Ask the owner of a small-to-medium company about a business plan. Expect the answer: "Business plan? but I’m not a start-up. Why would I want a business plan?"
They don’t all answer that way, but too many do, and it’s a shame. The business planning process is such a great tool for growing a business, but so many people dismiss it as a one-time plan used only to start a company or raise financing. That myth of the business plan for start-ups only gets in the way far too often. If you own or run a company, you probably want to grow it. And if you want to grow a company, then you want to plan that growth. And the planning is only the beginning; you want to use the full planning process to manage growth.
For an existing company that wants to grow, planning process is essential. Everybody wants to control their own destiny. The planning process is the best way to review and refresh the market and marketing, to prioritize and channel growth into the optimal areas, to allocate resources, to set priorities and manage tasks. Bring a team of managers together and develop strategy that the team can implement. Work on dealing with reality, the possible instead of just the desirable, and make strategic choices. Then follow up with regular plan review that becomes, in the end, management.
This normally starts with a plan. The plan, however, is just the beginning. It takes the full cycle to make a plan into a planning process.
— Tim Berry —