Framework
Four-part feasibility analysis (Barringer and Ireland)
The question it answers
A would-be founder with a product idea asks: is this a viable business opportunity, judged on product, industry and market, organisation and finance, before any plan is written?
- Origin
- Barringer and Ireland, 2018
- Diagram type
- Decision flow
- Level of analysis
- Firm
Diagram
Four-part feasibility analysis (Barringer and Ireland)
- PProduct or service: do people want it, and is there enough demand?Two parts: desirability and demandRework or drop the idea
- IIndustry and target market: is the industry attractive, and is the target market attractive?Two parts: industry attractiveness and target market attractivenessRework or drop the idea
- OOrganisation: does the team have the management prowess and sufficient resources?Two parts: management prowess and resource sufficiencyRework or drop the idea
- FFinance: how much start-up cash is needed, how do similar businesses perform, and is the venture financially attractive overall?The final stageRework or drop the idea
Viable opportunity: move on to the business model and business plan
When to use it, and when not to
Use it when
Run it before writing the business plan, so that the plan develops an idea that has already been through these four checks.
Pitfalls
Pitfall
Feasibility analysis is not the business plan: it answers whether to go on, while the plan describes how.
Sources
References
Listed A–Z by author surname, Harvard style. A source with a DOI links to https://doi.org/…; one without links to its page or says plainly that it has no DOI.
- Barringer, B.R. and Ireland, R.D. (2018) Entrepreneurship: successfully launching new ventures (6th edn). Pearson.No DOIpearson.comCited in 1 article