As I suggested at the beginning of this chapter, most entrepreneurs have a very specific purpose for their business plan and, once that purpose has been accomplished, the formal planning process is over. The People Express business plan is theonly written plan the company ever put together. The question of why the company never assembled another plan to guide its astonishing growth is one that prompts extensive explanation from founder Donald Burr.
Quite simply, he begins, the company didn’t really need an operating plan once it had financial backing. Not even for budgeting purposes?
“We felt budgeting was one of the things that stand in the way of customer service,” he explains. “The mind-set of budgeting is that it’s finance driven instead of customer driven.”
Burr points to Continental Airlines, which acquired People Express, to illustrate his point. “Continental Airlines lives by budgeting,” he says. “From the food to the uniforms to the people, it’s budget driven. You end up with a seriously flawed product as a result of such a process.” ..more
