I write business plans for my firm and I teach my students to write them
for an Entrepeneurship class in the College of Engineering. I
personally use them as a means to think through all the aspects of the
coming year and to understand the financial effects of those aspects. I
don't treat them as a map to be followed day to day but as a model that
allows me to see when I am in trouble and to measure how best to get out
of trouble.
My students have difficulty in understanding the degree that parts of
the business have to relate to each other. As different members of the
business plan team work on their individual sections, they begin to
recognize that all the financial effects have to work together. I don't
believe that plans need to absolutely accurate in the detail but that
they have to represent the spirit of the business.
--
Andrew Crawford, 2785 IOE Dept., University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 734 764-9410, Ascott Corp 734 663-2023
http://ascott.com/