Steven D. Peterson

Big data is the term for collected facts and figures that reveal trends and patterns for your business plan. It used to apply to those businesses with big operations and big budgets, but today it’s for everyone because data is now so readily accessible, and data analysis tools are often free or almost-free.To leverage available facts into information that help you define and predict your market and customer conditions, take these steps: Set your sights.

Leave room in your business plan for branding your virtual enterprise. Your brand is the set of beliefs that people associate with your business name. It mirrors the overall image and tone of your company, your employees, your product, and your customer service. Branding is reflected through everything from your name and logo to your business offerings to how product manuals are written and how employees interact with customers.

If you plan on starting a virtual enterprise, you will need to account for a fast-changing climate in your business plan. Many observers are convinced that virtual companies will become increasingly common as advances in technology make it even easier for employees to work wherever they are. Transformative innovations will continue to yield new opportunities and new virtual business models.

You need to include your remote team as part of your business plan. At the heart of the virtual business model is a radical new relationship with employees. Instead of punching a clock or showing up at the office, employees work remotely, often when they want to, and their only contact with management may be via phone, email, videocall and groupchat apps, or other project management and digital technologies.

You need a consistent set of policies in your virtual business’s plan. The virtue of a virtual company is that employees have tremendous freedom in their working lives. Managed well, a virtual company can be more flexible and efficient than a traditional nine-to-five, office-based enterprise. But with employees working as free agents distributed around the country — and sometimes around the world — virtual companies must establish specific standards and policies for operations and procedures, so that employees know how the business runs and what is expected of them.

Planning for your virtual business means accounting for the technological necessities. At the heart of every successful virtual company is a flexible IT network that allows employees, clients, customers, and subcontractors to interact smoothly and efficiently.Teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and groupchats allow participants from around the country or around the world to connect from far-flung locations.

If you plan to operate a virtual business, you need to compensate for working without headquarters. A headquarters or home office is more than a bunch of rooms and corridors. The space also reflects the hierarchy of a business and how it operates.For example, in the Washington, D.C., headquarters of a well-known magazine, one floor is devoted to editorial, another to photography, and another to art.

Even a virtual business needs a solid business plan. The most obvious benefit of a virtual business is tallied up in dollars and cents — the money saved by not having to maintain a snazzy suite of offices, a high-rent storefront, or other facilities. When a well-known business magazine headquartered in New York contemplated going virtual, it projected savings from rent alone at about half a million dollars a year — enough to give every employee a $16,000 bonus.