September 2007

Greetings, 
 
 
Fall is planning season, and our feature article provides seven tips as you embark on your business planning for 2008 (yes, it is not a day too early).  We also highlight our archive of articles and recommend a valuable book you should consider reading. Enjoy!
 
Sincerely,

Zuhair Suidan
Zuhair picture
Seven Tips for Your Business Planning
 

Labor Day, the official end of the summer season, marks an important milestone in the annual cycle.  Days get shorter in a hurry, temperatures start cooling, the summer harvest has already peaked, children head back to school and businesses focus on closing as many deals in the pipeline as possible before year-end.  It is also prime time to get your strategies tuned-up and operating plans developed so you'd be raring to go come next year.

Most companies have an annual business planning cycle.  While smaller organization can lump their strategic planning and operating plan development cycles into one, larger organizations tend to have a two-phase cycle - the first for determining their strategies and the second for documenting their operating plans.  This two phase cycle is intended to get agreement on the strategies to be deployed before developing the details of the operating plan for the following year. 

In a nutshell, strategic plans have a multi-year horizon and answer directional 'What' type questions (such as what markets should we serve, what is our desired position in these markets, what offerings should we produce, what business results should we strive to attain) while operating plans have a twelve month horizon and answer tactical 'How' type questions (such as how will we produce our offerings, how will we market them, how will we sell them, how will we service them, how much should we budget for each of these functions).  

ArticleBrowse Through Our Archive of Articles
 

We highlight an article we published a while back, 'What The Heck Does Marketing Do?'

 
An IBM Tivoli advertisement leads with "MISSION - Keep systems running, sales selling, accounting counting and marketing doing whatever it does". It's catchy; maybe even funny. But it makes you think - What the heck does marketing do?
 

Read full article
The Ultimate Question book coverThe Ultimate Question by Fred Reicheld
 

If you had to ask your customers just one question that would be the truest indicator of your future business success, what would that question be?  Fred Reicheld systematically builds the case that that question should be - Would you recommend us to a friend?

He starts by discrediting the bad habit of addiction to what he calls bad profits, profits that boost short term earnings but alienate customers (does the current Apple iPhone pricing brouhaha come to mind?), and along the way create Detractors - customers who spread bad news about the firm and switch to a competitor as soon as they can.

On the other end of the scale are customers who are extremely delighted with you and all you do, are most loyal and become enthusiastic Promoters of your firm.

Fred Reicheld holds that the difference between the percent of customers who are Promoters and those who are Detractors, what he calls the Net Promoter Score (NPS), is the truest signal of the future success of your firm.  While this premise appears intuitive, implementing it is not.  The measurement, tracking and management systems needed to institutionalize NPS require a lot of thought and senior management commitment.

Well written, full of examples, and charting a clear path to implementation, we strongly recommend this book.

The Ultimate Question at Amazon.com

About Suidan Associates
Suidan Associates helps firms achieve market success through strategic market management based on a thorough understanding of their markets, their competition and on leveraging their core competencies.  Our services are centered on two complementary approaches:
 
1. Consulting - focused on leading your team in the development of clear, distinctive and integrated strategic marketing plans that are bought-into throughout the organization, and
 
2. Skill building - designed to improve your team's strategic marketing skills, to establish a common market management language, to develop a strong understanding of the marketing planning process, and to apply that knowledge towards developing a strategic marketing plan for the business.
 
For more information, please call us at 203-972-6000, or visit our Web Site www.Suidan.com
This email was sent to zuhair@suidan.com, by zuhair@suidan.com
Suidan Associates | Suidan Associates | New Canaan | CT | 06840