Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

Why bother?

The central objective for driving a business is often thought to be maximizing profits (although this premise is often erroneous – see Chapter 6 ).

Yet maximizing profit in the short run will probably kill the business in the longer term, unless the profits are reinvested wisely in upgrading and replacing equipment, machinery, human capital and intellectual property – all of which become worn out or outmoded. To put it another way, there has to be adequate focus on product development, longer-term marketing, training and recruitment, and fixed-asset replacement.

Moreover, there is a new set of problems confronting business, including the erosion of national borders, deregulation, increasingly rapid communications, advancing technology, ...