurant.

He or she may interview candidates for open positions, or write up job postings. The owner may train staff or ring up customers at the cash register.

The Owner of a Web Publishing Business

The owner of a plumbing business.

A plumber with his or her own business may go on plumbing calls to customers’  homes or businesses. At a customer’s site, the plumber may take a photo of a broken part needing replaced and send it to an employee back at the office to look it up and order it.

The Challenges and Rewards of Entrepreneurship

Despite these challenges, the rewards of entrepreneurship are significant and often deeply fulfilling. One of the most notable rewards is autonomy – the freedom to make decisions and steer the business in the direction of your vision.

Working on the Business As Well As In It

What is a Business Plan? Definition and Resources

9 min. read

Updated May 10, 2024

If you’ve ever jotted down a business idea on a napkin with a few tasks you need to accomplish, you’ve written a business plan — or at least the very basic components of one.

The origin of formal business plans is murky. But they certainly go back centuries. And when you consider that 20% of new businesses fail in year 1 , and half fail within 5 years, the importance of thorough planning and research should be clear.

But just what is a business plan? And what’s required to move from a series of ideas to a formal plan? Here we’ll answer that question and explain why you need one to be a successful business owner.

• What is a business plan?

A business plan lays out a strategic roadmap for any new or growing business.

Any entrepreneur with a great idea for a business needs to conduct market research , analyze their competitors , validate their idea by talking to potential customers, and define their unique value proposition .

The business plan captures that opportunity you see for your company: it describes your product or service and business model , and the target market you’ll serve. 

It also includes details on how you’ll execute your plan: how you’ll price and market your solution and your financial projections .

Reasons for writing a business plan

If you’re asking yourself, ‘Do I really need to write a business plan?’ consider this fact: 

Companies that commit to planning grow 30% faster than those that don’t.

Creating a business plan is crucial for businesses of any size or stage. It helps you develop a working business and avoid consequences that could stop you before you ever start.

If you plan to raise funds for your business through a traditional bank loan or SBA loan , none of them will want to move forward without seeing your business plan. Venture capital firms may or may not ask for one, but you’ll still need to do thorough planning to create a pitch that makes them want to invest.

But it’s more than just a means of getting your business funded . The plan is also your roadmap to identify and address potential risks. 

It’s not a one-time document. Your business plan is a living guide to ensure your business stays on course.

Related: 14 of the top reasons why you need a business plan

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What research shows about business plans

Numerous studies have established that planning improves business performance:

• 71% of fast-growing companies have business plans that include budgets, sales goals, and marketing and sales strategies.
• Companies that clearly define their value proposition are more successful than those that can’t.
• Companies or startups with a business plan are more likely to get funding than those without one.
• Starting the business planning process before investing in marketing reduces the likelihood of business failure.

The planning process significantly impacts business growth for existing companies and startups alike.

Read More: Research-backed reasons why writing a business plan matters

When should you write a business plan?

No two business plans are alike. 

Yet there are similar questions for anyone considering writing a plan to answer. One basic but important question is when to start writing it.

A Harvard Business Review study found that the ideal time to write a business plan is between 6 and 12 months after deciding to start a business. 

But the reality can be more nuanced – it depends on the stage a business is in, or the type of business plan being written.

Ideal times to write a business plan include:

• When you have an idea for a business
• When you’re starting a business
• When you’re preparing to buy (or sell)
• When you’re trying to get funding
• When business conditions change
• When you’re growing or scaling your business

Read More: The best times to write or update your business plan

How often should you update your business plan?

As is often the case, how often a business plan should be updated depends on your circumstances.

A business plan isn’t a homework assignment to complete and forget about. At the same time, no one wants to get so bogged down in the details that they lose sight of day-to-day goals. 

But it should cover new opportunities and threats that a business owner surfaces, and incorporate feedback they get from customers. So it can’t be a static document.

Related Reading: 5 fundamental principles of business planning

For an entrepreneur at the ideation stage, writing and checking back on their business plan will help them determine if they can turn that idea into a profitable business .

And for owners of up-and-running businesses, updating the plan (or rewriting it) will help them respond to market shifts they wouldn’t be prepared for otherwise. 

It also lets them compare their forecasts and budgets to actual financial results. This invaluable process surfaces where a business might be out-performing expectations and where weak performance may require a prompt strategy change. 

The planning process is what uncovers those insights.

Related Reading: 10 prompts to help you write a business plan with AI

• How long should your business plan be?

Thinking about a business plan strictly in terms of page length can risk overlooking more important factors, like the level of detail or clarity in the plan. 

Not all of the plan consists of writing – there are also financial tables, graphs, and product illustrations to include.

But there are a few general rules to consider about a plan’s length:

• Your business plan shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to skim.
• Business plans for internal use (not for a bank loan or outside investment) can be as short as 5 to 10 pages.

A good practice is to write your business plan to match the expectations of your audience. 

If you’re walking into a bank looking for a loan, your plan should match the formal, professional style that a loan officer would expect . But if you’re writing it for stakeholders on your own team—shorter and less formal (even just a few pages) could be the better way to go.

The length of your plan may also depend on the stage your business is in. 

For instance, a startup plan won’t have nearly as much financial information to include as a plan written for an established company will.

Read More: How long should your business plan be?  

What information is included in a business plan?

The contents of a plan business plan will vary depending on the industry the business is in. 

After all, someone opening a new restaurant will have different customers, inventory needs, and marketing tactics to consider than someone bringing a new medical device to the market. 

But there are some common elements that most business plans include:

• Executive summary: An overview of the business operation, strategy, and goals. The executive summary should be written last, despite being the first thing anyone will read.
• Products and services: A description of the solution that a business is bringing to the market, emphasizing how it solves the problem customers are facing.
• Market analysis: An examination of the demographic and psychographic attributes of likely customers, resulting in the profile of an ideal customer for the business.
• Competitive analysis: Documenting the competitors a business will face in the market, and their strengths and weaknesses relative to those competitors.
• Marketing and sales plan: Summarizing a business’s tactics to position their product or service favorably in the market, attract customers, and generate revenue.
• Operational plan: Detailing the requirements to run the business day-to-day, including staffing, equipment, inventory, and facility needs.
• Organization and management structure: A listing of the departments and position breakdown of the business, as well as descriptions of the backgrounds and qualifications of the leadership team.
• Key milestones: Laying out the key dates that a business is projected to reach certain milestones , such as revenue, break-even, or customer acquisition goals.
• Financial plan: Balance sheets, cash flow forecast , and sales and expense forecasts with forward-looking financial projections, listing assumptions and potential risks that could affect the accuracy of the plan.
• Appendix: All of the supporting information that doesn’t fit into specific sections of the business plan, such as data and charts.

Read More: Use this business plan outline to organize your plan

• Different types of business plans

A business plan isn’t a one-size-fits-all document. There are numerous ways to create an effective business plan that fits entrepreneurs’ or established business owners’ needs. 

Here are a few of the most common types of business plans for small businesses:

• One-page plan : Outlining all of the most important information about a business into an adaptable one-page plan.
• Growth plan : An ongoing business management plan that ensures business tactics and strategies are aligned as a business scales up.
• Internal plan : A shorter version of a full business plan to be shared with internal stakeholders – ideal for established companies considering strategic shifts.

Business plan vs. operational plan vs. strategic plan

• What questions are you trying to answer? 
• Are you trying to lay out a plan for the actual running of your business?
• Is your focus on how you will meet short or long-term goals? 

Since your objective will ultimately inform your plan, you need to know what you’re trying to accomplish before you start writing.

While a business plan provides the foundation for a business, other types of plans support this guiding document.

An operational plan sets short-term goals for the business by laying out where it plans to focus energy and investments and when it plans to hit key milestones.

Then there is the strategic plan , which examines longer-range opportunities for the business, and how to meet those larger goals over time.

Read More: How to use a business plan for strategic development and operations

• Business plan vs. business model

If a business plan describes the tactics an entrepreneur will use to succeed in the market, then the business model represents how they will make money. 

The difference may seem subtle, but it’s important. 

Think of a business plan as the roadmap for how to exploit market opportunities and reach a state of sustainable growth. By contrast, the business model lays out how a business will operate and what it will look like once it has reached that growth phase.

Learn More: The differences between a business model and business plan

• Moving from idea to business plan

Now that you understand what a business plan is, the next step is to start writing your business plan . 

The best way to start is by reviewing examples and downloading a business plan template. These resources will provide you with guidance and inspiration to help you write a plan.

We recommend starting with a simple one-page plan ; it streamlines the planning process and helps you organize your ideas. However, if one page doesn’t fit your needs, there are plenty of other great templates available that will put you well on your way to writing a useful business plan.

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

Table of Contents

• Reasons to write a business plan
• Business planning research
• When to write a business plan
• When to update a business plan
• Information to include
• Business vs. operational vs. strategic plans

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What Is a Business Plan?

Understanding business plans, how to write a business plan, common elements of a business plan, how often should a business plan be updated, the bottom line, business plan: what it is, what's included, and how to write one.

Adam Hayes, Ph.D., CFA, is a financial writer with 15+ years Wall Street experience as a derivatives trader. Besides his extensive derivative trading expertise, Adam is an expert in economics and behavioral finance. Adam received his master's in economics from The New School for Social Research and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in sociology. He is a CFA charterholder as well as holding FINRA Series 7, 55 & 63 licenses. He currently researches and teaches economic sociology and the social studies of finance at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

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A business plan is a document that details a company's goals and how it intends to achieve them. Business plans can be of benefit to both startups and well-established companies. For startups, a business plan can be essential for winning over potential lenders and investors. Established businesses can find one useful for staying on track and not losing sight of their goals. This article explains what an effective business plan needs to include and how to write one.

Key Takeaways

• A business plan is a document describing a company's business activities and how it plans to achieve its goals.
• Startup companies use business plans to get off the ground and attract outside investors.
• For established companies, a business plan can help keep the executive team focused on and working toward the company's short- and long-term objectives.
• There is no single format that a business plan must follow, but there are certain key elements that most companies will want to include.

Investopedia / Ryan Oakley

Any new business should have a business plan in place prior to beginning operations. In fact, banks and venture capital firms often want to see a business plan before they'll consider making a loan or providing capital to new businesses.

Even if a business isn't looking to raise additional money, a business plan can help it focus on its goals. A 2017 Harvard Business Review article reported that, "Entrepreneurs who write formal plans are 16% more likely to achieve viability than the otherwise identical nonplanning entrepreneurs."

Ideally, a business plan should be reviewed and updated periodically to reflect any goals that have been achieved or that may have changed. An established business that has decided to move in a new direction might create an entirely new business plan for itself.

There are numerous benefits to creating (and sticking to) a well-conceived business plan. These include being able to think through ideas before investing too much money in them and highlighting any potential obstacles to success. A company might also share its business plan with trusted outsiders to get their objective feedback. In addition, a business plan can help keep a company's executive team on the same page about strategic action items and priorities.

Business plans, even among competitors in the same industry, are rarely identical. However, they often have some of the same basic elements, as we describe below.

While it's a good idea to provide as much detail as necessary, it's also important that a business plan be concise enough to hold a reader's attention to the end.

While there are any number of templates that you can use to write a business plan, it's best to try to avoid producing a generic-looking one. Let your plan reflect the unique personality of your business.

Many business plans use some combination of the sections below, with varying levels of detail, depending on the company.

The length of a business plan can vary greatly from business to business. Regardless, it's best to fit the basic information into a 15- to 25-page document. Other crucial elements that take up a lot of space—such as applications for patents—can be referenced in the main document and attached as appendices.

These are some of the most common elements in many business plans:

• Executive summary: This section introduces the company and includes its mission statement along with relevant information about the company's leadership, employees, operations, and locations.
• Products and services: Here, the company should describe the products and services it offers or plans to introduce. That might include details on pricing, product lifespan, and unique benefits to the consumer. Other factors that could go into this section include production and manufacturing processes, any relevant patents the company may have, as well as proprietary technology . Information about research and development (R&D) can also be included here.
• Market analysis: A company needs to have a good handle on the current state of its industry and the existing competition. This section should explain where the company fits in, what types of customers it plans to target, and how easy or difficult it may be to take market share from incumbents.
• Marketing strategy: This section can describe how the company plans to attract and keep customers, including any anticipated advertising and marketing campaigns. It should also describe the distribution channel or channels it will use to get its products or services to consumers.
• Financial plans and projections: Established businesses can include financial statements, balance sheets, and other relevant financial information. New businesses can provide financial targets and estimates for the first few years. Your plan might also include any funding requests you're making.

The best business plans aren't generic ones created from easily accessed templates. A company should aim to entice readers with a plan that demonstrates its uniqueness and potential for success.

2 Types of Business Plans

Business plans can take many forms, but they are sometimes divided into two basic categories: traditional and lean startup. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) , the traditional business plan is the more common of the two.

• Traditional business plans : These plans tend to be much longer than lean startup plans and contain considerably more detail. As a result they require more work on the part of the business, but they can also be more persuasive (and reassuring) to potential investors.
• Lean startup business plans : These use an abbreviated structure that highlights key elements. These business plans are short—as short as one page—and provide only the most basic detail. If a company wants to use this kind of plan, it should be prepared to provide more detail if an investor or a lender requests it.

Why Do Business Plans Fail?

A business plan is not a surefire recipe for success. The plan may have been unrealistic in its assumptions and projections to begin with. Markets and the overall economy might change in ways that couldn't have been foreseen. A competitor might introduce a revolutionary new product or service. All of this calls for building some flexibility into your plan, so you can pivot to a new course if needed.

How frequently a business plan needs to be revised will depend on the nature of the business. A well-established business might want to review its plan once a year and make changes if necessary. A new or fast-growing business in a fiercely competitive market might want to revise it more often, such as quarterly.

What Does a Lean Startup Business Plan Include?

The lean startup business plan is an option when a company prefers to give a quick explanation of its business. For example, a brand-new company may feel that it doesn't have a lot of information to provide yet.

Sections can include: a value proposition ; the company's major activities and advantages; resources such as staff, intellectual property, and capital; a list of partnerships; customer segments; and revenue sources.

A business plan can be useful to companies of all kinds. But as a company grows and the world around it changes, so too should its business plan. So don't think of your business plan as carved in granite but as a living document designed to evolve with your business.

Harvard Business Review. " Research: Writing a Business Plan Makes Your Startup More Likely to Succeed ."

U.S. Small Business Administration. " Write Your Business Plan ."

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It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. —Thomas Sowell, “ Wake up, p arents!” [1]

Business Owners

Business Owners (BOs) are key ART stakeholders who have the primary business and technical responsibility for return on investment (ROI), governance, and compliance.

Business Owners are critical stakeholders who evaluate fitness for use and actively participate in Agile Release Train (ART) events and solution development.

Self-managing, self-organizing  Agile Teams and ARTs are essential to the success of SAFe. This Lean-Agile way of working represents a significant change in the traditional management mindset. Leaders and management no longer need to supervise work directly or assign tasks. Instead, they lead and provide intent by establishing a mission and Vision .

Business Owners may help teams with coaching and skills development but essentially decentralize execution authority to the ART. However, transformation to a Lean-Agile way of working does not relieve leaders and management of their ultimate responsibilities. They remain accountable for the organization’s growth and its people, operational excellence, and business outcomes. SAFe defines the role of BOs as the key leaders who guide ARTs to optimal business outcomes.

Questions to identify Business Owners include:

• Who is ultimately responsible for business outcomes?
• Who can steer this ART to develop the right solutions?
• Who can speak to the technical competence of the solution now and in the future?
• Who should participate in planning, help eliminate impediments, and speak on behalf of development, the business, and the customer?
• Who can approve and defend a set of PI plans, knowing they will never satisfy everyone?
• Who can help ARTs coordinate efforts with other departments and organizations, spanning organizational boundaries?

The answers to these questions will help identify the BOs who will play a vital role in the ART’s ability to deliver value. Also, consider the availability of these leaders and their personal traits. Will they be an excellent Lean-Agile leader ? Are they interested in fulfilling this role?

It’s best to start with the smallest possible Business Owner team and then add members if it becomes clear that someone with the necessary accountability, skill, knowledge, or expertise is missing. Ensure a good mix of both business-oriented and technical people. It’s a reasonable expectation that membership in the BO team will change as needs dictate.

Responsibilities

An effective Business Owner is active and involved, fulfilling their SAFe responsibilities daily, as illustrated in Figure 1.

While there is no precise guideline about who should be part of the Business Owner team, they often have the following roles or titles:

• General or line of business manager
• Product or Solution Managers
• Enterprise Architects
• C-level executives
• Operations executives
• Senior engineering leaders
• Customers (for bespoke solutions)

The following sections describe the Business Owner’s duties, enabling them to fulfill their obligations while empowering Agile Teams and trains to do their best work.

Leading by Example

Business Owners are Lean-Agile Leaders who share accountability for the business value delivered by a specific ART. The most important and effective technique for driving the cultural change needed for the adoption of SAFe is for leaders to internalize and model the behaviors and mindsets of Business Agility . Such leaders inspire others to follow in their direction and to incorporate the leader’s example into their development journey. To accomplish this, Business Owners:

• Serve as an example of the new behaviors – Live by the Lean-Agile principles and practices, modeling the new norms of expected behaviors for the ART and others to follow. They help address shortcomings in SAFe knowledge and experience.
• Communicate the vision for SAFe adoption – Frequently communicate the business need, urgency, and vision for change. BOs participate in developing the SAFe implementation plan, prioritizing the transformation backlog, and establishing the metrics for tracking the change progress for one or more ARTs.
• Actively engage with the Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) – Address problems that teams cannot resolve. Such issues are often beyond the span of control of the LACE. For example, they may require facility changes, funding, hiring, and purchasing authority.
• Address the concerns of people who resist the change – Exhibit empathy and compassion, address people’s fears and worries, and resolve problems quickly and effectively to help overcome the resistance that may block the change.
• Act as change agents – Communicate passionately, sincerely believe, and illustrate their commitment to the future change vision. When people see leaders’ behaviors modeling those required by change, they become change advocates, aligning with the new behaviors more quickly. BOs do not tolerate unacceptable behavior and inspire those who resist or fear the change with mission and vision. BOs help people understand the new way of working and how it will benefit them, other ART members, and the organization. These leaders assure people by committing to adapting roles, practices, and processes for the overall good of the organization and ART.

A lack of psychological safety at work can have significant business consequences. When people don’t feel comfortable talking about things that aren’t working, the organization is not equipped to prevent failure. After all, no one can fix a secret. This fear often leads to disengaged employees and the opportunity cost to leverage the strengths of all its talent. People need to feel comfortable speaking up, asking naive questions, experimenting and failing with new ways of working, and disagreeing with changes to create and implement ideas that make a real difference.

In contrast, when employees are engaged, they adopt the organization’s vision, values, and purpose. They become passionate contributors, innovating problem solvers, and dependable colleagues.

Engaging with LPM

While Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) is operated by executives responsible for business outcomes, Business Owners are often critically engaged in the process. Some Business Owners may serve as LPM executives, but most are involved to some extent in activities such as:

• Strategy and Investment Funding – Help ensure the portfolio and individual value streams are aligned and funded to create and maintain the solutions needed to meet business targets.
• Agile Portfolio Operations – Business owners are responsible for helping value streams and ARTs’ get the right thing out the door’ to their customers. They may also directly or indirectly support the LACE and foster Communities of Practice (CoPs) within their domain of concern.
• Lean Governance – Business Owners are directly engaged in ART backlog prioritization and value stream economics. They also help provide oversight and decision-making of spending, audit, compliance, forecasting expenses, and measurement for their value streams.
• Occasionally serve as  Epic Owners – On occasion, Business Owners may serve as initial Epic owners for initiatives that benefit from their domain knowledge, experience, and authority.
• Participatory Budgeting – Business Owners actively assist LPM in allocating the total portfolio budget to its value streams.

Aligning Priorities and PI Planning

Business Owners are responsible for understanding and refining the Strategic Themes that influence ARTs. They have knowledge of the current  Enterprise ,  Portfolio , and  Value Stream context, and they’re involved in driving or reviewing the solution vision and Roadmap . The continuous involvement of BOs during the PI serves as a critical Guardrail for the ART’s budgetary spending. Aligning priorities and PI planning usually involve the following activities:

The time before PI planning is a busy period for Business Owners. Responsibilities include:

• Provide input to backlog   refinement – Participate in activities to align the backlog with the portfolio’s strategic themes
• Ensure that business objectives are understood – Ensure that the business objectives are agreed to by key stakeholders of the train, including the Release Train Engineer (RTE) ,  Product Management ,  System Architects , and other BOs
• Prepare to communicate the business context – Prepare to describe the business’s current state, the Portfolio Vision , and their perspective on how effectively existing solutions address current customer needs

The importance of the Business Owner’s role during PI planning cannot be overstated. Activities include:

• Present the business context and Vision – Share the business context during the defined PI planning agenda timebox. This context may include the state of the business, market rhythms, milestones, and significant external dependencies, such as those of Suppliers .
• Actively engage during critical ART PI planning activities – Participate in draft plan reviews, assign business value to team PI objectives, and approve final plans.
• Review draft and final plans – Understand the bigger picture and determine if the team’s objectives fulfill the current business objectives when taken together. They ask powerful questions and ensure alignment on solution intent.
• Watch for significant external commitments and dependencies – Foster the management of dependencies and support their reduction or elimination.
• Actively circulate during planning – Communicate business priorities to the teams and maintain agreement and alignment among the stakeholders regarding the key objectives of the train.
• Participate in the management review and problem-solving – Business Owners are critical stakeholders in this problem-solving meeting. They review and adjust the scope, resolve problems, and compromise as necessary.
• Participate in Solution Train planning – If applicable, BOs participate in Pre-Planning , helping ARTs adjust their plans and providing support during the Coordinate and Deliver activities.

Moreover, when Business Owners assign planned business value during PI planning, it offers an essential face-to-face dialogue between teams and their most important stakeholders, the BOs. This activity is an opportunity to develop personal relationships between Agile Teams and BOs, identify common concerns that require mutual commitment, and better understand the business objectives and their value. Figure 2 provides an example of one team’s PI objectives and the Business Value (BV) assigned by BOs.

Business Owners use a scale of 1 (lowest) to 10 (highest) and will typically assign the highest values to the customer-facing objectives. However, they should also seek the advice of technical experts who know that architecture and other concerns will increase the team’s velocity in producing future business value. So placing suitable business value on Enablers helps drive velocity and demonstrates their commitment to addressing the team’s legitimate technical challenges.

SAFe customers often ask, why doesn’t the BV use Fibonacci numbers? The answer is simple: the 10 to 1 scale is a range of numbers everyone understands, reducing friction and miscommunication between business-oriented BOs, technical members, and ART stakeholders. The simplest way to start is to assign a 10 to the highest individual objectives, typically ‘fixed’ commitments or must-have items, and then scale down from there. Giving many PI objectives a 10 (for one team) indicates a lack of objective prioritization. It effectively abrogates prioritization to the team without the benefit of the BO’s knowledge and experience.

Realizing Business Outcomes

The Business Owner’s job is not complete when PI planning is done. They have an ongoing role in helping ensure the success of solution delivery. Business Owners typically:

• Maintain alignment – Actively maintain alignment between the business and development as priorities and scope inevitably change.
• Help validate the definition of MVPs – Guide pivot-or-persevere decisions for ART or Solution Epics based on the delivery of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
• Attend the System and Solution Demos – Actively engage in the system and solution demos to understand progress and provide feedback.
• Attend Agile team events – Attend team events such as Iteration Planning , Review, and Retrospectives as needs dictate.
• Actively address impediments – Help resolve impediments that escalate beyond the authority of the train’s leaders and stakeholders.
• Participate in  release management – Serve as critical stakeholders in release governance (described in Release on Demand ) and determine when the solutions are released. Specifically, they focus on scope, quality, deployment options, release, and market considerations.

Sponsoring Relentless Improvement

The  Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event is a cadence-based opportunity for the whole ART to reflect on progress and identify the systemic impediments they’re facing—many of which require the BO’s involvement. During the event, BOs assess the actual value achieved versus the plan and participate in the I&A’s problem-solving workshop. Moreover, Business Owners are Lean-Agile Leaders who:

• Continually focus on eliminating waste and delays – Foster the adoption of Principle #6, Make value flow without interruption , including Value Stream Management , the eight flow accelerators, and the six flow measurements (flow distribution, velocity, time, load, efficiency, and predictability ).
• Eliminate demotivating policies and procedures – Actively participate in the I&A’s problem-solving workshop to identify and eliminate systemic issues, policies, and processes that are not aligned with the Lean-Agile Mindset and are not within the scope of the ART’s control.
• I nspire and motivate others – Effectively communicate (frequently) why  change is needed and do so in ways that inspire, motivate, and engage people to buy into the change with a sense of urgency.
• Create a generative culture that highly values relentless improvement – Model the right behaviors to help transform the culture from pathological (negative, power-oriented) and bureaucratic (negative, rule-oriented) to a positive, performance-oriented culture, which is required for the Lean-Agile mindset to flourish.
• Provide the time and space for teams to innovate – Foster the use of IP iterations to provide a regular, cadence-based opportunity for teams to work on innovation, improvement activities, and learning that are often difficult to fit into a continuous, incremental value delivery pattern.
• Help drive investment in the continuous delivery pipeline – Supports process and infrastructure enhancements to the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to improve the responsiveness of the ART and the quality of its solutions.

It cannot be emphasized enough: Active participation of Business Owners is critical to the SAFe enterprise.  

[1] Sowell, Thomas. “Wake up, p arents!” Jewish World Review , August 18, 2000.

Last update: 3 July 2023

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The importance of a business plan

Business plans are like road maps: it’s possible to travel without one, but that will only increase the odds of getting lost along the way.

Owners with a business plan see growth 30% faster than those without one, and 71% of the fast-growing companies have business plans . Before we get into the thick of it, let’s define and go over what a business plan actually is.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a 15-20 page document that outlines how you will achieve your business objectives and includes information about your product, marketing strategies, and finances. You should create one when you’re starting a new business and keep updating it as your business grows.

Rather than putting yourself in a position where you may have to stop and ask for directions or even circle back and start over, small business owners often use business plans to help guide them. That’s because they help them see the bigger picture, plan ahead, make important decisions, and improve the overall likelihood of success. ‍

Why is a business plan important?

A well-written business plan is an important tool because it gives entrepreneurs and small business owners, as well as their employees, the ability to lay out their goals and track their progress as their business begins to grow. Business planning should be the first thing done when starting a new business. Business plans are also important for attracting investors so they can determine if your business is on the right path and worth putting money into.

Business plans typically include detailed information that can help improve your business’s chances of success, like:

• A market analysis : gathering information about factors and conditions that affect your industry
• Competitive analysis : evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors
• Customer segmentation : divide your customers into different groups based on specific characteristics to improve your marketing
• Marketing: using your research to advertise your business
• Logistics and operations plans : planning and executing the most efficient production process
• Cash flow projection : being prepared for how much money is going into and out of your business
• An overall path to long-term growth

What is the purpose of a business plan?

A business plan is like a map for small business owners, showing them where to go and how to get there. Its main purposes are to help you avoid risks, keep everyone on the same page, plan finances, check if your business idea is good, make operations smoother, and adapt to changes. It's a way for small business owners to plan, communicate, and stay on track toward their goals.

10 reasons why you need a business plan

I know what you’re thinking: “Do I really need a business plan? It sounds like a lot of work, plus I heard they’re outdated and I like figuring things out as I go...”.

The answer is: yes, you really do need a business plan! As entrepreneur Kevin J. Donaldson said, “Going into business without a business plan is like going on a mountain trek without a map or GPS support—you’ll eventually get lost and starve! Though it may sound tedious and time-consuming, business plans are critical to starting your business and setting yourself up for success.

To outline the importance of business plans and make the process sound less daunting, here are 10 reasons why you need one for your small business.

1. To help you with critical decisions

The primary importance of a business plan is that they help you make better decisions. Entrepreneurship is often an endless exercise in decision making and crisis management. Sitting down and considering all the ramifications of any given decision is a luxury that small businesses can’t always afford. That’s where a business plan comes in.

Building a business plan allows you to determine the answer to some of the most critical business decisions ahead of time.

Creating a robust business plan is a forcing function—you have to sit down and think about major components of your business before you get started, like your marketing strategy and what products you’ll sell. You answer many tough questions before they arise. And thinking deeply about your core strategies can also help you understand how those decisions will impact your broader strategy.

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2. To iron out the kinks

Putting together a business plan requires entrepreneurs to ask themselves a lot of hard questions and take the time to come up with well-researched and insightful answers. Even if the document itself were to disappear as soon as it’s completed, the practice of writing it helps to articulate your vision in realistic terms and better determine if there are any gaps in your strategy.

3. To avoid the big mistakes

Only about half of small businesses are still around to celebrate their fifth birthday . While there are many reasons why small businesses fail, many of the most common are purposefully addressed in business plans.

According to data from CB Insights , some of the most common reasons businesses fail include:

• No market need : No one wants what you’re selling.
• Lack of capital : Cash flow issues or businesses simply run out of money.
• Inadequate team : This underscores the importance of hiring the right people to help you run your business.
• Stiff competition : It’s tough to generate a steady profit when you have a lot of competitors in your space.
• Pricing : Some entrepreneurs price their products or services too high or too low—both scenarios can be a recipe for disaster.

The exercise of creating a business plan can help you avoid these major mistakes. Whether it’s cash flow forecasts or a product-market fit analysis , every piece of a business plan can help spot some of those potentially critical mistakes before they arise. For example, don’t be afraid to scrap an idea you really loved if it turns out there’s no market need. Be honest with yourself!

Get a jumpstart on your business plan by creating your own cash flow projection .

4. To prove the viability of the business

Many businesses are created out of passion, and while passion can be a great motivator, it’s not a great proof point.

Planning out exactly how you’re going to turn that vision into a successful business is perhaps the most important step between concept and reality. Business plans can help you confirm that your grand idea makes sound business sense.

A critical component of your business plan is the market research section. Market research can offer deep insight into your customers, your competitors, and your chosen industry. Not only can it enlighten entrepreneurs who are starting up a new business, but it can also better inform existing businesses on activities like marketing, advertising, and releasing new products or services.

Want to prove there’s a market gap? Here’s how you can get started with market research.

5. To set better objectives and benchmarks

Without a business plan, objectives often become arbitrary, without much rhyme or reason behind them. Having a business plan can help make those benchmarks more intentional and consequential. They can also help keep you accountable to your long-term vision and strategy, and gain insights into how your strategy is (or isn’t) coming together over time.

6. To communicate objectives and benchmarks

Whether you’re managing a team of 100 or a team of two, you can’t always be there to make every decision yourself. Think of the business plan like a substitute teacher, ready to answer questions any time there’s an absence. Let your staff know that when in doubt, they can always consult the business plan to understand the next steps in the event that they can’t get an answer from you directly.

Sharing your business plan with team members also helps ensure that all members are aligned with what you’re doing, why, and share the same understanding of long-term objectives.

7. To provide a guide for service providers

Small businesses typically employ contractors , freelancers, and other professionals to help them with tasks like accounting , marketing, legal assistance, and as consultants. Having a business plan in place allows you to easily share relevant sections with those you rely on to support the organization, while ensuring everyone is on the same page.

8. To secure financing

Did you know you’re 2.5x more likely to get funded if you have a business plan?If you’re planning on pitching to venture capitalists, borrowing from a bank, or are considering selling your company in the future, you’re likely going to need a business plan. After all, anyone that’s interested in putting money into your company is going to want to know it’s in good hands and that it’s viable in the long run. Business plans are the most effective ways of proving that and are typically a requirement for anyone seeking outside financing.

Learn what you need to get a small business loan.

9. To better understand the broader landscape

No business is an island, and while you might have a strong handle on everything happening under your own roof, it’s equally important to understand the market terrain as well. Writing a business plan can go a long way in helping you better understand your competition and the market you’re operating in more broadly, illuminate consumer trends and preferences, potential disruptions and other insights that aren’t always plainly visible.

10. To reduce risk

Entrepreneurship is a risky business, but that risk becomes significantly more manageable once tested against a well-crafted business plan. Drawing up revenue and expense projections, devising logistics and operational plans, and understanding the market and competitive landscape can all help reduce the risk factor from an inherently precarious way to make a living. Having a business plan allows you to leave less up to chance, make better decisions, and enjoy the clearest possible view of the future of your company.

Business plan FAQs

How does having a business plan help small business owners make better decisions.

Having a business plan supports small business owners in making smarter decisions by providing a structured framework to assess all parts of their businesses. It helps you foresee potential challenges, identify opportunities, and set clear objectives. Business plans help you make decisions across the board, including market strategies, financial management, resource allocation, and growth planning.

What industry-specific issues can business plans help tackle?

Business plans can address industry-specific challenges like regulatory compliance, technological advancements, market trends, and competitive landscape. For instance, in highly regulated industries like healthcare or finance, a comprehensive business plan can outline compliance measures and risk management strategies.

How can small business owners use their business plans to pitch investors or apply for loans?

In addition to attracting investors and securing financing, small business owners can leverage their business plans during pitches or loan applications by focusing on key elements that resonate with potential stakeholders. This includes highlighting market analysis, competitive advantages, revenue projections, and scalability plans. Presenting a well-researched and data-driven business plan demonstrates credibility and makes investors or lenders feel confident about your business’s potential health and growth.

Understanding the importance of a business plan

Now that you have a solid grasp on the “why” behind business plans, you can confidently move forward with creating your own.

Remember that a business plan will grow and evolve along with your business, so it’s an important part of your whole journey—not just the beginning.

Related Posts

Now that you’ve read up on the purpose of a business plan, check out our guide to help you get started.

The information and tips shared on this blog are meant to be used as learning and personal development tools as you launch, run and grow your business. While a good place to start, these articles should not take the place of personalized advice from professionals. As our lawyers would say: “All content on Wave’s blog is intended for informational purposes only. It should not be considered legal or financial advice.” Additionally, Wave is the legal copyright holder of all materials on the blog, and others cannot re-use or publish it without our written consent.

Business Owner Role

In small IT organizations, staff frequently hold one or more service roles. One exception to this is the Business Owner role, which is typically fulfilled by a single individual. In Enterprise Technology, the Business Owner for enterprise services such as Oracle is frequently a senior level staff not in UIT. In the remainder of the UIT business units, the Business Owner is typically an Executive Director, Associate Vice President or Chief Technology Officer. Note that there are exceptions to these rules.

What does a Business Owner do?

The Business Owner plays a strategic role and is not engaged in the day-to-day activities of managing the service. Rather, they focus on the big picture. They define the vision and roadmap. They have the knowledge and authority to make strategic decisions and clear the path of political and financial obstacles. They communicate to key stakeholders and work closely with the Service Owner, who is responsible for developing a roadmap that aligns with the vision.

What are the general responsibilities of a Business Owner?

• Provides high-level business requirements and works closely with the service owner during the design phase. Prior to launch, they validate that the service meets the expected business outcomes.
• Ensures the service aligns with industry direction, standards, and best practices
• Represents the service in business strategy discussions and provides strategic advice to the service team
• Reviews and approves (if acceptable) identified service risks and mitigations
• Controls and prioritizes all business requests, such as those for feature enhancements, ensuring limited resources (both staff and dollars) are spent on high-value requests
• Reviews and approves communications for key stakeholders and the business during “Major” service incidents
• Owns the service roadmap

What ServiceNow tasks is the Business Owner responsible for?

• Change Management : The process responsible for controlling the lifecycle of all changes, enabling beneficial changes to be made with minimum disruption to IT services.
• Incident Management : An incident is an unplanned interruption or reduction in the quality of an IT service. Incident management is the process responsible for managing the lifecycle of all incidents. Incident management ensures that normal service operation is restored as quickly as possible and the business impact is minimized.
• Major Incident : A widespread, serious, major interruption or outage of a critical service that must be resolved with great urgency. They are classified as P1 and P2 incident tickets. The aim of the Major Incident Process is to quickly restore service with any means necessary, including workarounds.

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What Does a Small Business Owner Do?

Learn more about what it takes to succeed as a small business owner, the skills you'll need to become one, and what you can expect on the job.

Table Of Contents

Small business owner job duties.

• Small Business Owner Salary & Outlook

Small Business Owner Job Requirements

Small business owner skills, small business owner work environment, small business owner trends, how to start and run a small business.

Small business owners are responsible for the day-to-day operations of their companies. They oversee all aspects of their businesses, from marketing and sales to accounting and human resources.

Small business owners may also be involved in the design and development of their company’s products or services. In many cases, they have a clear vision for what they want their business to become and how they plan to get there.

A small business owner typically has a wide range of responsibilities, which can include:

• Maintaining relationships with vendors and suppliers in order to provide high-quality products and services to customers
• Managing employees to ensure that they are performing their jobs efficiently and effectively
• Managing day-to-day operations such as accounting, human resources, and marketing
• Conducting research on new markets, products, and technology
• Training employees in job responsibilities and performance skills
• Developing and implementing business plans for the future of the company
• Managing the financial aspects of the business such as budgets and cash flow
• Meeting with clients to determine their needs, interests, and motivations
• Interacting with contractors and vendors to manage projects

Small Business Owner Salary & Outlook

Small business owners’ salaries vary depending on their level of education, years of experience, and the size and industry of the company. They may also earn additional compensation in the form of bonuses and commissions.

• Median Annual Salary: $66,500 ($31.97/hour)
• Top 10% Annual Salary: $145,000 ($69.71/hour)

The employment of small business owners is expected to grow at an average rate over the next decade.

Small businesses will continue to be a major source of new jobs because they are less likely than large firms to automate or outsource their operations. However, some small businesses will lose revenue and close because of increasing competition from large corporations.

To become a small business owner, you may need to have the following:

Education: Most small business owners need only a high school diploma or GED. However, some small business owners choose to pursue a two-year associate degree in business administration or another related field.

Training & Experience: Many small business owners learn the skills they need to run their businesses while working for other companies. They may learn basic business skills, such as bookkeeping and marketing, while working in entry-level positions. They may also learn how to manage employees while working for larger companies.

Certifications & Licenses: Certifications enable professionals to prove their qualifications to current and future employers. Small business owners can earn certifications to gain more theoretical knowledge of their businesses and further their career advancement opportunities.

Small business owners need the following skills in order to be successful:

Leadership: Leadership is the ability to guide and motivate others. As a small business owner, you may be the only manager of your company, so it’s important to have strong leadership skills. You can use your leadership skills to motivate your employees to work harder and achieve goals. You can also use leadership skills to delegate tasks and motivate employees to complete their work.

Marketing: Marketing is the process by which businesses attract customers. It involves creating advertisements, planning events and developing strategies to make your business stand out from the competition. As a small business owner, it’s important to have a good understanding of marketing so you can attract new customers and keep existing customers engaged.

Accounting: Accounting is the process of recording and analyzing financial data. As a small business owner, you may be responsible for managing your company’s finances. This includes recording transactions, calculating profit margins and paying taxes. Understanding accounting can help you make informed business decisions and manage your company’s money effectively.

Technology: Technology skills can help you use software and hardware to run your business. You may need to know how to use accounting software, marketing automation software or website-building software. You can also use technology to research and develop new products, find new customers and improve your business processes.

Networking: Networking is the ability to build relationships with others. It’s important for small business owners to be able to connect with others in their industry and beyond. This can help you learn from others, find new customers and find new employees.

Small business owners typically work long hours, often seven days a week. They may start their businesses with little or no money and work out of their homes or garages. They must be able to do many jobs, such as bookkeeping, marketing, and customer service. They must also be able to make sound business decisions and be able to handle stress.

Here are three trends influencing how small business owners work. Small business owners will need to stay up-to-date on these developments to keep their skills relevant and maintain a competitive advantage in the workplace.

Small Businesses Will Need to Be More Tech-Savvy

As technology becomes more and more important in our daily lives, small businesses will need to be more tech-savvy in order to stay competitive. This means that owners will need to be familiar with the latest technologies and how they can be used to improve their business.

In addition, small businesses will need to be aware of the risks associated with using technology, such as cyberattacks and data breaches. By being proactive about security, owners can protect their business from potential threats.

Small Businesses Are Becoming More International

Small businesses are becoming more international as they look for new markets and opportunities. This trend is leading to an increased demand for professionals who can help businesses navigate the complexities of doing business across borders.

As small businesses become more international, they will need professionals who can help them manage cultural differences, understand different legal systems, and navigate customs regulations. These professionals include lawyers, accountants, and consultants.

Small Businesses Are Investing in Digital Marketing

Small businesses are increasingly investing in digital marketing in order to reach a wider audience. This trend is driven by the fact that digital media is now the primary way that people consume information, which makes it an ideal channel for reaching customers.

As small businesses invest in digital marketing, they will need to hire professionals who have expertise in this area. This includes web designers, social media managers, and search engine optimizers.

When starting a small business, it’s important to consider your skills and interests. Do you have a knack for marketing? Are you good at managing people? Can you fix things when they break? If so, there are many ways you can turn these skills into a profitable business.

You should also think about the type of business you want to start. There are many different types of businesses you can start, including service-based businesses, product-based businesses, or online businesses. Each type has its own unique set of challenges and rewards, so it’s important to choose the one that best fits your personality and lifestyle.

Once you’ve decided on a business idea, it’s important to get started right away. The sooner you start, the more time you’ll have to make mistakes and learn from them. You should also be prepared to work hard. Starting a business is no easy task, but if you’re willing to put in the effort, you can be successful.

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The Owner's Role in Project Risk Management (2005)

Chapter: 2 owners’ roles and responsibilities, 2 owners’ roles and responsibilities, introduction.

Managing risk is one of an owner’s most important functions in making any major project successful. In general, the owner is initially responsible for all of the project risks, as it is usually the owner’s decision to execute the project or not. (Of course, the owner may not have a completely risk-free strategy, because not executing the project may entail risks to the successful implementation of the owner’s mission or business plan.) The owner has the ultimate responsibility for identifying, analyzing, mitigating, and controlling project risks, including acceptance of the project risks, or modification, or termination of the project—all of which are project risk management activities. This is true whether the project execution is managed directly by the owner or by contractors under the owner’s supervision.

Effective risk management begins with risk assessment. There are two primary purposes for a preproject risk assessment: (1) to decide whether to execute the project and accept the risks, or terminate it as unacceptably risky and (2) to identify the highest-priority risk factors that should receive the most attention by management.

One form of risk mitigation for the owner is to transfer some of the project risks by contract to others, presumably at a mutually acceptable price. For example, under a cost-plus-fee contract, the owner retains the cost risk; however, under a fixed-price contract, the owner seeks to transfer the cost risk to the contractor. Whether the fixed-price or cost-plus-fee approach is more beneficial to the owner depends on circumstances, such as whether the owner or the contractor is better able to manage the risks.

If the owner is going to have a cooperative, integrated project team, the entire team has to share the objective of risk reduction for every member of the project, rather than delegating the responsibility to one participant who may have incentives to impose risks on the other project members. Contractors and consultants may play major roles in identifying, analyzing, mitigating, and controlling project risks, but project risk management is not a function that the owner can completely delegate to contractors or to consultants with impunity. There are no paradigms for assigning responsibility for specific risk management activities to the members of the project team. The optimal delegation of responsibilities needs to be determined by the owner, then tracked and managed using the tools described in Chapter 7 . There remains an essential role for the owner that cannot be delegated—the responsibility for the management of the owner’s interests and the owner’s risks.

OWNER’S ROLE

Senior executives.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) senior management has the responsibility for developing risk consciousness among all owner, contractor, and supplier personnel by educating them about the importance of explicit consideration of risks. Risk consciousness is the development of a viewpoint that continually examines how risks may occur and what their impact might be. It is analogous to the mindset of an experienced safety professional entering a construction work site; such a person would have developed a trained eye for risky situations and could automatically assess what could go wrong. In former years, some people opposed the introduction of integrated safety management on the basis that it would stop construction projects in their tracks or make them prohibitively expensive. These objections turned out to be false, and the value of safety programs is now unquestioned. Similarly, project risk management can be effectively carried out without stopping projects dead in their tracks or even slowing them down. Risk consciousness, like safety consciousness, has to flow from the top throughout the enterprise; in order to develop it in an organization, senior management must have it and they must constantly communicate the need for it to all program managers and project teams.

Program Managers

DOE program managers oversee the management of risks for multiple projects and should have the authority to ensure that the policies

and procedures established by senior owner executives are followed. They have the responsibility to transfer the risk consciousness established by senior executives to line project directors and managers. They also have the opportunity to manage risks across projects and to transfer lessons learned from one project to another. (See Chapter 8 regarding management of project portfolio risks.)

Project Directors

DOE project directors are the owner’s representatives responsible for implementing risk management policies and procedures. They have direct involvement and oversight of efforts to identify, analyze, mitigate, and control project risks from inception through completion. Project directors should have a thorough knowledge of project risks as well as of risk management tools and their implementation. They are responsible for leadership of the project management team, oversight of contractors and consultants, notification of senior management when significant risks arise, and management of risks during project execution.

Integrated Project Team

Risk identification is one of the most important functions of the project management team, and is one major reason the team should be formed early in the project (or even before) and should meet face-to-face as soon as possible. Members of the project management team should be selected on the basis of their breadth of experience and diverse viewpoints to make sure that all significant project risks are identified. Even if contractors execute the project, the owner’s project representative should be informed and actively involved in risk management.

Contractors and Consultants

In an environment where ongoing program and project management is delegated to contractors, the owner nonetheless retains the responsibility to ensure that the contractors employ qualified personnel and apply appropriate risk management practices. Because the owner maintains the burden of many irreducible project risks, it is essential that the owner’s representatives take an active role in all phases of risk management, including knowledgeable oversight and review of tasks undertaken by contractors and consultants.

Successful project execution begins with selection of the right contractor. Contractor proposals should demonstrate successful experience in

employing risk management methods in past performance on comparable projects. The weight given to risk management as a factor in contractor selection is one way for the owner to show a commitment to improving project performance through effective risk management.

As DOE relies more and more on performance-based approaches for acquiring services, in keeping with the President’s management objectives, it becomes critical that both contractor and government work in partnership to achieve the outcomes sought. With effective acquisition planning and a well-defined risk mitigation plan developed at the front end of the project, DOE and the contractor together are well positioned to deal with problems in execution as they arise. However, for these plans to be effective there has to be continuing communication between the department and the contractor once the work is under way. Both parties must be willing to adjust approaches as necessary to keep the project on track. Success depends on a flexible, coordinated approach for managing risks well before they have a significant negative impact on the project.

One way for owners to augment their ability to manage risk is to seek consulting support and technical assistance from firms that specialize in project risk management. This approach enables the owner to take advantage of the expertise of individuals who regularly deal with these types of problems and can help ensure that risk management concerns are fully addressed in the development of acquisition plans and work plans.

Objective and impartial external consultants and advisors can provide essential input on risk management. Evaluation of risk management functions, responsibilities, and plans should be specified as one of the major components of external independent reviews (EIRs) (NRC, 1999, 2001, 2003) and is a major reason why EIRs should be implemented. EIRs are typically performed prior to approval of the performance baseline (CD-2) and in some cases prior to approval of alternative selection and cost range (CD-1). Outside independent reviewers may identify potential risks that project personnel miss, so it is entirely in the owner’s interest to obtain these independent opinions for the reassurance they can provide. DOE managers should determine when EIRs should be used, the depth and breadth of coverage of the reviews, specific risks to be examined, and other issues relevant to the owner’s interests. Project management should be required to address all risks identified in EIRs in the same way as risks identified by the project team.

DEVELOPMENT OF RISK MANAGEMENT EXCELLENCE

All projects experience some degree of uncertainty, and some uncertainties can create risks to achieving the project objectives. The successful management of these risks is therefore critical to project success. Further-more, traditional project management tools, methods, and practices that are satisfactory for typical, conventional projects may be inadequate for project success on unusual or first-of-a-kind projects.

Risk management that follows typical industry good practices that have been developed on conventional projects, and that may be perceived as low-risk simply because they have been done many times, is not enough for projects that have more than the usual level of risk. Improved risk management abilities are needed if future projects are to be managed more successfully than those in the past. It is not sufficient to apply business-as-usual risk management techniques and expect to get good results. Even supposedly low-risk projects may be susceptible to unanticipated risks, just as many conventional projects were recently surprised by the run-up in steel prices, perhaps indicating that the lessons of the mid-1970s have been forgotten.

Improved risk management tools and methods are being actively developed by a number of organizations and can form the basis for the development of risk management excellence by DOE and contractors. Thus the intellectual, theoretical, computational, and other resources necessary to produce significant improvements in project risk management are available, but they need to be actively sought out and applied by managers at all levels. Owners’ representatives need to draw on these resources to develop expertise and excellence in actively managing project risks, and they need to ensure that this excellence is carried through by their contractors. Knowledgeable owners ensure that both their own personnel and their contractors are using the most appropriate risk management methods and that risk analysis is neither excessive nor too little. Owners with ongoing programs of multiple projects especially need to develop their own risk management expertise and excellence and should not expect contractors to look out for the owner’s risks unless they are specifically and properly directed to do so.

Project managers are inherently motivated to achieve the intended project goals and are therefore motivated to manage project risks effectively. Although this is generally the case, Flyvbjerg (2002) has argued that there are times, especially in large projects, when project managers are motivated to obscure or hide the risks inherent in a project. It is the responsibility of senior managers to ensure that project teams thoroughly identify, analyze, mitigate, and manage all project risks. Because the outcome of projects is influenced by many factors beyond the control of risk

management, the quality of project risk management is difficult to assess. Senior managers need to establish policies and procedures as well as a thorough understanding of risk management to ensure that all risks have been considered and properly addressed before allowing projects to proceed past critical decision points.

MANAGERIAL ATTITUDES TOWARD RISK AND UNCERTAINTY

Project risk may be defined simply as the possibility of an unintended future event with potential undesirable consequences. For precisely this reason, project risks are difficult to manage, because they relate to events that may or may not occur. Risk is a concept that encompasses things, forces, or circumstances that pose a threat to people or what they value (NRC, 1996). In the context of project management, risk has several dimensions, such as mission-related risk, cost or schedule risk, or risks to the environment, safety, or health. The development of effective and efficient project-specific risk management strategies requires the use of risk assessment, a decision technique that systematically incorporates consideration of adverse events, event probabilities, event consequences, and vulnerabilities.

Uncertainty, as it relates to project performance, cost, quality, and duration, comes from a lack of knowledge about the future. It is neither objective nor measurable but rather based on subjective assessments, which can differ between observers. Managers must therefore make decisions in an uncertain world and, in the absence of good historical databases, subjective probability estimates are the only available measures of uncertainty.

Decision Theory and Managerial Perspective

Projects continually face new risks, which must be identified, analyzed, and understood in order to develop a framework both for selecting the right projects to execute and for successfully executing them. Thus project owners, sponsors, and managers are increasingly concerned with ways to analyze risks and to mitigate them.

However, the term “risk” has different meanings to different people. In decision theory, risk is defined as variation in the distribution of possible outcomes, a definition that allows the risks of alternatives to be quantified, calculated, expressed numerically, and compared. But most project managers do not use the decision-theory definition of risk. That is, they do not evaluate it on the basis of uncertainty or probability distributions, as used in decision theory, but rather, as March and Shapira (1987) observed, on the basis of the following general characteristics:

Managers typically define risk as their exposure to loss.

Managers aren’t necessarily interested in reducing project risks to a single number. Instead, risks are considered multidimensional, with the maximum exposure considered for each risk dimension.

Managers are more likely to take risky actions when their jobs are threatened than when they feel safe. The risks taken on a project are relative to the alternative options and opportunities available. For example, contractors will take more risks (such as submitting very low bids to buy jobs) when business is bad and their survival is under threat than they are willing to take when they have ample backlogs.

Managers do not act as if risks were immutable properties of the physical world. Successful managers believe that they can control risks through their expertise; that is, they act as if risks are manageable. And the more successful managers have developed proven methods by which they can in fact more predictably control risks. Conversely, project managers may be unwilling to accept risks if they have not had experience successfully managing projects under similar conditions of technological challenges, public scrutiny, regulatory constraints, outside stakeholder influence, tight budgets, tight schedules, unusual quality requirements, fixed-price contracts, adversarial relations with contractors, and other factors that add risks to projects. But even successful project managers may not always be correct in their assumption that they can control risks, and making mistakes in this regard can have serious consequences. Therefore, even successful project managers need to know about risk management methodology in order to support the self-confidence they need to control risks.

In summary, the empirical, managerial approach to risk is as follows:

Break down the total risk into its components.

Analyze the risk for each component, in terms of its maximum exposure for loss.

If any risk is unacceptable, take steps to reduce it, mitigate it, or otherwise manage it.

Revise the project until the risks are acceptable or a plan is in place to actively reduce the risks to acceptable levels.

The decision-theory and managerial approaches to risk are compared in Table 2-1 .

TABLE 2-1 Two Complementary Approaches to Risk Management

Integrating Two Approaches to Risk

Although decision-theory and managerial viewpoints on risk are different, they are not mutually exclusive. Managers are better equipped to take risks when they have both effective tools to assess the nature of the risks involved and the information necessary to control and manage these risks. Experience shows that many projects have not been successful in containing risks because project managers used inappropriate methods and did not see the need to apply risk management methodologies. Learning risk management on the job can be an educational experience that is very expensive for the project’s owner.

A better solution lies in integrating the two approaches to risk described above. By identifying, objectifying, quantifying, and estimating risks, and by assessing individual risks through simulation, scenario analysis, decision analysis, and other techniques, project managers can do what engineers do—that is, compensate for lack of direct experimental evidence by means of thorough analysis and appropriate safety factors. By synthesizing the managerial approach to risk with analytical methods, project managers are better able to manage risks, because the analytical approach requires the risks to be quantified and allows the systematic evaluation of the best methods to control them.

Effective risk management is essential for the success of large projects built and operated by the Department of Energy (DOE), particularly for the one-of-a-kind projects that characterize much of its mission. To enhance DOE's risk management efforts, the department asked the NRC to prepare a summary of the most effective practices used by leading owner organizations. The study's primary objective was to provide DOE project managers with a basic understanding of both the project owner's risk management role and effective oversight of those risk management activities delegated to contractors.

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What They Do

What does a Business Owner do?

Business owners, also known as Entrepreneurs, are responsible for their company and brand's success. There are many areas of responsibility when you're a business owner, such as in the aspects of planning and budgeting, arranging finances and legal documentation, and even hiring the workforce essential for the business to grow. However, these responsibilities will vary according to how a business owner will uphold them. Moreover, building a business from the ground up requires dedication and a vision and mission for the brand.

• Responsibilities
• Skills And Traits
• Comparisions
• Types of Business Owner

Business owner responsibilities

As a business owner, the responsibilities are vast and varied. They oversee the development and implementation of annual and long-term strategies for business growth, manage business accounts, and conduct accounting operations. Dr. Kim Roberts , Professor of Operations Management, emphasizes this, stating, "Business professionals lead organizations by focused efforts that revolve around products/services, processes, and people." This involves managing processes that produce or support the firm's products, requiring the ability to analyze data to make informed decisions and drive continuous improvement. Successful business owners must also create climates that promote teamwork and foster collaboration.

Here are examples of responsibilities from real business owner resumes:

• Manage the budget and insure operations run smoothly.
• Create, own and manage a LLC for grind pet transportation.
• Establish and manage a beading boutique via the Internet by utilizing Photoshop to post designs on a personal website.
• Manage sales, customer service, billing, A/P, A/R, vendor relations, negotiations, repairs, and maintenance.
• Manage end to end business operations including hiring, scheduling visits, conducting customer consultations and performing pet visits.
• Handle all aspects from A/P to A/R, payroll, ordering and dealing with all distributors and city officials.
• Design all listings and banner ads using Photoshop.
• Supply, design, and run all jobs from start to finish.
• Blacked LLC is a fashion forward lifestyle brand focusing on quality apparel and lifestyle accessories
• Acquire CDL license and begin hauling all types of different material from masonry sand to crush granite.
• General home repairs and remodels; electrical, plumbing, dry wall, painting, and lawn mowing.
• Provide services to companies for their new product introductions, windows' displays, special activities, anniversaries, etc.
• Identify and plan the key SEO requirements for the software product to optimize syndication delivery across multiple consumer brand websites.
• Provide full range of mowing, trimming, spraying, including design and installation of beds, plants and irrigation systems.
• Facilitate all travel arrangements and convention center logistics.

Business owner skills and personality traits

We calculated that 31 % of Business Owners are proficient in Customer Service , Payroll , and Financial Statements . They’re also known for soft skills such as Communication skills , Leadership skills , and Management skills .

We break down the percentage of Business Owners that have these skills listed on their resume here:

Developed business plans and employee manuals with an emphasis on manufacturing, packaging and communication systems that provide exceptional customer service.

Reconciled monthly activity, generated year-end reports, and fulfilled tax related requirements administered payroll and employee benefits and organizational insurance.

Performed monthly bookkeeping, cost reporting, budgeting and prepared financial statements for various non-profit organizations.

Developed and implemented business plan and infrastructure including construction and financial forecasting in opening a full service bistro in Manhattan.

Developed a business model and implemented this model by carrying out daily strategic, operational and administrative tasks.

Managed family owned real estate portfolio in which responsibilities including budget management, marketing, troubleshooting, customer interaction and scheduling.

"customer service," "payroll," and "financial statements" are among the most common skills that business owners use at work. You can find even more business owner responsibilities below, including:

Communication skills. To carry out their duties, the most important skill for a business owner to have is communication skills. Their role and responsibilities require that "top executives must be able to convey information clearly and persuasively." Business owners often use communication skills in their day-to-day job, as shown by this real resume: "opened own retail business selling telecommunications solutions for consumers and local businesses. "

Leadership skills. Many business owner duties rely on leadership skills. "top executives must be able to shape and direct an organization by coordinating policies, people, and resources.," so a business owner will need this skill often in their role. This resume example is just one of many ways business owner responsibilities rely on leadership skills: "owned e-commerce retail business that trained individuals to become financially free leadership"

Problem-solving skills. For certain business owner responsibilities to be completed, the job requires competence in "problem-solving skills." The day-to-day duties of a business owner rely on this skill, as "top executives need to identify and resolve issues within an organization." For example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies to what business owners do: "implement technology solutions for local businesses support and maintain network infrastructures design network and business solutions. "

Time-management skills. A commonly-found skill in business owner job descriptions, "time-management skills" is essential to what business owners do. Business owner responsibilities rely on this skill because "top executives do many tasks concurrently to ensure that their work gets done and that the organization meets its goals." You can also see how business owner duties rely on time-management skills in this resume example: "contracted cleaning for new construction prepared and submitted bids to building contractors scheduled crews to meet deadlines managed payroll and receivable"

All business owner skills

The three companies that hire the most business owners are:

• Allstate 171 business owners jobs
• Bank of America 35 business owners jobs
• USAA 30 business owners jobs

Choose from 10+ customizable business owner resume templates

Compare different business owners

Business owner vs. general manager/partner.

A general manager/partner of any organization has many roles to perform. Depending on the industry they work in, they may be in charge of the management of operations, logistics, or maintenance. They also create an overall budget for every project. They are required to monitor budgets and payroll records and to review financial transactions.

These skill sets are where the common ground ends though. The responsibilities of a business owner are more likely to require skills like "business model," "windows," "business management," and "graphic design." On the other hand, a job as a general manager/partner requires skills like "pos," "food quality," "sales growth," and "cash flow." As you can see, what employees do in each career varies considerably.

Business owner vs. Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is a business owner who regularly creates new ventures and sells them with the end goal of turning them into profit. To start up a new business, entrepreneurs must create business plans and acquire resources and financing while hiring talented individuals. They play a vital role in the economy because they are the driver of economic growth and innovation. They also make use of their business as a means of creating a sustainable living, which improves the quality of life.

In addition to the difference in salary, there are some other key differences worth noting. For example, business owner responsibilities are more likely to require skills like "customer service," "financial management," "photoshop," and "client relations." Meanwhile, an entrepreneur has duties that require skills in areas such as "kids," "product development," "roi," and "entrepreneurship." These differences highlight just how different the day-to-day in each role looks.

Business owner vs. Co-owner/operator

A co-owner/operator is responsible for delivering goods and services for the companies using their trucks and vehicles. Co-owner/operators ensure timely merchandise deliveries, check the quantity and quality of the cargo, and follow routes accordingly. They also inspect vehicle conditions, identify any inconsistencies, and perform troubleshooting for malfunction for immediate repair or replacement of components to prevent deliveries delays. A co-owner/operator must have clean driving records, adhering to the road's safety regulations.

The required skills of the two careers differ considerably. For example, business owners are more likely to have skills like "customer service," "payroll," "business model," and "real estate." But a co-owner/operator is more likely to have skills like "co-op," "patients," "data analysis," and "powerpoint."

Business owner vs. Manager/partner

A manager/partner or managing partner is an individual who manages the daily activities of a company as well as guides its overall strategic business direction. Managing partners must cooperate with other executives, board members, and employees to implement organizational goals, procedures, and policies. They are responsible for the hiring and managing of employees and should follow the executive committee guidelines and federal and state laws and regulations. Managing partners must also maintain positive client relationships and lead the drive for new business acquisitions.

Types of business owner

Managing partner.

• Entrepreneur
• Business Director
• Business Partner
• Director Of Business Operations

Updated June 25, 2024

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

What a Business Owner Does FAQs

Can you run a business from home, how to buy a company, how to sell shares of your company, what do business owners do on a daily basis, what happens to a stock when a company goes bankrupt, what is a plc company, what is a company domain, what is a domestic limited liability company, what is a professional llc, what is a sister company, what is an employee-owned company, search for business owner jobs, what similar roles do.

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Roles, Duties And Responsibilities Of A Business Owner And Manager

Small businesses need time to get established. The effort that goes into making a small business transform into a large enterprise is not easy. The contribution of the business owner and manager is crucial. They are the directors of the employees and correctly lead the business. So, it is vital to understand the on-job responsibilities and all other unsaid duties that every business owner and manager is expected to perform. 

Table of Contents

Is there a specified boundary for small business owners?

The answer to this question is tricky. Why? Because the practicalities of the business conditions, operations and size matter in defining what the roles are. A small business owner may have to perform anything and everything to run the business. In contrast, the owner of a large-scale business may only supervise certain business areas. 

So, it is tough to define the roles and responsibilities of a small business owner or manager accurately. But you can always derive an outline or overview of the on-job responsibilities and areas of action for the owners and managers. 

Responsibilities of a business manager 

A business manager is the business administrator and supervises the activities of the employees. The manager is responsible for increasing the efficiency of the employees. Besides developing core-business strategies and planning the implementation steps to achieve the goals, the manager also plays a pivotal role in other business aspects. 

• A manager actively helps in setting goals and objectives for the business.
• A business manager plans and deploys the resources to help in implementing the plans into action.
• Coordination and supervision are two key-activity areas of a business manager to bring out the best productivity. 
• Derive plans and strategies to improve the efficiency of the employees working in the company.

Besides these, a business manager needs to evaluate the existing business operations and give constructive feedback. A manager in a small business also needs to adhere to the regulations and legal norms, as there may not always be a separate department to review the compliances. 

The Defined Duties And Job Roles For Small Business Owners

A small business owner needs to divide their working schedule and prioritize the different areas that need their immediate attention. Overviewing all the responsibilities and duties, it seems a troublesome task to manage them all. But, with the right management skills, a business owner can manage the following duties conveniently. 

• Strengthening the company for future development : A small business owner or entrepreneur is the captain of the business and decides the course of development. Future expansion, planning and everything depend on the analyzing power and vision of the business owner. The owner decides the best path to follow to upscale the business and develop a strategy for operations. 
• Designing employee policies
• Payroll structuring and recognition programs
• Managing workplace safety and staffing
• Designing employee benefits and welfare programs
• Taking care of financial matters : Business owners during the initial stage of developing their small business into a large enterprise have to oversee the finances. They supervise the fund management to ensure optimal utilization of the limited resources. 

Starting from finding investors to how to utilize the funds, the business owner manages it all. A small business owner also plans the budget and keeps the account records to ensure transparency in all financial transactions.

• Analysis, planning and decision-making : All business decisions are taken by the business owner or manager. In small businesses, the owner performs the duties of the business manager and thus sets the goals for operation and business expansion. They help in creating a plan that will help in generating the best revenue and profits in the long run. 
• Planning and strategy for business:  Business operation requires proper planning and strategy. Deploying resources and assigning separate tasks to the employees is also a part of the duties of the owner. Besides that, analyzing the best market strategies and competitor moves is an essential job that the owner needs to perform diligently. It is the only way to stay one step ahead of the competitors and cope with the dynamicity of the business operations. 
• Daily monitoring and operation : Checking on the employee performance, operational productivity and efficacy of the operation strategies on a day-to-day basis are also responsibilities of the owner. It helps the business owner stay proactive about the shortcomings. They can easily recognize the operational risks.
• Marketing decisions and sales strategies : A business owner is also responsible for creating marketing strategies for sales increment. Small businesses do not have sufficient funds to manage the need for maintaining a separate department to review these business aspects. Hence, the owner has to meet the responsibilities and develop marketing plans for boosting sales. 
• Supervise customer services and policies : Ensuring an overall satisfactory customer service experience is also a duty of the business owner in a small enterprise. From developing client-oriented service policies to reputation management, a business owner has to cover it all. 

A blend of all that matters in running the business

All the discussed duties and responsibilities of a manager of a business or the owner require a clear vision that aims at resolving dynamic problems arising in the operations. Communicating with employees to ensure the best working environment for them to review the ways to amplify the sales, everything depends on how well you can blend all the responsibilities and carry them out efficiently. 

Closing note – Work on and in the business.

Work for the business and as part of the business to grow the small endeavour into a large-scale enterprise. Every responsibility of the business owner or manager is crucial for growth and needs a diligent approach. Do what the business necessitates and put your efforts to transform your business into a reputable brand in the long run. 

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More From Forbes

5 ways to succeed in an owner-managed business.

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Succeeding in an owner-managed business requires a combination of understanding the owner’s vision, ... [+] building strong relationships, being adaptable, showing initiative, and respecting the owner’s authority.

Working in an owner-managed business where the owner still runs day-to-day operations presents unique challenges and opportunities. The dynamics of such a workplace are different from those in larger corporations or businesses with more distributed leadership.

To thrive in this environment, it’s essential to understand and adapt to the specific nuances of working closely with the owner-manager. Here are five strategies to help you succeed in an owner-managed business.

1. Understand the Owner’s Vision and Goals

In an owner-managed business, the owner’s vision and goals are often deeply personal and central to the company’s operations. To be successful, it’s crucial to align yourself with these objectives. Take the time to understand the owner’s long-term vision for the business, as well as their short-term goals and priorities. This understanding will help you make decisions that are in line with the owner’s expectations and contribute to the company’s overall success.

Regularly communicate with the owner to stay updated on their vision and any shifts in focus. Attend meetings, ask questions, and seek clarity on any points that are not immediately clear. Demonstrating your commitment to the owner’s vision not only builds trust but also positions you as a key player in achieving the company’s objectives. Additionally, being aligned with the owner’s goals helps you prioritize your tasks effectively and ensures that your efforts are directed towards the most impactful areas of the business.

2. Build Strong, Trusting Relationships

In an owner-managed business, relationships are paramount. Building a strong, trusting relationship with the owner-manager is essential for your success. This requires consistent communication, reliability, and demonstrating that you are a dependable and valuable member of the team. Trust is built over time through your actions and commitment to the business.

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Additionally, fostering good relationships with your colleagues is equally important. In smaller, owner-managed businesses, teamwork and collaboration are vital. Support your peers, share knowledge, and contribute to a positive work environment. By building a network of trust and support, you enhance your ability to navigate challenges and achieve collective success. Strong relationships also make it easier to communicate and collaborate effectively, which is crucial in a close-knit working environment.

3. Be Adaptable and Flexible

Owner-managed businesses can be dynamic and fast-paced, often requiring a high degree of adaptability and flexibility. The owner’s involvement in daily operations can lead to frequent changes in priorities and directions. To thrive in this setting, be prepared to adapt quickly to new tasks and challenges.

Embrace a flexible mindset and be willing to take on responsibilities outside of your usual role. This not only demonstrates your versatility but also shows the owner that you are committed to the company’s success. Being proactive and anticipating changes can set you apart as a valuable asset to the business. Moreover, your ability to adapt can lead to new learning opportunities and professional growth, making you a more well-rounded employee.

4. Show Initiative and Ownership

In an owner-managed business, showing initiative and taking ownership of your work can significantly impact your success. Owners appreciate employees who go above and beyond their regular duties, proactively identify problems, and propose solutions. This proactive approach demonstrates your dedication and ability to think critically about the business.

Look for opportunities to contribute beyond your job description. Whether it’s improving a process, taking on a new project, or suggesting innovative ideas, showing initiative can set you apart. When you take ownership of your responsibilities and projects, it builds the owner’s confidence in your abilities and strengthens your role within the company. This approach also signals to the owner that you are invested in the business’s long-term success and are a reliable partner in achieving its goals.

5. Respect the Owner’s Role and Authority

Respecting the owner’s role and authority is fundamental in an owner-managed business. Understand that the owner’s deep involvement in the business is driven by their passion and commitment to its success. While it’s important to voice your ideas and opinions, it’s equally important to respect the owner’s decisions and authority.

Approach disagreements or differing viewpoints with professionalism and respect. Present your ideas constructively and be open to feedback. Recognize that the owner’s perspective is shaped by their comprehensive understanding of the business. By showing respect for their role and authority, you build a foundation of mutual respect and cooperation. This respect can lead to a more harmonious working relationship, where your contributions are valued, and your ideas are considered within the broader context of the company’s goals.

Succeeding in an owner-managed business requires a combination of understanding the owner’s vision, building strong relationships, being adaptable, showing initiative, and respecting the owner’s authority. By implementing these strategies, you can navigate the unique dynamics of an owner-managed business and position yourself for success.

Remember, the key is to align your efforts with the owner’s goals, contribute positively to the team, and remain flexible and proactive in your approach. By doing so, you not only enhance your own professional growth but also contribute to the overall success and sustainability of the business.

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Business Owner Job Description, Key Duties and Responsibilities

This post presents detailed information on the job description of a business owner, including the key duties, tasks, and responsibilities that they commonly perform.

What Does a Business Owner Do?

A business owner is someone who owns a business either of product or service with the aim of meeting a need in the public, and in so doing makes profit.

The business owner job description entails providing solution to business challenges, and contributing positively to the economy of the country by providing private sector employment opportunities.

He/she provides entrepreneurial skills with which he/she finds solution to a lingering business challenge, or improves on an already discovered solution to the challenge. Simply put, business owners are innovators.

A business owner works with a group of people he/she employs to carry out the purpose of the business.

He/she is expected to have a good knowledge of the business he/she is venturing into, and must also understand the relationship between the business and the need of the society, as well as the targeted clients or customers.

In order to succeed in his/her role as the leader of the business, the owner must have a good business plan and feasibility study for the business to work with.

Business owners understand the importance of business goals structured in a good business plan.

The business plan defines the product or service; the nature of the business; how it will be financed; investment and loans; time constraint on the achievement of each goal; the market structure; the public; the marketing strategy; and pattern of promotion and advertisement.

A business owner should also be concerned with customer/client satisfaction and feedback from the members of the public; their views on the product consumption or service offered.

Another aspect of the responsibilities of business owners is that they understand the importance of the team they will be working with and as such will conduct business interviews and job recruitment thoroughly so as to ensure that only qualified individuals are hired.

They need to hire the best candidates so that they can have the right team that can achieve the set goals for the business, and as the leader, it is the duty of the owner to ensure cordial relationship between members of the team for it to work effectively.

Also, the progress, strength, aim, and the day to day running of the business is part of the duty of the business owner.

The job description of a business owner largely depends on the type of business he/she runs. A business owner should have a good knowledge of the business he is managing. This will enable him/her to fill the vacuum or compliment a section of the team in the situation where occupants are absent or inactive.

Business owners are also expected to align the activities of their business in accordance with its goals. Business survival depends largely on the plan and goals set for it and how they are pursued.

Business Owner Job Description Example/Sample/Template

Business owners perform various duties, tasks, and responsibilities geared towards making a success of their businesses, the following job description example shows the major ones:

• Make the business plan and the budget
• Conduct recruitment and make financial arrangement
• Review the report of production in relationship with sales
• Compare sales with intended goals on short and long term basis
• Make trips to make the purchase of important inventory
• Business owners involved in the business of product make available medium through which the product can be displayed
• Portray products and services to the right audience through the creation of advertising campaigns
• Take advantage of the social media, live advertising events, and other publicity media to promote products or services
• Make a viable feasibility assessment of the business to check its chances of success
• Offer importance lectures and presentations to clients concerning company products

Business Owner Job Description for Resume

To prepare a resume for the role of business owner, you will need to complete the various sections of the resume with the right information to make them compelling to employers.

Therefore, the job description sample presented above provides appropriate information about the activities of a business owner, which can be used in creating the work experience part of the resume.

Business Owner Requirements: Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities for Career Success– for Job

Individuals aspiring to work as business owners should develop or acquire the following skills, knowledge, and abilities, which help in improving job efficiency:

• Although business ownership can be done without formal education or training, the acquisition of a degree will equip the business owner for success, and prepares him/her for survival in a competitive market environment
• Knowledge of business principles, including management, marketing, business plan research, and business ethics, increase the chances of survival of a business
• Ability to pinpoint problems, take initiative, and make meaning out of the results based on calculated methods
• Ability to make provision for a good organizational structure through coordinated planning
• Ability to develop discipline of management through planning, decorated scheme, and discipline in staff recruitment
• Ability to make improvement in productivity and quality by supervising the process
• Discipline in time management and human relation
• Operational prowess in marketing and bookkeeping
• Good work ethics
• Good communication; written and oral skill
• Good understanding of modern information and communication technology

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Supreme Court halts enforcement of the EPA's plan to limit downwind pollution from power plants

Mark Sherman

Associated Press

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is putting the Environmental Protection Agency’s air pollution-fighting “good neighbor” plan on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations.

The justices in a 5-4 vote on Thursday rejected arguments by the Biden administration and Democratic-controlled states that the plan was cutting air pollution and saving lives in 11 states where it was being enforced and that the high court’s intervention was unwarranted.

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The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution. It will remain on hold while the federal appeals court in Washington considers a challenge to the plan from industry and Republican-led states.

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted the EPA’s authority to fight air and water pollution — including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming. The court also shot down a vaccine mandate and blocked President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness program .

The court is currently weighing whether to overturn its 40-year-old Chevron decision , which has been the basis for upholding a wide range of regulations on public health, workplace safety and consumer protections.

Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — have challenged the air pollution rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective. They had asked the high court to put it on hold while their challenge makes it way through the courts.

The challengers pointed to decisions in courts around the country that have paused the rule in a dozen states, arguing that those decisions have undermined the EPA’s aim of providing a national solution to the problem of ozone pollution because the agency relied on the assumption that all 23 states targeted by the rule would participate.

The issue came to the court on an emergency basis, which almost always results in an order from the court without arguments before the justices.

But not this time. The court heard arguments in late February, when a majority of the court seemed skeptical of arguments from the administration and New York, representing Democratic states, that the “good neighbor” rule was important to protect downwind states that receive unwanted air pollution from other states.

The EPA has said power plant emissions dropped by 18% last year in the 10 states where it has been allowed to enforce its rule, which was finalized a year ago . Those states are Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin. In California, limits on emissions from industrial sources other than power plants are supposed to take effect in 2026.

The rule is on hold in another dozen states because of separate legal challenges. Those states are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

States that contribute to ground-level ozone, or smog, are required to submit plans ensuring that coal-fired power plants and other industrial sites don’t add significantly to air pollution in other states. In cases in which a state has not submitted a “good neighbor” plan — or in which the EPA disapproves a state plan — the federal plan was supposed to ensure that downwind states are protected.

Ground-level ozone, which forms when industrial pollutants chemically react in the presence of sunlight, can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis. People with compromised immune systems, the elderly and children playing outdoors are particularly vulnerable.

Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

The role of life insurance

How much life insurance do i need.

• Assessing your financial situation 

Methods for life insurance coverage calculation

Reviewing and updating life insurance coverage, calculating life insurance faqs, how much life insurance do you need.

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• Many Americans don't have life insurance, and half of those that do don't have enough.
• Online life insurance calculators can help calculate how much life insurance you need.
• For comprehensive coverage, speak with a financial advisor, accountant, and estate planning attorney.
• Compare life insurance quotes with Policygenius .

Many Americans don't have life insurance, and half of those who do, don't have enough. According to a study from Global Atlantic Financial Group , 43% of Americans don't have life insurance. According to Insure , half of Americans who do have life insurance are underinsured, meaning their death benefit would not cover expenses like mortgage, college, food, debts, and clothing for dependents in the event of their death.

If you have employer-provided group life insurance through your job, note that those policies will end if you retire, are laid off, or are terminated. That is why it is best to have a personal life insurance policy as well.

The best option for determining how much life insurance you need is to speak with a financial professional. However, if you aren't ready to make a call yet, online life insurance calculators can help give you estimates as a starting point. 

The goal of life insurance is to ease the burden on your loved ones after your loss—to cover the mortgage, education, and other expenses. It's important to carry an adequate amount of protection so your dependents are fully covered if you pass away. 

You'll probably want to get as much life insurance as you can comfortably afford each month. If it would be a struggle to make your premium payments, it's probably too much for you.

Business Insider created three sample scenarios to estimate life insurance needs for people living in Brooklyn, Dallas, and Denver using SmartAsset's life insurance calculator . 

Each calculation was based on the following assumptions: a 35-year-old with two kids and a working spouse, with an annual salary of $60,000, owns a median-priced home in their city, plans to pay for children's college tuition at an out-of-state public institution, and has savings and investments.

The charts below show the estimated life insurance policy needed for five different income levels with the above assumptions:

Assessing your financial situation 

Income replacement needs.

Life insurance replaces your income so the people who rely on you can maintain their standard of living. It covers day-to-day expenses like rent payments, groceries, transportation, and other essential costs. 

Although life insurance is widely used to replace income, life insurance for non-income earners may also be as essential. For example, life insurance can cover childcare and household services that a stay-at-home parent would've ordinarily taken care of before they passed away. 

Debt and final expenses 

An unexpected (or expected in the case of terminal illness) death makes handling debt difficult for those who share financial liabilities with you. Life insurance provides a death benefit to cover outstanding obligations if you were to die.  

Life insurance can also cover end-of-life expenses like your funeral service and burial or cremation costs so your loved ones can focus on grieving your passing. 

Future financial obligations

In your life insurance calculations, you'll also want to factor in future financial obligations. For example, if you have children, you may want to ensure they have funds for post-secondary education. 

10 to 15 times your annual income 

When selecting your death benefit amount, the rule of thumb is to select 10 times your annual income. For example, if you make $75,000 per year, you would purchase a life insurance policy for $750,000 to $1,125,000. It is not uncommon for people to get $1 million in life insurance.

If you have children, you may also want to factor in about $100,000 to $150,000 of post-secondary education coverage for each child. 

Multiplying your income gives you a rough estimate of how much life insurance you should purchase. You can use it as a starting point, but there are more accurate ways to determine the amount you need. 

The DIME formula 

The DIME is a more comprehensive method of calculating your coverage needs. DIME entails adding up the following components of your finances: 

• Debt: Calculate the total of all your debt (e.g. loans, credit cards, medical bills, etc.), excluding your mortgage. You may also want to include costs for end-of-life expenses.
• Income: Multiply your income by how many years your beneficiaries will likely need it. The Guardian suggests a good place to start is multiplying your income by the number of years until your youngest child graduates high school. However, this amount may be larger if you have lifelong dependents. 
• Mortgage: Check your statements to find the outstanding balance of your mortgage. If you have a second mortgage or HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit) on your home, be sure to include that in your calculations. 
• Education : If you have children, anticipate spending upwards of $100k to $150k for post-secondary education for each child. 

After adding those up, subtract any current savings or life insurance policies you already carry. 

Using an online calculator 

You can use online calculators to get an estimate of how much life insurance you will need. Nonprofit organization Life Happens, for instance, offers an online life insurance calculator that asks a few questions so you can get an estimate of the amount of life insurance coverage you may need. 

An online calculator doesn't replace the comprehensive advice you would receive from a financial advisor who would look at your financial situation, goals, and estate planning, says Maria Roloff, a wealth advisor at Northwestern Mutual Insurance . However, it will give you an idea of what to expect when you speak with life insurance specialists.

Consulting a financial professional 

When considering life insurance, it is wise to consult a financial advisor, accountant, and estate planning attorney to make sure you have the best life insurance coverage for your goals and budget. Your life insurance needs will change as you age and must consider children, marriage, divorce, retirement, and caring for aging parents. 

A comprehensive assessment will include whether you need long-term care life insurance, disability insurance, or a combination of permanent and term life insurance . Find someone you trust with knowledge of the different types of life insurance products and a background in estate planning. Business Insider recommends following these steps to find a financial planner.

You can find our guide on the best term life insurance companies here.

Your life insurance needs will fluctuate as your financial and individual situation does. Regular reviews ensure that your coverage amounts remain accurate over time and you're not overpaying for excessive coverage. For example, you may want to purchase additional insurance if a child enters the family or decrease your insurance when your children become adults and leave home. 

Be aware that increasing your policy may mean you have to undergo additional underwriting requirements, such as another medical exam or health questionnaire. Also, if you want to decrease your coverage, some insurers may have limitations. 

Review your life insurance coverage at least every few years or after significant life events such as marriage, childbirth, purchasing a home, or retirement.

Certain types of life insurance policies, like whole life or universal life, include a cash value component that grows your policy's value over time. You can withdraw or borrow from your cash value to pay for financial goals, such as retirement, your child's education, or long-term care expenses.

If you're single, life insurance can help you cover debts if you have a co-signer, final expenses, or costs to keep your business running. You can also use life insurance to build a financial legacy for loved ones or donate to charities.

Generally speaking, your financial obligations decrease over time (i.e., as your children leave the house, your mortgage gets paid off, etc.) So, younger individuals may need more coverage to cover those long-term financial obligations. Older individuals may carry less coverage, instead focusing on covering final expenses and leaving an inheritance.

Many life insurance companies and financial planning websites offer online calculators to estimate your life insurance needs based on your financial situation and goals.

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Business | Walgreens woes continue with earnings miss,…

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Business | Walgreens woes continue with earnings miss, guidance cut and plans to shutter more stores

The company said it was finishing a multiyear plan to shutter some underperforming U.S. stores, but it didn’t detail how many were targeted.

Walgreens and major competitors like CVS and Rite Aid — which is going through a bankruptcy reorganization — have already closed hundreds of stores over the past few years. The companies have dealt with challenges that include years of tight reimbursement for their prescriptions and rising costs for running their locations.

Plus, analysts say they’ve also been hit by growing competition from Walmart, Amazon and other discount retailers over sales of goods sold outside their store pharmacies. Consumers also tend to grow more price conscious when inflation rises.

Walgreens also has been closing VillageMD primary care clinics it had been installing next to its stores in order to grow its presence as a health care provider.

Chief Executive Tim Wentworth said in a statement that the company continues to face challenges that include “persistent pressure on the U.S. consumer.” Wentworth, who joined the company last fall, has been conducting a review of its business.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. runs about 12,500 drugstores worldwide, including more than 8,600 locations in the United States.

The company said it earned $344 million in its fiscal third quarter, with adjusted results totaling 63 cents per share. Revenue rose nearly 3% to $36.35 billion.

Analysts were looking for earnings of 68 cents per share on $35.9 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

Walgreens also said it now expects adjusted earnings to range from $2.80 to $2.95 for its fiscal year, which ends in August. That’s down from a forecast of $3.20 to $3.35 per share that it had narrowed in March.

Analysts expect $3.20 per share.

That guidance cut was not “overly shocking to us as the company now begins the next leg of its turnaround,” Leerink Partners analyst Michael Cherny said in a research note.

But the overall results surprised investors. Shares of the Deerfield, Illinois, company sank nearly 16% to $13.20 in premarket trading.

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