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

Philip Walcoff - "The Fast Forward MBA in Business Planning for Growth"The major issues in each of the four function-specific categories are identified based on an analysis of20 companies of varying sizes and product and service offerings. The relative frequency of thesefunction-specific issues is also presented to give you a sense of the prevalence of each issue across the20 sample companies. These examples of issues facing these 20 companies will provide you with abasis for identifying your own issues as you complete the issue-identification exercises.Approach to Issue ResolutionIn addition to examples of issues, suggested issue-resolution approaches are also provided to supportyou in completing the exercises on howPage 38to deal with your own function-specific issues. Although the response options presented here and inChapter 5 have been effective in other companies, they are not meant to represent the only answers tothe issues at hand, because I don't have first-hand knowledge of your company, your resources, or yourparticular issues. I suggest that these responses are generally applicable based on my experience, havingworked with more than 70 companies of different sizes, product and service offerings, and markets overthe last 8 years. There is no guarantee that these responses will completely deal with your issuesbecause there may be circumstances in your company that make it inappropriate to implement them.They are presented for your consideration and for assistance in developing your plan—use them as yousee fit. In reality, you're the most appropriate one to determine the course of action to eliminate yourcompany's issues because you deal with them each and every day.Issue-Resolution TimeframeIn most cases, issues should be addressed immediately. If you have limited resources, prioritize yourissues and work on the most critical ones first. Near-term actions to address every major issueconfronting you should show up in the action plan portion of your business plan (immediate actions tobe completed in the next 30 days; see Chapter 8). For those issues that will require some time to addresscompletely, annual objectives (to be accomplished prior to the end of your fiscal year) should bedefined for inclusion in your business plan, as well. Therefore, the suggested responses to the issuespresented in the tables in this chapter for each of the nine issue categories are meant to lead to yourbusiness plan action items and perhaps to your annual objectives, as well.Consider Using ConsultantsIn a number of cases, the suggested response strategy involves retaining the services of a consultant tosupport you in addressing particularfile:///C|/Documents and Settings/gasanova/Local Settin...Forward_MBA_in_Business_Planning_for_Growth/e-book.html (48 of 219)16.02.2005 13:54:23