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Center for Business Planning

The MOOT CORP® Competition simulated the experience of entrepreneurs pitching investors for funding. Although the competition is no longer held, the business plans presented by MBAs from the best business schools in the world can still be found on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

City of Vancouver - Municipal Government

A comprehensive City of Vancouver website that features information for Vancouver residents and businesses. Includes information on business licenses and permits.

Competition Bureau Canada

The Competition Bureau ensures that Canadians prosper from the benefits of a competitive marketplace, driving innovative products and services at competitive prices.

In this section you will learn how to:

• Gather and analyze competitive information
• Define your competitive edge
• Use benchmarking tools to create your financial analysis
• Locate information for your organizational plan

Find resources that help you answer the following questions:

• Who are your competitors, where are they located, and what is their share of the market?
• How can annual reports, security filings, and other financial records help you learn about your competitors?
• What are your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses?
• What information is available about BC tradeshows?
• What is benchmarking and how is it used?
  
   

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In this section you will learn how to:

• Research your customer analysis
• Identify your target customers
• Demonstrate how your products and services satisfy your customers' needs

Find resources that help you answer the following questions:

• What is your target market?
• What value will you offer your target market?
• What is the future outlook of your target market?
• What is a customer profile?
• What are major customer groups?
• What is demographic data and why is it useful?
• What will people pay for your service or product?

The resources listed in this section will help you identify population characteristics, and help you develop your customer profile. This research will also help you identify geographic areas where the largest number of your potential customers live. This can be very useful when determining a location for your business, and also when formulating your marketing strategy. Don't forget that trade associations and trade journals collect information about customers and can be great information sources for this area of your research.

Here are some databases that will prove useful in this piece of your business plan. You will need to contact your local public, academic or research library to see if they can offer access to any of these databases.

Deloitte | Multinational professional services network. In Canada, Deloitte provides several services including auditing and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, and tax-related advice.