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Introduction

The Business Planning Group's Approach to Management Consulting

Consultants of The Business Planning Group

Background to Business Planning

So, What is a Business Plan

The "One Day" Business Plan

Questions and Concerns

The Business Planning Group's Consulting Services

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Many organisations do not wish to embark on a full scale business planning process, particularly if this is their initial attempt at introducting a formal business plan into their operations.

• A fully developed business plan which develops, in addition to the Corporate Plan, detailed operational plans covering such functional areas as marketing, manufacturing, distribution, human resources and finance - each with the strategies to achieve the objectives that respond to the key issues developed, and the action plans, time frames and allocation of responsibilities - can take many weeks of elapsed time to prepare.
• As part of the development of such a comprehensive business plan the organisation needs to participate in a series of planning sessions, internal research and investigation needs to be completed, and the consultant must progressively develop drafts of each stage of the written-up business plan and obtain agreement from the relevant management of the organisation.

Some organisations rather seek an abbreviated business planning process which takes them down to what one might call the 'Corporate Plan' level - in which the principal corporate objectives of the organisation are set out, and strategies and action plans developed to achieve these objectives. This approach also reflects the difficulty that many smaller businesses have in being unable to commit their limited management resources to extensive planning sessions.

The 'One Day' business planning process has been developed by The Business Planning Group in response to this need. The 'One Day' aspect reflects the process whereby the management group of the organisation participates in an inter-active planning session - for just one day.

• During this intensive planning session we address each major element of the business planning process, using the BPG methodology, and draw out the organisation's views on the critical internal issues and external factors influencing the operation of the organisation and then develop them, in the inter-active session, into the outline structure of a business plan.

For the consultant, however, the whole process takes more than one day. For the inter-active session to be conducted efficiently, both in terms of allocation of time to each planning element and in achieving practical useful results there is a need for advance preparation, and after the one day inter-active planning session is completed the consultant must then write up the results into a comprehensive and structured corporate level business plan, and seek agreement from senior management.

• But the essential factor is achieved, viz: that the inter-active management - time-consuming aspects of the planning exercise have taken just one day.

The organisation can then go on, through later planning cycles, and develop specific functional plans for its marketing, manufacturing activities, etc.

The Business Planning Group employs extensive written methodology which it has developed over some fifteen years of business planning consultancy operations. This methodology is an essential factor in conducting a 'One Day' business planning process, since it provides a detailed structure to the planning process, it ensures that relevant issues in each stage of the planning process are apprpriately addressed, and that the ultimate deliverable [the agreed 'business plan'] is a properly structured document.

Additionally our extensive management experience, together with the knowledge, skills and background accumulated in many previous planning assignments, ensures that the inter-active session is not merely 'facilitated' but is subject to added value at each step of the planning process.