A study from Babson College has found no correlation between the performance of a new business and whether a business plan was written prior to its launch. This may be surprising to some, though others do contend that a full business plan is unnecessary, such as the author of this blog post from The Small Business Blog.

However, this study is far from an indication that business plans are never beneficial. Abusiness plan has a multitude of uses for circumstances other than beginning a business, such as while managing, growing, or exiting one. In addition, the study acknowledges that a business plan could be a good idea if the entrepreneur needs to raise a significant amount of capital, which is not an uncommon situation – though another study from the University of Maryland contends that business plans do not influence the decisions of venture capitalists.

It is important to note, however, that the studies may be flawed for various reasons, including their fairly narrow data samples – in the Babson College study, only 116 ventures, all of which were begun by Babson College alums, and in the University of Maryland study, 700 dot-com business plans during the Internet bubble.