Top Ten Resources for Writing an e-Business Plan

The list of Top Ten Resources for Writing an e-Business Plan has been prepared for use with the e-Business Plan Tutorial that supports the Prentice-Hall textbooks Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Electronic Commerce 2004: A Managerial Perspective. Students who need to know more about writing a business plan or have special requirements for completing a business plan assignment are welcome to use these resources to further explore this exciting area of business activity.

This list was prepared by Dennis Viehland, an Associate Professor of Information Systems at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. Suggestions for improving this list are welcome, please send to d.viehland@massey.ac.nz.

Library of business plan articles: Creating Your Business Plan offers a number of articles of interest to business plan writers. A representative sample of articles in this library -- Why You Need A Business Plan, Creating a Business Plan That's You, Updating Your Business Plan, Elements Of A Business Plan -- indicate the value of this site. Some articles have tools for downloading and additional resources to access.

Business plan workshop: There are a few business plan workshops on the Web, each promising to lead you step by step through the process of writing your plan. No site does this as well as the American Express Creating an Effective Business Plan workshop. The business plan writer is guided through the seven elements of a business plan (e.g., business description, sales and marketing, financials) with explanations, samples, and interactive tutorials (e.g., "Which of the following you do think is a good positioning statement?" with explanations about why a choice is a good one or not). Most pages have handy hints, there is an FAQ page, and you can submit a question to a small business advisor.

Business plan outline (short version): What should be in a business plan? Preparing a Business Plan gives a short but comprehensive outline from executive summary to appendices. .

Business plan outline (long version): A much longer and more detailed outline is The Business Plan: Road Map to Success. This is a plain and simple text outline without a single hyperlink in a very long page. The first few screens don't offer much more than what is in other resources. But then the detail begins: each section and subsection of the outline is described in some detail with important questions to consider. In many places fill-in-the-blank forms are provided for a writer's convenience. There are also a printable version, a zipped download version, and a Spanish version of this page.

Sample business plans: The 400 sample business plans at Bplans.com is the most extensive collection available on the Web. The plans at this site are too simple to be real and frequently important elements are missing. However, the sample plans can be good idea generators for writing your plan. A more comprehensive and realistic sample business plan is available from http://www.vimac.com/pages/sampleplan.pdf.

Business plan off-line book: There are dozens, perhaps over a hundred, how-to-write-a-business-plan books. One of the best is Writing a Convincing Business Plan (2nd edition) by Art Dethomas and Lin Grensing-Pophal (Barrons, 2001). It is one of the most comprehensive books available, yet not overwhelming with detail. The book is well-organized and easy to understand.

Business plan on-line book: Bplans.com offers two on-line books that will be of interest to e-business plan writers. The best is InSite: The Book on Web Planning. Hurdle: The Book of Business Planning is also good for browsing, but largely duplicates what is offered in other resources listed here. Unfortunately the multi-layered navigation design in both books means the reader receives only a small amount of information per click.

E-commerce business plans: So, what is different about writing a business plan for an e-commerce project? Building a Business Plan for an e-Commerce Project is an insightful article that helps you think about business planning in an e-commerce context.

Top Ten URLs For Writing an e-Business Plan:
Creating Your Business Plan: http://www.entrepreneur.com/Your_Business/YB_Node/0,4507,109,00.html
Creating an Effective Business Plan: http://home3.americanexpress.com/smallbusiness/tool/biz_plan/index.asp
Preparing a Business Plan: http://www.smallbusinessbc.ca/workshop/busplan.html
The Business Plan: Road Map to Success: http://www.sba.gov/starting/indexbusplans.html
Bplan's sample business plans: http://www.bplans.com/sp/additional.cfm
http://www.vimac.com/pages/sampleplan.pdf: http://www.vimac.com/pages/sampleplan.pdf
Writing a Convincing Business Plan : http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0764113992/qid=1040267508/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-6212213-6906508?v=glance&s=books
InSite: The Book on Web Planning: http://www.bplans.com/wb
Hurdle: The Book of Business Planning: http://www.bplans.com/ho
Building a Business Plan for an e-Commerce Project: http://www.networkcomputing.com/917/917f2.html