By M Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant
Most people know that in order to help an organization focus on its future and to build plans/strategies to improve market share, profitability and competitive stature, that a company should go through a formal, well-organized planning process which will result in specific objectives and actionable strategies.
But how many companies should take the objectives and strategies and use them as the back bone of the planning for each individual area of the company. For example, in looking at your core business strategies, defined as the strategies which will drive the components of your principal business sectors, do you simply say to the Sales group, here is what we have planned on doing, now go do it? Or should the Sales group take the core business sector strategies and do a more structured plan to enable them to carry out the strategies that have been selected at corporate?
For example, let’s assume your company has six significant core business sectors. How do you decide what people and how much investment to make in each? There is guidance in the strategies selected in the strategic planning process, but you may have a multiplicity of products and services in each core business sector. Which ones get more attention and which ones are somewhat left to fend for themselves? Which ones can generate higher profitability, meaning it is likely we should be emphasizing them more than those with somewhat lower profitability?
Compounding the situation, Sales will need to interface with Production, to assure the company has the ability to actually produce the volumes of each product necessary to reach the overall goals. If Sales doesn’t do an effective job of planning how to approach the market, and if Production can’t meet the projections of Sales, what kinds of chaos might occur? Strategic planning is a necessary part of the overall planning process both at the corporate level and at the operating level, so that the end results will be as profitable and as feasible as possible. By doing a good job of planning at this intermediate level, the organization stands a better chance of reaching the objectives and goals of high level strategic planning. If your company is not reaching your strategic goals regularly, we can help! We will look at your organization and structure a process that will connect the corporate level and the core business levels. Contact me at baldwin@cssp.com or at 616-575-3193 to discuss how to better integrate your planning throughout your company.
For more information on how to get your people to help make your strategies work, watch our webinar Strategic Alignment : http://www.cssp.com/strategic-alignment-webinar/archive.php
M. Dana Baldwin is a Senior Consultant with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. He can be reached by email at: baldwin@cssp.com
© Copyright 2015 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.