Business Plan for a New Engineering Consulting Firm in the Electrical Utility Market

Abstract

Author’s note: The set forth business plan presented was developed as a hypothetical start-up firm. Despite being a hypothetical business plan, the data and facts are accurate. Due to sensitive and confidential information, some companies’ and persons’ names and data have been altered.

The thought of starting a business crosses the mind of every engineer at some point in his/her career. Starting ones own business, specifically in the engineering field, is not an easy task. It requires a set of entrepreneurial skills, which not many engineers naturally possess. That is why it is essential to carefully create a business plan before starting a business. The goal of a business plan is setting up business goals along with the strategies needed to make the business goals successful, creating a business structure, forecasting issues that may arise and planning how to resolve them, and, ultimately, determining how much capital funding will be required to start-up the business. The United States energy industry has been experiencing steady growth for more than ten years. Along with energy market regulatory agencies such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and Southwest Power Pool (SPP), electrical utilities must ensure that the electricity provided to customers is 1) reliable, and 2) cost-effective. Due to such regulations, utilities are required to maintain, upgrade, and build new infrastructure to support the current and future power grid. It is in this growth state that start-up firm so called “GCS” plans to penetrate the energy market. Objectives

The following are GCS main objectives for the business plan set forth: 1. Obtain a long term business loan for start up expenses and operations for the first six months of the business, and a short-term loan for the third year of operations. 2. Achieve break-even by fiscal year (FY) 2011. 3. Establish a general service agreement with at least one of the potential feasible clients within the first two years of operations. 4. Exceed the sales forecast for the first three years of operations. 5. Establish a strong relationship with clients and achieve a solid customer base. Mission

GCS’s mission is to provide better and more reliable power solutions to clients through strong, dependable, and quality engineering and project management consulting services for power substations and transmission lines. Keys to Success

• Be indispensable to clients through comprehensive consulting service in the conceptual and detailed electrical and civil design of power substations and transmission lines. • Keep on-going communication with clients through monthly status reports of current projects. • Control cost through close monitoring of current projects. Keep invoicing and cash flow under control at all times. • Follow up to clients and solicit their feed back on successful and unsuccessful proposals. • Deliver projects under budget and ahead of schedule.