Steven Pearlstein has an interesting article on business plans:

Changes in business plans, of course, go on all the time, but during the long boom of the 1990s, the process was largely put on hold. With the economic momentum generating strong increases in sales and profits, executives saw little need to rethink their fundamental strategies. And that was true even after there were indications in many companies that profit margins and market shares were beginning to erode.

"The truth is that companies always take a good thing and push it so far that it becomes a bad thing," said Roger L. Martin, dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. "And the longer the boom, the farther they pushed."