Читать книгу Business Plans For Dummies - Paul Tiffany - Страница 34

A business plan paints a picture of where your company has been and how it has changed over the years. By reviewing your past performance or the track records of your newly discovered competitors, you can use your plan to figure out what worked and what didn’t. In effect, your business plan offers you an opportunity to keep score, allowing you to set goals for your company and then keep track of your achievements. For example:

 Your plan creates a view of the future. In years to come, you can use old copies of your plan to look back and determine just how well you predicted the future.

 Your plan maps out a direction in which to go and the route to take. You can use it to gauge how skillfully you accomplish what you set out to do.

 Your plan forecasts where you want to be. You can use it to check out how close you come to your targets for the industry, your market, and your finances.

Your history, as described in your business plan, teaches you important lessons about the business you’re in — so you aren’t doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. If you can’t remember exactly where your company has been, you probably can’t see where you’re headed.