Business Planning
Strategic planning and business planning are often used interchangeably. Business planning is operational in nature; they outline how a strategic plan is implemented. Business plans include forecasts of financial projections; tactical implementation activities (e.g. marketing campaigns); required resources and milestones.
Strategic planning is directional in nature. Strategic plans answer questions such as "what business should we be in/not be in", "are we focused on the right activities (e.g. are we targeting the right customers)" and identifies measures to gauge success.
Business plans can be short term (1 year) or long term (3 years) depending on the industry and the maturity of the business. For example, technology start ups require managers to shift directions quickly, even change their entire business model. Thus a detailed long term plan may not be practical.
Approach
- Preliminary meeting to assess state of business planning efforts
- Determine scope of business planning
- Using business planning software, produce a customized business plan template
- Determine which aspects of the plan will be authored by TeamThink
- Gather existing material and resources (e.g., historical business plans, current strategic plan, financial statements, research, customer feedback) to support content development for the plan
- Develop workshop agendas and presentation materials to guide discussion
- Facilitation of workshops to develop the business plan (the number of workshops will depend on the scope of the engagement)
- Break out meetings are held between workshops with smaller teams or individuals to draft specific aspects of the plan
- Updated drafts of the business plan and meeting notes are distributed between workshops for comments
- Final version of the business plan is drafted and delivered
- Optional: Quarterly reviews facilitated by TeamThink to assess progress
Success
TeamThink facilitated the development of a business plan for a start up social networking and ecommerce business as their original plan was outdated. The founders wanted to move the business forward in a more organized fashion and additional funds were required from angel investors. The new plan reflected the changing direction of the organization for internal planning purposes and was used to demonstrate to investors how the company planned to grow the business. TeamThink facilitated the team through a planning process and added value in several areas.
- Assisted the team to think more strategically
- Refocused the team on target markets that were more likely to buy their products
- Developed a financial model that was realistic and clarified operating budgets
- Developed milestones and action plans to keep the team focused on achieving progress