Today, I'd like to turn our attention to an area of management often overlooked in traditional management courses: small-business management. Small businesses have gone from being traditional small-town stores selling food or clothing to sophisticated, high-tech enterprises. And in addition to the important products they produce, they create jobs for lots of people because there are so many of them. It's important for management to keep in mind which of the customers' needs the business serves, because it can't serve all their needs. Writing a business plan that everyone in the organization understands and follows will help to provide the necessary focus and direction. It's important to state clearly what the purpose of the business is. Additionally, each person within the organization must know what tasks to perform in order to fulfill that purpose. Now, if for some reason, a business plan doesn't work, try hard to discover why not, rewrite it, and immediately focus on the new plan. A word of caution, however - never give up a bad plan without replacing it. A business has to have a plan because it can't afford to waste its limited resources. And, as you know, waste leads to unnecessarily high production costs. Production costs are at the heart of the company's ability to make a high quality product and sell it at an affordable price.