Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

Key objectives for your plan

Business plans are used for many different purposes. Essentially, it may be considered that they are:

• a formal expression of the planning process;

• a request for funding;

• a framework for approval;

• a tool for operational business management.

Where does your plan fit? Ideally it will meet all four of these objectives. It is useful to look at each one in a little more detail.

Formal documentation

There can be a huge difference between an undocumented and a documented plan. The formal exercise of distilling plans on to paper helps highlight opportunities and risks and helps uncover inconsistencies. Moreover, once formalized, the business plan provides a guide for operating and for reacting to real world events. Writing a ...