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Business Planning Without Software
Jeff Cornwall in the Tennessean:
Many aspiring entrepreneurs turn to the latest business planning software when getting ready to start their businesses, but such tools create too many shortcuts that undermine the crucial process of business planning.To construct an effective and more accurate business plan, it helps to understand how the experts — such as investors and bankers — evaluate business plans.
via Jeff Cornwall blog.
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Nick on March 26th, 2007 8:48 pm
The problem with business plan softwares is that they provide templates and people rely too much on these templates, just changing a couple words here and there to “tailor” it to their industry. The business plan then created in meaningless and sometimes don’t make sense at all.
Jack on March 26th, 2007 9:08 pm
I totally agree. When I created my own business, I wrote a business plan from scratch. All I had were guidelines from a business advisor, and the result was that my bank said it was one of the most impressive and complete plans they had ever seen.
Sanjay Kumar on March 28th, 2007 12:05 pm
For a business plan, you need to understand the objectives and the goal. Templates can help you understand those more quickly, but you really don’t need software for this. Buy software/services only when you get some advantage in doing so, like saving time or money. Running your business is also a good place where software provide value, but freely available content on the web makes buying software like this a waste of money.
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Sabrina Parsons on April 2nd, 2007 8:37 am
First a big disclaimer- I work for Palo Alto Software, maker of Business Plan Pro. I wanted to reiterate the comments made by people here — for a good business plan you cannot just use an existing template and substitute some words. You MUST go through the entire planning process, research YOUR business and create a unique business plan for your business. That being said, our software is a TOOL like Microsoft Word is a tool. It simply guides you through the process, making sure that you address every aspect of your business plan, and include correct financial tables. It DOES NOT write the plan for you. It does though take people step by step through the process — especially those that have never written a plan, and may be afraid of the whole process. The correct tool will simply aide you in creating a better plan – in the same way that Microsoft Word aides you in creating better letters, or contracts. The financials in Business Plan Pro have been tested, and are going to guarantee that you have a business plan with a cash flow forecast, a profit and Loss, a balance sheet, and a sales forecast. What it WILL NOT do is write the plan or the numbers for you.
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