Comments on: 5 Ps for a Business Plan – Part 1 (The Concept)

By: Ujjal

Ujjal — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:14:54 +0000

Pradip, your points are at a very fundamental level and without clearing those issues the 5 Ps of a business plan cannot even begin.
Most CEOs, however, will tend to shy away from answering the first basic question – “should we be in this business?”, because if the answer is negative, they wont have a job in the first place.

By: Pradip Chanda

Pradip Chanda — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:48:05 +0000

I continue to heed Drucker’s advice while drawing up a Business Plan: First off, Ask whether you should be in this business.
Secondly no business plan will work unless three essential pillars in running any business are in place, viz., Vision, Organization and Resource availabilty. The rest will follow logically.

By: Ujjal

Ujjal — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:19:11 +0000

Thanks Diya. Glad that you found this useful. Just a bit of caution – number crunching you cannot avoid in budgeting and in working out “what if” scenarios. But before this crunching exercise, we need to put some qualitative thinking behind the numbers. so that the final outcome – in terms of numbers – becomes meaningful.

By: Diya

Diya — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 11:37:30 +0000

Two very good posts! Very clear and easily understandable, especially for someone like me, who has been working for only a little over a year. I help my editors with budgets, and am coming to realise only too well how they become just a number-crunching exercise and how most people hate them! I look forward to your next post and more top-notch financial advice!