ABSTRACT
Before starting out on any journey, it is common sense to establish where you are starting from and whether you have a bicycle, car or aeroplane to travel in. It is ludicrous to set corporate objectives and prepare business plans in a vacuum. Without reference points indicating the existing state of the business and the external environment it has to deal with, we could start our journey heading in completely the wrong direction. What is needed is a process of information gathering and then analysis of that information to establish what resources we currently have, how they have been utilized and how they compare to what it is likely we will need. If there appears to be a significant gap between what we have and what we need, we must either acquire extra resources or modify our objectives to something more practical.
