Business Planning for Dummies

Published by: Wiley Publishing Inc
ISBN: 0 7645 7652 6

Business Plans For Dummies

As the title indicates, Business Plans for Dummies is from the ‘For Dummies’ series of books.

The information presented in six sections as follows:

• knowing where you want to go,
• describing your marketplace,
• weighing your company’s prospects,
• looking into the future,
• putting the business plan into action, and
• the part of the tens.

Not all of the section titles give you a clear idea of what is included so I will summarize them for you!

Knowing where you want to go

This section the authors lead you through the preparation stages of preparing a business plan including putting together a business planning team and finding the necessary resources.

This section also discussed why you really need a business plan and how to set the direction for your business planning efforts.

Describing your marketplace

This section leads you through the process of analyzing your market, your customers and your competition.

Weighing your company’s prospects

This section is about internal analysis and decision making.

The authors walk you through SWOT analysis to enable you to work out what your business does best and what you need to fix so that you can develop a business model that will work for you.

They also guide you through the process of developing income forecasts, operational budgets and cashflow forecasts to support your plan.

Looking to the future

In this section the authors address uncertainty, strategic thinking and growing the business.

Putting your business plan into action

This section is important. In it the authors talk about what to do with your plan once you have finished it.

A business plan should be a living document, one that guides the actions of everyone involved in the business!

The part of the tens

As the title of this section suggests, it is all about ‘ten things’ that relate to your business plans, specifically:

• Ten signs that you need to refresh your business plan,
• Ten questions to ask about your plan, and
• Ten business planning never-evers

So, what did I think?

Although this is a good text on how to put a business plan together, I can’t say it is one of my favorites. That, however, is definitely a personal preference thing.

The information presented in the Business Plans for Dummies is accurate and is presented clearly and logically. It offers common sense tips throughout the book for managing the business planning process and definitely ‘talks to’ the target audience.

For anyone who has only limited experience with developing business models and business planning, this book would be a reasonably good choice.