Customer-Oriented Business Planning

Synopsis

The current market has been very difficult for many senior managers and senior business planners. With the uncertainty in the market place, many companies have not been buying their usual levels of products and services from their regular vendors. Many companies have to cut some of their more obvious operational costs, such as reductions in investment, advertising, training, consulting and hiring of staff.

It is common to find that during bad times, many managers are forced to cut costs across the board in order to survive and to provide their shareholders with a perceived way forward.  If managers looked back at the past, many of them may be regretting some of their previous decisions. They may have cut or even killed key businesses or products that in hindsight were a mistake. Some managers, whilst still affected by the recession in terms of being a little cautious, now wish to find a better way than that of the past.

Senior business managers need to take a more strategic view of their businesses to continue their cost effectiveness programmes. This is true even if some businesses are now growing healthily. They want to achieve shorter-term revenues and profits, whilst also looking into the medium term for their longer-term success. The Customer-oriented business planning methodology described here can be a powerful aid in helping managers take and communicate these difficult and often far-reaching decisions.

Many companies are still in too many markets with too many products and services. They need a practical, strategic and operational  Planning Methodology that is easy to use and that they can adopt to gain consensus in determining their priorities and focus in the next few years. Without this strategic viewpoint, companies may find later that they have again withdrawn from markets that are vital for their long-term future. The Ten Step Business Planning Methodology used as a foundation in this Course can play a significant role in helping senior management achieve this difficult task.

Benefits to You

  • See how a market-led view of business planning can make a real different to your companies.
  • Learn how to build your own longer-term, strategies whilst being consistent with your shorter-term needs
  • Understand why focus and prioritisation are still your key disciplines in succeeding in business.
  • See how you can achieve a better business balance whilst examining your opportunities against the potential risks implied.
  • Learn how to make more tangible your many business planning issues and thus improve your internal communications and decision-making.
  • See how you can use the SWOT Analysis tool to clarify the many conflicting issues in your business.
  • See how you can get your management to identify, prioritise and then agree on your key gaps and what to do about them.

Programme Outline

  • Learn a powerful Planning Methodology
  • To practise these tools using a simple, modular Case Study
  • Introducing the Marketing Concept, defining Marketing and the Marketing Mix, and seeing how it is a better view of business planning
  • Defining your Market Segments and Products from a hierarchical viewpoint
  • The Product Life Cycle and how it can help you manage your products better
  • Introducing a powerful, graphical, revenues and resources tool and see how it can help you be better at allocating your resources: the “R” Matrix
  • Modifying the “R” Matrix to examine profits and resources better
  • Introducing a Trends and Assumptions Form to help in more realistic planning
  • The Ansoff Matrix as a powerful risk analysis tool and its many uses in business planning
  • A future analysis tool, the Attractiveness / Strengths Matrix and how it complements the “R” Matrix above to help you in prioritizing your resources
  • SWOT Analysis, from different viewpoints and how you can act on them
  • Gap Analysis and how it follows from the previous planning tools and leads on to your strategies and actions
  • How all of these planning tools work together in a proven sequence
  • How to write a Business Plan using all the planning tools and concepts covered

Who Will Benefit by Attending

  • Managing Directors who have responsibility for setting and implementing a longer-term, strategic direction for their Company or Division, including alliances and acquisitions.
  • Financial Directors and Senior Managers who wish to complement their financial skills and experience with some more Customer-oriented and Competitor-oriented planning disciplines.
  • Senior Marketing and Sales Directors who have a longer-term strategic responsibility as well as the more normal operational role.
  • Strategic Corporate Planners who are looking for a powerful, yet practical and interesting, Planning Methodology in order to help determine and then communicate internally their strategic recommendations.
  • Senior Research and Development Directors wishing to complement their current processes with a more external, market-oriented process.

Programme Leader 

This programme will be conducted by:

Thomas Day (Tom) is an independent international strategic business and marketing planning consultant with over twenty years’ experience. Before moving into consulting and training he worked for nine years with Digital Equipment Corporation, two years of which were spent at their commercial business and marketing headquarters in New Hampshire, USA.  His other senior management and company director experience was gained at NCR, ICL, The Hoskyns Group and Leasco Software.

Tom’s consulting and training work, with companies in the UK, Europe, the USA and Asia, ranges from strategic business planning through marketing planning to corporate account management planning.  He has helped large, high technology manufacturing and services companies, and Users of such products and services, to build more cohesive management teams and produce effective marketing-led Plans in often fast-moving, unstructured but highly competitive markets.

Tom’s real drive is to help individuals, and the companies they work in, to become more Customer-oriented and more Competitor-oriented in their planning processes. He feels that many important decisions are taken daily largely from an internal viewpoint. Little real analysis is performed by looking at the changing perceptions and needs of their existing and potential Customers, or in forecasting how their existing and potential Competitors might attack them.  Consequently, they implement strategies determined largely in the past now and in the future. Tom has developed over the years a practical Planning Methodology to address these issues.

Companies Tom has worked for over the years include the following well-known companies: American Airlines, Ameritech Corporation, Barclays Bank, Canon Business Systems, Cisco Systems, Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK), Ericsson Telecommunications, Frost & Sullivan, Fujitsu-Siemens, London Stock Exchange, Lucent Technologies, Management Centre Europe, Microsoft Corporation, Misys International Banking, Motorola, Philips Electronics, Sun Microsystems, and Lloyds TSB Bank.

Venue The Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur
Duration Two Days
Time 0900 to 1730
Fee RM3, 922 per person for local delegates and US$1, 250 per person for foreign delegates [price is inclusive of 6% GST, programme documentation, tea breaks and lunch]
Enquiries +603-27131165
Email info@pkmh.com or pkmh.training@yahoo.com