Creating a Business Plan

by Harvard Business Publishing

Every business needs a business plan--a plan to meet the expected and unexpected opportunities and obstacles the future holds. This book will help you take a long, hard look at each element of the plan and show you how to communicate the right message to the right people, and maximize the chances of getting your business launched.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2007

About the author

Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is a publisher founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, independent corporation and an affiliate of Harvard Business School (distinct from Harvard University Press), with a focus on improving business management practices. The company offers articles, books, case studies, simulations, videos, learning programs, and digital tools to organizations and subscribers.
HBP consists of three market units: Education, Corporate Learning, and Harvard Business Review Group. Their offering consists of print and digital media (Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review Press books, Harvard Business School cases), events, digital learning (Harvard ManageMentor, HMM Spark), blended learning, and campus experiences.

Reviews

[Raul sadok · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the book twice and I will read it again because is a good guide and I like to have it in paper while I’m writing my business plan, but, the same information is for free online.

This book is from 2007, but the basics are still here.

[Antony Mayfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good primer and reference guide.

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helpful guidance. Deconstructs jargon and breaks stages of creation down to manageable steps.

[Jen Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good book. I also read the Harvard Business Review 20 min manager version of this book and they are very similar.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Start Your Business Plan the Right Way!

Hi there! If you’re looking at this review and wondering whether or not you should purchase this book, the chances are, you probably have already landed on a killer idea that could very well be the next big thing. If this describes you, this is amazing. I am very happy for you. If this does not sound like you or your situation, no worries, it is no problem at all. Trust me, either way, congratulations!

Creating a Business Plan: Pocket Mentor Series by Harvard Business School Press is a neat, reader-friendly guidebook that will help you start your business plan the right way. Your personal mentor is Ms. Linda A. Cyr. She is an expert on economic, social, and organizational change. She is also a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business School, where she teaches leadership and entrepreneurship. In other words, you are in very good hands.

I give this book 5 stars, and the reason is very simple:

This pocket mentor does exactly what it’s meant to do. Not only does it guide you through the many considerations of an executable and functional business idea, but most importantly, it helps you pen the roughest draft of your business plan. In so doing, it gets you jumpstarted with your business plan and by extension, your business as well.

Think of this book as what will provide the skeletons of your business plan—the structure that props it up. To flesh it out and make your business plan juicy and meaty, you will need to consult other, more specialized books for many of the different sections of your business plan. This is especially true for the marketing plan, the operations plan, and the financial plan.

What do I mean by this? Take the marketing plan, for instance. In the marketing plan section of the book, Ms. Cyr discusses that it is paramount for you to segment your market. However, she doesn’t mention any of the formal, data-driven techniques used by successful companies to perform this such as the conjoint analysis.

At this point, you are probably thinking: Since I ultimately have to consult other books, why should I bother with this book at all? Why not just get a book that is more comprehensive instead?

The answer lies in confidence. Getting this pocket mentor first will ease you through the process of developing a business plan, thereby making it much less intimating and so much easier for you to add these details provided by those other books I mentioned. And this, I believe, is the true beauty of this book. Many times a person with a great idea fails to create a robust business plan due to the needless complication and frustration created by other “how to write a business plan” books. By consulting these books at the outset, he or she becomes overwhelmed and enervated, which usually results in a less than stellar business plan.

Thankfully, this book does not commit that same error. All in all, this nifty book will get you a great working rough draft going. It will also get your business rolling. Cheers!

[Punit Mathur · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a good book to give you a general ideas how to create a Business plan. The best thing is its got a very simple example to help you understand the process mentioned in the book. Overall a Good read.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very easy to follow.

[Mai Al-Qurashi · Rating 5 out of 5]

very helpful,

[Oli Ogbonna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very helpful book.
It Contains the information one would need to develop a business plan