How-to Benefit from R&D
Small businesses may see as much as a three percent increase in market value for every 10 percent hike in investment in research and development (R&D), ac... Read more
Writing a Business Plan
Recent Writing a Business Plan Articles
Business Plan Outline
This is an outline of a complete business plan: Summary Business concept Current situati... Read more
Pointers on Putting Together Your Business Plan
Getting started The hardest part of creating a business plan is getting started. It seems like a daunting task at first. But once ... Read more
I'm not seeking outside investors. Should I bother with a business plan if a bank doesn't demand it?
Offices & Operations mentor Charles J. Bodenstab responds: Every small business should make a business plan, although a plan that ... Read more
Rich Ideas
Reviews of five new business books -- two about creating wealth and giving it away; two on the importance of differentiation; and a basic guide to writing a ... Read more
Where to Start for Business Plan Smarts
Anatomy of a Business Plan, 4th edition, by Linda Pinson and Jerry Jinnett (Dearborn, 1999) The first edition of Linda Pinson and Jerry J... Read more
Living Business Plans Help Businesses Flow with Future
Sudden, unanticipated changes in your market can have a drastic impact on your business. But you can thwart catastrophe by building flexibility into your bu... Read more
Give Your Marketing Plan a Sure Shot at Success
Writing it down is a good start. But what you do next will make all the difference. Read more
A Simple Approach to Sales Forecasting
How do you forecast sales accurately? The trick is to break the sales down into manageable parts. Read more
Bring New Life to Your Vision Statement
There is noeasy recipe that guarantees a successful vision-in-action. It's an organic process, not a once-a-yearevent. You can only be willing to try vari... Read more
Simply Stupendous Press Kits
Now that you've hissed your way through that sibilant headline, let me just say I feel your migraine. But that's nothing compared to the ... Read more
Creation Theory
Why is Haystack Toys cofounder Dan Lauer traveling the country and meeting with inventors? To test his theory that consolidation in the toy industry has sque... Read more
The Road Not Taken
CEO Norm Brodsky discusses why, of all the challenges people face when they decide to start a business, one of the most difficult is learning to say no. Read more
Capital Training
BELLEVUE, WASH. -- Roxanne Benton Darling toyed with starting a business for two years. "I've started and stopped a couple of times, but for whatever reas... Read more
Pick the Target Audience, Then Tailor Your Plan
One of the key steps in preparing your business plan is targeting it to the right audience. If you're seeking out financing, for example, will your pl... Read more
Infusing Strategy into your Business Plan
Your marketing strategy outlines how you will offer your products orservices to your customers and what will entice them to buy, and normally involves tar... Read more
Insights into an Internet Company Business Plan
Q: I am working on a business plan for myInternet start-up company and am wondering what the next step should be. ... Read more
Keep Your Plan Alive
A military adage by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz states, "No battle plan survivescontact with the enemy." For businesses, this translates to "A st... Read more
Free or Low-Cost Staffing Options
Internships Internships can be a great source of free or low-cost labor. In order to convince interns to work for free or for subm... Read more
Start-Up Saga, Part 2: Unveiling a Mission
Editor's note: In December 1999 Knowledge@Wharton and inc.com published "Anatomy of a Start-Up, Part 1: The Cl... Read more
Get a Local Look at Your Competition
The Internet has made information gathering simple and easy, but sometimes the best information is found much closer to home, with real people, in real ti... Read more
Planning for Customers by the Numbers
As an essential first step to writing a business plan, you should have a good idea of how many potential customers there are. Most business plans c... Read more
Perfect Run or Avalanche? An Ultimate Ski Dilemma
Ultimate Ski Expeditions provided just what the name implied: an opportunity for top-notch skiers to have the run of their lifetime. The company took grou... Read more
Getting It Right
It's easy to fall in love with a business idea. But the fact is, few successful companies end up with the same concept they began with. CEO Norm Brodsky disc... Read more
Learning Organizations Produce Leaders
While a company should some kind of succession planning process, "the bigger issue is whether thecompany is committed to being a learning organization," s... Read more
Keeping a Start-Up Simple
Once you're ready to launch, how can you make sure you start out on the right foot? In this excerpt from How to Really Start Your Own Business, e... Read more
Personnel and Business Plans: Making the Most of Your Management Team
Summarize Your Management Chapter Like the other chapters, the management chapter starts with a good summary. You may want to use ... Read more
The Fine Art of Writing a Business Plan
Bankers and investors are quick to complain that most business plans they get from hopeful entrepreneurs aren't worth the paper they're written on. Too ma... Read more
How to Write a Marketing Analysis
After you find out about your market for a business plan, you also want to communicate that knowledge to the readers of your plan. Keep your explanations ... Read more
Segment the Target Market in Your Business Plan
The market segmentation concept is crucial to market assessment and market strategy. Divide the market into workable market segments -- age, income, produ... Read more
In a Former Life: Jay Chiat
JAY CHIAT, 67 Present life: Chiat is the interim CEO of ScreamingMediaRead more
Presenting Your Plan
An important feature of business plans is the summary memo, a streamlined executive summary of 2-10 pages maximum. Investors often prefer just the summary... Read more
