A well-articulated, specific corporate business plan is the starting gate for an effective new plant operation. It is the foundation for the strategic direction needed to accomplish the company's goals and give the company credibility for a state loan and venture capital. An organized approach to staffing and to the process are needed to establish accountability and program the decision points leading to predictability performance.

The corporate business plan recognizes the company's strengths and weaknesses in measurable terms. It defines the corporation's purpose in a way that will provide growth goal direction, and thus yields both short-and long-range objectives. This sets a stage for developing a new business.

Formalization of goals and deciding where to go sets the company's strategic direction. The corporate portfolio is first evaluated to determine how to implement compatible options that will enhance the corporate objectives. Next, various methods, or models, are discussed for the evaluation of a corporate new products strategy. Opportunistic competitive gaps within the industry are isolated in the search for exploitable vulnerabilities, and the company determines where, how, and when to compete, whether by upsetting equilibrium in a mature industry, setting the rules in a newly emerging industry, or searching out other opportunities.

The task of formulating a business plan may be defined to include:

• Outlining the scope of the plan
• Stating the reason for being
• Determining the characteristics of needed information
• Looking for alternative methods of obtaining answers
• Analyzing cost-value and resource availability
• Listing the information required for a solution
• Specifying the action needed to develop information

1. Search for opportunity
   • Industry analysis
     1. Sales volume and trends
     2. Basic technology
     3. Competition
     4. Customer definition
   • Opportunity identification
     1. Targets
     2. Volume forecast
     3. Risk
     4. Feasibility study (preliminary)
     5. War game exercises
     6. Exceptional technological hurdles
     7. Legal and policy issues
2. Conception
   • Input research
   • Prescreening concepts
   • Screening research
3. Modeling (prototypes)
   • Descriptors
   • Prototypes
4. Research and development
   • Inside/outside science
   • Pilot plant
   • Scale up