How to Write a Business Plan

There are many types of symbols. Money from investors, banks or financial organizations is a symbol.

A successful Business Plan (a successful manipulation of symbols) brings in its wake the receipt of credits (money, another kind of symbol). What are the rules of manipulating symbols? What are the properties of a Successful Business Plan?

?(1) That it is closely linked to reality - The symbol system must map out reality in an isomorphic manner, and we must identify facts the minute we see the symbols arranged.

?If we react to a Business Plan with disbelief ("It is too good to be true" or "some of the assumptions are non-realistic") - then this condition is not met, and the Business Plan is a failure.

?(2) It rearranges old, familiar data into new, emergent patterns.

?The symbol manipulation must bring to the world some contribution to the sphere of knowledge (very much as a doctoral dissertation should).

?When faced with a Business Plan, for instance, we must respond with a modicum of awe and fascination ("That's right! - I never thought of it" or "(arranged) This way it makes sense").

?(3) All the symbols are internally consistent - The demand for external consistency (compatibility with the real world, a realistic representation system) was stipulated above. This is a different one: all symbols must live in peace with one another, the system must be coherent.

(4) Another demand is transparency - all the information should be available at any time. When the symbol system is opaque - when data are missing or, worse, hidden - the manipulation will fail.

(5) The fifth requirement is universality - Symbol systems are species of languages, and the language should be understood by all - in an unambiguous manner. A common terminology, a dictionary, should be available to both manipulators and manipulated.

?Clear signs of the failure of a Business Plan to manipulate would-be remarks like: "Why is he using this strange method for calculation?", "Why did he fail to calculate the cost of financing?" and even: "What does this term mean and what does he mean by using it?"

?(6) The symbol system must be comprehensive - ?It cannot exclude certain symbols arbitrarily, and it cannot ignore the existence of competing meanings, double entendres, ambiguities. It must engulf all possible interpretations and all the system's characters.

?Let us return to the Business Plan:

?A Business Plan must incorporate all the data available - and all the known techniques to process them. It can safely establish a hierarchy of priorities and preferences - but it must present all the possibilities and only then make a selection while giving good reasons for doing so.

?(7) The symbol system must have links to other relevant symbol systems - These links can be both formal and informal (implied, by way of mental association, or by way of explicit reference or incorporation).

?Coming back to the Business Plan:

?There is no point in devising a Business Plan which will ignore geopolitical macro-economic and marketing contexts. Is the region safe for investments?

?What are the prevailing laws and regulations in the territory, and how likely are they to be changed? What is the competition, and how can it be neutralized or co-opted? These are all external variables, external symbol systems. Some of them are closely and formally linked to the business at hand (Laws, customs tariffs, taxes, for instance). Some are informally attached to it: substitute products, emerging technologies, ethical and environmental considerations. The Business Plan is supposed to resonate within the reader's mind and elicit the reaction: "How very true!!!"

?(8) The symbol system must have a natural hierarchy - There are - and have been - efforts to invent and use non-hierarchical symbol systems, and they all failed and resulted in the establishment of a formal, or an informal, hierarchy. The professional term is "Utility Functions", which is not a theoretical demand. Utility functions dictate most investment decisions in today's complex financial markets.

?The author(s) of the Business Plan must clearly state what he wants and what he wants most, what is an absolute sine qua non and what would be nice to have. He must fix and detail his preferences, priorities, needs and requirements. If he were to attach equal weight to all the parts of the Business Plan, his message would confuse those trying to decode it and deny his application.

?(9) The symbol system must be seen - To serve a (proper) purpose, and it must demonstrate an effort at being successful. It must, therefore, be direct, understandable, clear, and it must contain lists of demands and wishes (all of them prioritized, as we have mentioned).

?When a computer faces a few tasks simultaneously - it prioritizes them and allocates its resources in strict compliance with this list of priorities.

?A computer is the physical embodiment of a symbol system - and so is a bank doling out credit. The same principles apply to the human organism.

?All-natural (and most human) systems are goal-oriented.

?(10) The last - but by no means the least - requirement is that the symbol system must be interfaced with human beings. There is not much point in having a computer without a screen, a bank without clients, or a Business Plan without someone to review it. We must always - when manipulating symbol systems - bear in mind the "end-user" and be "user friendly" to him. There is no such thing as a bank, a firm, or even a country. There are humans at the end of the line, like you and me.

?To manipulate them into providing credits, we must motivate them. We must appeal to their emotions and senses: our symbol system (presentation, Business Plan) must be aesthetic, powerful, convincing, appealing, resonating, fascinating, attractive. All these are irrational (or, at least, non-cognitive) reactions.

?We must appeal to their cognition. Our symbol system must be rational, logical, hierarchical, not farfetched, trustworthy, consistent, internally and externally. All this must lead to motor motivation: the hand that signs the check given to us should not shake.

?The Problem, Therefore, Is Not Where To Go, Not Even When To Go In Order To Obtain Credits.

The Issue Is How To Communicate (To Manipulate Symbols) To Motivate.

?Using this theory of the manipulation of symbols, we can differentiate three kinds of financing organizations:

?(1) Those who deal with non-quantifiable symbols - For one, the World Bank, when it evaluates business propositions, employs criteria that cannot be quantified (how does one quantify the contribution to regional stability or the increase in democracy and the improvement in human rights records?).

?(2) Those who deal with semi-quantifiable symbols - Organizations such as the IFC or the EBRD employ sound - quantitative - business and financial criteria in their decision making processes. But were they business-oriented, they would probably not have made many of the investments they are making and in the geographical parts of the world they are making them.

?(3) Classical financing organizations that deal exclusively with measurable variables - Most of us come across this type of financing institution: commercial banks, private firms, etc.

?Whatever the kind of financial institution, we must never forget:

We are dealing with humans who are influenced mainly by manipulating symbol systems. Abiding by the rules above would guarantee success in obtaining funding. Making the right decision on the national level - would catapult a country into the 21st century without first re-visit the twentieth.