Philip Walcoff - "The Fast Forward MBA in Business Planning for ...

Philip Walcoff - "The Fast Forward MBA in Business Planning for Growth"Do any of these issues sound familiar? I'm sure they do, and as is shown in Chapters 4 and 5, the listgoes on and on. These issues are roadblocks to a successful company and a successful planimplementation and are almost always overlooked by companies during the planning process.Addressing them up front will go a long way toward making your plan (and, more important, yourcompany) considerably more effective.Two Issues Not IncludedA predominant issue that you may feel is missing from the eight just listed might be a lackofPage 31sufficient new business in the pipeline. Almost every company I have ever encountered (including myown) could cite this as an issue—even the highly successful companies. There are numerous reasons forthe lack of sufficient business, such as the "haphazard and uncoordinated business-developmentprocesses" issue mentioned in the list. Others include having an insufficient sales staff, being too busyto market and sell, and not winning competitive bids. A lack of sufficient new business in the pipeline issurely an issue, but it's really the result of a number of other issues, as is discussed in Chapter 4.It may also be surprising to you that lack of sufficient capital is not shown as a predominant issue. Thereason for this may be that many of my clients are established and have overcome the start-up cash-flowissue, although this issue again raises its head for rapidly growing companies—many of my clients arein this exciting position. In addition, most of my clients are service rather than product companies,which often reduces the pressing need to raise money to cover such items as inventory, equipment, andso on. Also, most of my clients have established lines of credit and short-term loans with their banksthat often address their issues surrounding the short-term need for capital.If you need to obtain capital, you should consider developing that classical business plan referred to inChapter 1. The classical business plan combined with the growth-oriented business plan presented inthis book will serve you well when you place them both in the hands of potential investors.Where Issues ResideIssues are either specific to a particular function within a company, or they reside throughout thecompany. Here the discussion of the issue categories is broken out into function-specific issues(presented in Chapter 4) and companywide issues (presented in Chapter 5). The reason for treating themas two separate groups is that the resolution of these issues is dealt with differently depending on wheretheyfile:///C|/Documents and Settings/gasanova/Local Settin...Forward_MBA_in_Business_Planning_for_Growth/e-book.html (42 of 219)16.02.2005 13:54:23