A

Project Report

is a document which provides details on the overall picture of the proposed business. The

project report

gives an account of the

project

proposal to ascertain the prospects of the proposed plan/activity.

1.1 PLANNING COMMISSION GUIDELINES:

To process investment proposals and arrive at investment decisions, the Planning Commission of India has also issued some guidelines for preparing/formulating realistic industrial projects. So far as feasibility report is concerned, it lies in between the project formulating stage and the appraisal and sanction stage. The project formulation stage involves the identification of investment options by the enterprise and in consultation with the Administrative Ministry, the Planning Commission and other concemed authorities.

i.

General information:

The feasibility report should include an analysis of the industry to which the project belongs. It should deal with the past performance of the industry. The description ofthe type of industry should also be given, i.e., the priority of the industry, increase in production, role of the public sector, allocation of investment of funds, choice of technique, etc. This should also contain information about the enterprise submitting the feasibility report.

ii.

Preliminary analysis of alternatives:

This should contain Present data on the gap between demand and supply for the outputs which are to be produced, data on the capacity that would be available, complete list of all existing plants in the industry, giving their capacity and level of production, list of all projects for which letters of licenses have been issued and list of proposed projects. the location of the project as well as its implications, an account of the foreign exchange requirement, the profitability of different options should be given, rate of return on investment should be calculated and presented in the report.

iii.

Project description:

The feasibility report should provide a brief description of the technology/process chosen for the project. The report should contain a list of important items of capital equipment and the list of the operational requirements of the plant, requirements of water and power, requirements of personnel, organizational structure envisaged, transport costs, activity wise phasing of construction and factors affecting it.

iv.

Marketing plan:

It should contain the following items: Data on the marketing plan, demand and prospective supply in each of the areas to be served.

v.

Capital Requirements and Costs:

The estimates should be reasonably complete and properly estimated. Information on all items of costs should be carefully collected and presented.

vi.

Operating Requirements and Costs:

Operating costs are essentially those costs which are incurred after the commencement of commercial production. Information about all items of operating cost should be collected; operating costs relate to the cost of raw materials and intermediates, fuel, utilities, labour, repair and maintenance, selling expenses and other expenses.

vii.

Financial Analysis:

The purpose of this analysis is to present some measures to assess the financial viability of the project. A preform a Balance Sheet for the project data should be presented. Depreciation should be allowed for based on specified by the Bureau of Public Enterprises. Foreign exchange requirements should be cleared by the Department of Economic Affairs. The feasibility report should consider income-tax rebates for priority industries, incentives for backward areas, accelerated depreciation, etc. The sensitivity analysis should also be presented. The report must analyse the sensitivity of the rate of return of change in the level and pattern of product prices.

viii.

Economic Analysis:

Social profitability analysis needs some adjustment in the data relating to the costs and returns to the enterprise. One important type of investment involves a correction in input and costs, to reflect the true value of foreign exchange, labour and capital. The enterprise should try to assess the impact of its operations on foreign trade. Indirect costs and benefits should also be included in the report. If they cannot be quantified, they should be analysed and their importance emphasized.

A project report or a business plan is a written statement of what an entrepreneur proposes to take up.

2.1 Significance:

i. Project report is like a road map it describes the direction the enterprise is going in, what its goals are, where it wants to be, and how it is going to get there.

ii. It enables the entrepreneur to know that he is proceeding in the right direction.

iii. The preparation of project report is beneficial for those small scale enterprises which apply for financial assistance from the financial institutions and commercial banks.

iv. Based on this project report the financial institutes make appraisal and decide whether financial assistance should be given or not.

3.1 INTRODUCTION:

ERP serves as a cross-functional enterprise backbone that integrates and automates many internal business processes and information systems within the manufacturing, logistics, distribution, accounting, finance, and human resource functions of a company.

3.2 IMPORTANCE:

Following are some of the benefits they achieved by implementing the ERP packages

i. Gives Accounts Payable personnel increased control of invoicing and payment processing and thereby boosting their productivity and eliminating their reliance on computer personnel for these operations. Reduce paper documents by providing online formats for quickly entering and retrieving information. Improves timeliness of information by permitting posting daily instead of monthly.

ii. Greater accuracy of information with detailed content, better presentation, satisfactory for the auditors.

iii. Improved cost control. Faster response and follow-up on customers.

iv. More efficient cash collection, say, material reduction in delay in payments by customers.

v. Better monitoring and quicker resolution of queries.

vi. Enables quick response to change in business operations and market conditions.

vii. Helps to achieve competitive advantage by improving its business process.

viii. Improves supply-demand linkage with remote locations and branches in different countries.

ix. Provides a unified customer database usable by all applications.

x. Improves International operations by supporting a variety of tax structures, invoicing schemes, multiple currencies, multiple period accounting and languages.

The Objectives of Market Research are as follows:

i.

To Know the Buyers:

Marketing is to do with people, product and process of transfer. Each firm is eager to know about all those persons who are willing to pay for the firm's products or services. This knowledge pertains to buyer variables such as number of buyer's frequency of buying regional location social category and so on. Useful information may emerge if above based basic data are made available.

Thus, the data may indicate that in some areas sales are highly concentrated while in some sporadic and widespread. If such useful information is made available for several years, growth rate can be found out; variance can be traced and enquired into so that market potential is made known.

ii. To Measure the Impact of Promotional Efforts:

In modern days of changing marketing conditions, it is quite likely that a company may follow different strategies to promote a product of a service. Promotion-mix or the communication-mix today is consisting of three major elements, namely, advertising, personal selling and sales-promotion.

Each element has sub elements. It is quite possible that some promotional strategies are strikingly appealing and some are total flop.

Though some are successful, the overall analysis gives unexpected poor results. Research in these areas of promotion mix effectiveness will enable the researcher to gauge the strength and weakness of the mix components so that it can be suitably changed to better the results.

It reduces to a very great extent in detecting the point of satisfaction and contribution of a medium or a vehicle in a medium. In effect, it helps in cutting the dead-weight to restore the sound health.

iii. To Know Consumer Response:

Any consumer oriented company cannot remain contended if it 'somehow' makes it possible to reach the target sales. It is more keen on knowing consumer response for its efforts of delivering the products.

Study of consumer response can also be known market-product testing. An alert company monitors the consumer reactions to the product so released in the market.

In other words, the company is eager to know consumer opinion about the degree of satisfaction or dissatisfaction that the product has generated or caused. Such clues pave the way for product improvement in terms of quality, design, size, colour, appearance, packing, packaging materials, distribution methods and so on. Thus, market product testing helps in sound product planning and improved product development to meet the much desired consumer needs.

iv. To Know Market Costs and Profits:

There has been a hue and cry all over the world that marketing costs have escalated to such an extent that optimisation of profit has become a big problem. Marketing cost is an input employed by a company to execute its marketing programme and is used as a standard measure of performance.

Research relating to total marketing costs and their break-up helps in appraising and indicating these marketing policies and procedures whose cost is not commensurate with the results.

It makes marketing management cost conscious Research has the objective of cost control and reduction so that the consumers are given reduction in prices and a rise in profit to the marketers.

Cost analysis leads to profit analysis that gives profit performance by regions, products, and customers. These findings of cost behaviour impel certain changes of adjustments in promotion, pricing and distribution.

v. To Master the External Forces:

The firm's policies and strategies undergo change as warranted by the internal controllable factors and external uncontrollable forces. Each company needs reliable information about competitor's moves, the company's share in the market, and developments in foreign markets, governmental policies, technological changes, ecological variations, consumer incomes, consumer spending, new products substitutes and the like.

These are the forces that keep on changing themselves and making the firms to change accordingly. Research in these areas is a must to survive and survive successfully. Research makes firm adaptive as it gets innovative.

vi. To Design and Implement Marketing Control:

Marketing control is the final or terminal job in the marketing management. It is the task of monitoring and feeding back the marketing performance and its measurement and evaluation against the planned performance standards so as to identify deviations, correct them as they occur and provide input for plan revision.

Marketing planning or sales forecasting leads to development of marketing control process. Plans have no meaning unless they are materialized. Control decides whether the actual efforts are in tune with planned course.

Having gone through the significance of project report, there is no substitute for a well prepared business plan or project report md also there are no shortcuts to preparing it. The more concrete and complete the business plan, the more likely it is to earn the respect of outsiders and their support in making and running an enterprise. Therefore, the project report needs to be prepared with great care and consideration.

A good project report should contain the following contents:

i.

General information:

Information on product profile and product details.

ii.

Promoter

: His/her educational qualification, work experience, project related experience.

iii.

Location:

exact location of the project, lease or freehold, location advantages.

iv.

Land and building:

land area, construction area, type of construction, cost of construction, detailed plan and estimate along with plant layout.

v.

Plant and machinery:

Details of machinery required, capacity, suppliers, cost, various alternatives available, cost of miscellaneous assets,

vi.

Production process:

Description of production process, process chart, production programme.

vii.

Utilities:

Water, power, steam, compressed air requirements, cost estimates sources of utilities.

viii.

Transport and communication:

Mode, possibility of getting costs.

ix.

Raw material:

List of raw material required by quality and quantity, sources of procurement, cost of raw material, tie-up arrangements, if any for procurement of raw material, alternative raw material, if any.

x.

Man power:

Man power requirement by skilled and semi-skilled, sources of man power supply, cost of procurement, requirement for training and its cost.

xi.

Products:

Product mix, estimated sales distribution channels, competitions and their capacities, product standard, input-output ratio, product substitute.

xii.

Market:

End-users of product, distribution of market as local, national, international, trade practices, sales promotion devices, proposed market research.

xiii.

Requirement of working capital:

Working capital required, sources of working capital, need for collateral security, nature and extent of credit facilities offered and available.

xiv.

Requirement of funds:

Break-up project cost in terms of costs of land, building machinery, miscellaneous assets, preliminary expenses, contingencies and margin money for working capital, arrangements for meeting the cost of setting up of the project.

xv.

Cost of production and profitability

of first ten years.

xvi.

Break-even analysis

.

xvii.

Schedule of implementation

.