Starting a new business - or expanding an old one - requires a lot of thought and research. Your options: Roll up your sleeves and do some of the research yourself, hire a marketing consultant for a mere $150 an hour, or experiment with an emerging breed of software designed to help you make informed business decisions. This month, Lew Hoff, president of Bartizan Corporation, a multimillion- dollar manufacturing firm with 85 employees based in Yonkers, New York, describes how "MBA-ware" helps steer his evolving business.

While I was considering this new business, I read about a $795 software package called Business Insight from Business Resource Software. It is a database of 30 management experts collected knowledge. It asks hundreds of questions about finances, products, distribution, and so forth. ... the program generates a report based on your scores. It then rates your new venture for chance for success and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of your business, suggests ways to modify your plan. For $795, I got the same kind of information I would have received from a marketing consultant, without being charged about $1100 a day for work. And a consultant would have tied up a tremendous amount of my time and my staff.