ABSTRACT
The business plan for one of the Tata group companies had been presented to the Chairman, Mr. Ratan N Tata, for the third time and this time too he had denied acceptance. If the economy hit a downturn, he would expect the businesses to maintain the agreed market share percentages, even though the sales volume would be numerically lower. The business cycle, a key time characteristic, represents a cyclical experience that swings endlessly between the best and the worst of times. A business plan assumes that a firm has a set of services or products that customers within its addressable market space are willing to consume at a price where the firm will make reasonable profits in the long run. The combination of actions in determining the final execution path is not only limited to the products of a company but also to its business and/or management models, the space it operates in, the people and its ultimate goals.
