General business

In many countries it is now a requirement to demonstrate that you “know your customer”. Some people now talk about the need to “know your business” (KYB) and use the phrase “know your customer” (KYC) to refer to individuals.

Preparing forecasts will help you to assess your likely sales income, costs, external financing needs and profitability. Financial forecasts are essential if you need to raise money from a third party, such as a bank.

Networking is about building contacts that might, now or in the future, help you in your work. Networking has taken a much higher profile in recent years with the advent of the internet and both business and social networking sites such as Linkedin, WeChat and Facebook as well as Twitter.

This note is intended primarily for businesses that are seeking external finance. A business plan for use internally will tend to be more of a checklist of actions but a plan for a funder needs to explain the business in enough detail to reassure them that they will eventually get back their investment and make a return. A business plan can be prepared for the whole organisation or for a division or even just for a single service.

This note has been prepared to assist you to think about the risks that you might face when engaging in international trade or investment. Whilst some of the risks may apply more broadly, this fact sheet does not attempt to cover all aspects of business risk.

This fact sheet sets out a model code of ethics for use by private sector organisations. Feel free to use this as the basis for developing a code for your own organisation.