Planning Your Web Hosting Business, continued - How Will You Operate?
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The word “operations” covers a plethora of items. And what you put in this section may vary depending on whether you’ll keep this plan private or show it to other people (and which other people you will show it to). I’m not saying this is a section in which you will be dishonest. But not every company is comfortable disclosing the same amount of information in this section. For instance, if you’re a manufacturer and the creation of your product involves certain trade secrets, you probably won’t go into too much detail about those here.
Certainly web hosting companies may have trade secrets as well that affect their operations. While you might be circumspect about those, there are other things you will need to include. You might discuss staffing, productivity (sales and processing among other matters), standards of quality for customer service, and so on.
You will want to discuss your current facilities, location, and information systems (yes, that means the software you will use to keep track of everything, among other things). Basically, this is the part where you consider the nuts and bolts of what you need to keep your business running. You should also consider your future needs here. Are you planning to expand? If so, where and into what kind of space? Will the space be available when you need it?
As with every part of your business plan, you need to do your research. You can, and should, call on your experience in other businesses as you consider what is reasonable here. In fact, if you haven’t already worked for another web hosting company, you should definitely consider it; it will help you learn whether this kind of business is for you. What better way to do research than on the inside? It will also help you engage your imagination as you visualize more completely what your business will look like.
Next: Getting Your Organization Organized >>
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