Corporate Planning Process
Project Schedule
In theory, the best schedule for a corporate wide planning process is for
all businesses to immediately develop a sound business strategy.
The "let's do one corporate business at a time" approach is not
necessarily a safer alternative. In fact, it's often the first sign of
failure. Another weak alternative sometimes used is the "let's test the
process to see if it works here" approach. The problem with testing only
one, two or three corporate businesses is that nobody is really going to
objectively test anything. The few chosen managers will base their findings on
their political and personal preferences and whether or not they are up to the
task.
The minimum requirement, however, is that the process begins with the
official list of strategically relevant corporate businesses. The rest is
negotiable. Although there are theoretical and practical reasons why it is
better to develop SBU strategies for all businesses at once, there is no
theoretical reason why a company can't plan one business at a time.
In practice, the dynamics of all SBUs planning at the same time greatly
facilitates corporate and horizontal unit planning, as well as encourages
cross-business teamwork.
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