By Mary Myers, Walden Swanson 042 September - October - 1992 This is the third in a series of articles based on Business Planning For Cooperatives, a manual published by Cooperative Development Services that provides step by step Instructions for writing business plans. This manual is based on the principles of systems analysis, which recommend an analysis of each of a retail co-op's key [...]
SYNOPSIS Executive summary. Write this last. Highlight key information from the plan-who you are, what you are going to do, why and how it will be financed. (Not in detail, that comes in the plan itself.) BACKGROUND History. One page on how the Co-op got to this point: How/who/why it was started (vision), bringing it up to this time. Key accomplishments to date. Ownership. Legal [...]
By Mary Myers, Walden Swanson 038 January - February - 1992 Editor's note: This article is the first in a series of three articles on Business Plans for co-ops. Has your co-op ever produced a business plan and then not known what to do with it? Have you seen your co-op's business plan sit on the bookshelf and collect dust? Have you ever [...]
By Walden Swanson 010 April - May - 1987 "Business plans may be great for bankers and investors, but if companies really followed them, you might never have heard of Compaq, Lotus, or Ben & Jerry's." This quote is from "The Best-Laid Plans", an article in Inc. Magazine (February 1987). The article takes some of America's best small businesses and examines their business plans [...]
