These six questions use four lessons from student-owned business plan reasoning. Every business is fictional.
Write your own answer before you open each block.
Questions
Question 1. Hana’s stall sells fried bananas. Her plan says, “The objective is to attract more customers.” Rewrite it as a measurable objective with one activity and one measure.
Answer
Objective: raise sales from 30 to 50 portions each day within 6 weeks.
Activity: offer a ten-piece sharing box for students waiting for the school bus.
Measure: count portions sold on a tally sheet each day, and check the weekly average. The objective has a result, an amount, a time and a count.
Question 2. A dobi (laundry) stall has one machine that washes 6 loads per cycle. Each cycle takes 1 hour, and the stall runs 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
The owner forecasts 280 loads per week. Find the capacity and the gap.
Answer
Capacity = 6 × 8 × 5 = 240 loads per week.
The forecast of 280 is 40 above capacity. The plan must lower the forecast to 240, or raise capacity, for example by opening on a sixth day for 6 × 8 × 6 = 288 loads.
Question 3. Rewrite this risk response so that it does not promise success: “Offering a discount will make sure we never lose customers to the stall next door.”
Answer
Risk: customers may move to the stall next door if it sells at a lower price.
Response: a small discount on boxes bought on Mondays aims to keep regular customers.
What remains: some customers may still switch, and the discount lowers the margin on each box. Weekly sales and profit will be reviewed after 4 weeks.
Question 4. Write one revision log row for this change: Hana moves from RM3.50 to RM4 for five pieces after the cost of bananas rises from RM1.20 to RM1.50 a bunch.
Answer
Date: the day of the change. Change: price for five pieces raised from RM3.50 to RM4.
Reason: the cost of a bunch of bananas rose from RM1.20 to RM1.50, which cuts the margin.
Source: the market receipt showing RM1.50 a bunch, kept with the plan.
Question 5. A plan says, “Our business sells good products to happy customers.” Write an original, specific replacement for a fictional stall.
Answer
One version: “Hana’s Pisang sells five pieces of fried banana for RM4, cooked at 3 p.m., to students waiting for the school bus.”
The replacement fails the swap test for other businesses, because it names the product, quantity, price, time and customer.
Question 6. A dobi stall has a capacity of 240 loads per week and a forecast of 200. The owner says, “The stall can never run out of capacity.” Comment on the wording and the numbers.
Answer
The numbers are consistent, because the forecast of 200 is below the capacity of 240, with 40 loads of spare capacity.
The word “never” is too strong. A machine breakdown or a busy week could still push demand above 240. A safer sentence is: “The forecast is within capacity, leaving about 40 loads of spare capacity, which will be reviewed if demand rises.”
If you got these wrong
- Question 1: read linking an objective to an activity.
- Questions 2 and 6: read forecast, capacity and assumptions.
- Question 3: read risk responses without promises.
- Questions 4 and 5: read recording revisions and sources and writing an original business plan.
The timed original practice session builder lets you repeat the set under time. For a teacher to work through your answers, see online one-to-one Business tuition.