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Prior to beginning this Interactive Assignment, review the sections of Chapters 5, 8, and 9 in the Abraham’s textbook on Assessing the Company and Operational and Budget Planning. Also read the online articles Analyze Investments Quickly With Ratios (Links to an external site.) (Elmerraji, 2017) and What Is an Annualized Budget? (Links to an external site.) (Ashe-Edmunds, n.d.). 

Using the same publicly traded company you used in the Environmental Scanning Interactive Assignment, and the downloadable Operating Budget Template, research the company online by accessing the Mergent University of Arizona Global Campus Library online database which offers company financials, descriptions, history, property, subsidiaries, officers and directors. Also, access the Business Insights: Global University of Arizona Global CampusLibrary online database which offers information on global companies, and industries. It includes SWOT reports, market share data, financial reports, case studies, business news, and company comparison charts. (View the Getting Started With Mergent (Links to an external site.) and Business Insights: Global (Links to an external site.) documents for suggested methods of searching University of Arizona Global Campus Library databases generally as well as specific advice for searching these two databases). You can always conduct research using credible online sources of corporate financial information, just be sure that wherever you obtain financial information that you cite your source. 

For this Interactive Assignment, you are going to look at the financial statements for the company you selected and, using the previous quarter’s financial data, interpret the data and propose a budget for the next Quarter based on your current and previous analysis of company performance. Complete the budget template using this Operating Budget Template:

  • List your current sales, discounts and allowances, net sales, margins, operating costs, and earning before and after taxes.
  • Choose a minimum of two financial ratios (below) and include in your analysis.
  • Prepare the next quarter’s budget based on your interpretation of past data.

Include at least two of the following types of relevant financial ratios in your analysis. Review the online article Analyze Investments Quickly With Ratios (Links to an external site.) (Elmerraji, 2017) and Chapter 5 in the Abraham’s textbook to help with this portion of the budget:

  • Profitability Ratio
  • Liquidity Ratio
  • Solvency Ratio
  • Valuation Ratio
  • Leverage Ratio

(NOTE: Incorporate the feedback you receive from your instructor and peers and save your work. It will be part of your Strategic Plan Final Project for this course).

Initial Post: In your initial post, provide a brief description of your company and provide a summary of your Operating Budget along with a rationale that supports suggested budgetary changes. Attach your Operating Budget Template to your initial post for review by your instructor and your peers.

Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts in with an analysis of their operating budget and provide recommendations to extend their thinking using information from the week’s readings, or examples from current events and/or other scholarly or credible resources, using the Scholarly, Peer Reviewed, and other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table for guidance. Properly cite any references according to APA style as outlined in the University of Arizona Global Campus Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource. You are encouraged to post your required replies earlier in the week to promote more meaningful and interactive discourse in this discussion forum. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. (Mountain Time) on Day 7, and respond with robust dialogue to anyone who replies to your initial post.

Assessing the Company Itself

Learning Objectives

By the time you have completed this chapter, you should be able to do the following: • Understand what is involved in a thorough financial analysis of a company and how to make sense of the data.

• Perform an analysis of a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis). • Determine whether a company has a core competence and a competitive advantage. • Understand a company’s internal and external value chains. • Determine the customer-value proposition and how strong it is. • Understand the significance of brand reputation, how strong it is, and how to manage it.

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CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

Chapter Outline

5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

5.3 Core Competence and Competitive Advantage

5.4 Competitive Strength

5.5 Value-Chain Analysis

5.6 Brand Reputation, Equity, and Loyalty

5.7 Assessing Management and Leadership

Analyzing and assessing the internal environment of the company is a key part of the strategic- planning process. The recent financial performance and current financial condition is an obvious place to start using quantitative data with which to reach an objective conclusion. There are also more subjective measures including an examination of a company’s competitive strengths and weaknesses, its capabilities, and determining which, if any of them, might be core competencies that would give the company a competitive advantage. The value of a company’s brand and the effectiveness of its management are also taken into consideration.

5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition Any analysis of an organization usually begins with careful evaluation of its financial position. To assess the recent financial performance and current financial condition of the company, you need three to five years of historical financial data—income statements and balance sheets (see box on financial state- ments for generic templates)—including the most recent year for which complete data are available.

Financial statements: Generic templates

Income-statement Balance sheet Total revenues (sales) Assets Cost of goods sold (COGS) Cash & cash equivalents Operating income (gross profit) Accounts receivable (A/R) Selling expenses Inventory General & administrative (G&A) Other current assets Earnings before interest & taxes &

depreciation & amortization (EBITDA) Total current assets Total fixed assets

Depreciation & amortization Total assets Earnings before interest & taxes (EBIT) Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity Net interest expense Accounts payable Other expense (income) Accrued liabilities

CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

An annual income statement presents a financial picture of a company’s operations over the pre- vious 12 months. A balance sheet is a “snapshot” at a point in time (usually at the close of a company’s fiscal year) that presents a financial picture of its assets and the pro- portion in which those assets are financed through debt and equity. In a balance sheet, the total assets equal the total liabilities (debt) and stockholders’ equity—the two sides must “balance.”

A convenient way of analyzing sev- eral years’ worth of financial data is to create a spreadsheet and enter the data for each year in a different column (Tables 5.1 and 5.2). Doing so enables annual changes in line items and ratios to be computed. More specifi- cally, a thorough analysis of multiyear financial statements consists of the following elements (Bangs & Pellecchia, 1999):

• Computing all liquidity, activity, leverage, and profitability ratios for all years. • Computing year-to-year changes for all line items (in both the income statement and bal-

ance sheet) and all ratios for all years. • Computing average annual changes over all years for line items and financial ratios.

Net income before taxes (NIBT) Other current liabilities Income tax expense Total current liabilities Net income after taxes (NIAT) Long-term debt

Total liabilities Common stock Retained earnings Paid-in capital Other equity Total stockholders’ equity Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity

Each subtotal in bold is equal to the Each subtotal is the sum of elements above it. previous bold subtotal minus the Total assets = current assets + fixed assets items in between. For example, Total liabilities = current liabilities + L-T debt NIAT = NIBT – income tax expense. Total assets = total liabilities + stockholders’ equity

Igor Mazej/iStock/Thinkstock

To properly assess the financial state of a company, you need three to five years of historical financial data in the form of income statements and balance sheets.

CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

• Computing common-size income statements for all years (everything on the income statement expressed as a percent of revenues).

• Computing a Z- or Z2-score for each year (Calandro, 2007). This computation involves financial ratios (see box on Z- and Z2-scores).

• Forming a conclusion about how the company has been performing financially (from the income statements—revenue and NIAT performance) and about its current financial con- dition (from the balance sheets—financial structure, cash flow, degree of debt, liquidity), and its overall financial health (Z- or Z2-scores).

Table 5.1: Multiyear income statements for Netflix

In $ Thousands 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Subscriptions 35,894 74,255 150,818 270,410 500,611

Sales — 1,657 1,988 1,833 5,617

Total Revenues or Sales 35,894 75,912 152,806 272,243 506,228

Cost of Goods Sold 24,861 49,907 78,136 148,360 276,458

Operating Income 11,033 26,005 74,670 123,883 229,770

Operating Expenses 62,511 59,138 78,606 109,826 194,129

General & Administrative 6,990 4,658 6,737 9,585 16,287

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation & Amortization (EBITDA)

(58,468) (37,791) (10,673) 4,472 19,354

Depreciation and Amortization — — — — —

Earnings Before Interest & Taxes (EBIT) (58,468) (37,791) (10,673) 4,472 19,354

Interest and other income (1,645) (461) (1,697) (2,457) (2,592)

Interest and other expense 1,451 1,852 11,972 417 170

Net Income Before Taxes (NIBT) (58,274) (39,182) (20,948) 6,512 21,776

Provision for income taxes — — — — 181

Net Income After Taxes (NIAT) (58,274) (39,182) (20,948) 6,512 21,595

Source: Maddox, B., & Thompson, A. A., Jr. (2007). Netflix versus Blockbuster versus Video-on-Demand. A case in Thompson, A. A., Jr., Strickland III, A. J., & Gamble, J. E. (Eds.), Crafting and Executing Strategy: Concepts and Cases (15th ed.; pp. C-148 to C-161). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Table 5.2: Multiyear balance sheets for Netflix

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Assets

Cash & cash equivalents 14,895 16,131 59,814 89,894 174,461

Short-term investments — — 43,796 45,297 —

Other current assets — 3,421 3,465 3,755 12,885

Total Current Assets 14,895 19,552 107,075 138,946 187,346

CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

Net investment in DVD library — 3,633 9,972 22,238 42,158

Other fixed assets 37,593 18,445 13,483 14,828 22,289

Total Fixed Assets 37,593 22,078 23,455 37,066 64,447

Total Assets 52,488 41,630 130,530 176,012 251,793

Liabilities & Stockholders’ Equity

Liabilities

Current liabilities 16,550 26,208 40,426 63,019 94,910

Total Current Liabilities 16,550 26,208 40,426 63,019 94,910

Notes & sub notes payable 1,843 2,799 — — —

Other LT debt 107,362 103,127 748 285 600

Total Liabilities 125,755 132,134 41,174 63,304 95,510

Stockholders’ Equity

Red. conv. preferred stock 101,830 101,830 — — —

Other equity (175,097) (192,334) 89,356 112,708 156,283

Total Stockholders’ Equity (73,267) (90,504) 89,356 112,708 156,283

Total Liabilities & Stockholders’ Equity

52,488 41,630 130,530 176,012 251,793

Source: Maddox, B., & Thompson, A. A., Jr. (2007). Netflix versus Blockbuster versus Video-on-Demand. A case in Thompson, A. A., Jr., Strickland III, A. J., & Gamble, J. E. (Eds.), Crafting and Executing Strategy: Concepts and Cases (15th ed.; pp. C-148 to C-161). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Financial Ratios

Liquidity Ratios Current ratio (CR) = Current assets / current liabilities

(When this ratio > 1.0, working capital (current assets – current liabilities) is positive, which is desirable.)

Quick ratio (QR) = (Current assets – inventory) / current liabilities

Inventory-to-net-working-capital ratio (INV/NWC) = Inventory / (current assets – current liabilities)

Activity Ratios Inventory turnover (INV Turns) = Revenues / inventory

Total-asset turnover (TAT) = Revenues / total assets

Average collection period (ACP) (days) = Accounts receivable (A/R) / average daily sales or revenues/365

CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

Leverage Ratios Debt-to-equity ratio (D/E) = Total liabilities / total equity

(When this ratio > 2.0, debt is too high and needs to be reduced; when it is negative, debt is so high as to exceed the assets of the firm and cause stockholders’ equity to go negative, a serious problem.)

Debt-to-assets ratio (D/A) = Total liabilities / total assets

(When this ratio > 0.67, debt is too high and needs to be reduced; when > 1.0, debt is so high as to exceed the assets of the firm and cause stockholders’ equity to go negative indicating a serious problem. Either D/E or D/A ratio is used, not both.)

Times interest earned (TIE) or coverage ratio = EBIT / interest expense

(When this ratio < 1.0, the company doesn’t have enough money to pay the interest on the debt, a serious condition only experienced with very high debt.)

Profitability Ratios Net profit margin (NPM) or Net return on sales (NROS) = Net income after taxes (NIAT) / revenues

Return on equity (ROE) = NIAT / total stockholders’ equity

Return on assets (ROA) = NIAT / total assets

Two ratios reveal how productive assets are—TAT and ROA; when these are declining, increasing one’s assets is problematical. Cash flow is made up of operational, financial, and investing cash flows; when overall cash is increasing from year to year, cash flow is positive, otherwise it is negative.

Z- and Z2-Scores Z- and Z2-scores are bankruptcy predictors or indicators developed by Edward I. Altman, a profes- sor of finance at New York University. The Z-Score is based on data from manufacturing companies, while the Z2-score is based on data for nonmanufacturing companies. Each is a very important indicator of a company’s financial health or imminent bankruptcy.

Both indicators take the form of a regression equation:

Z-Score = 1.21X1 + 1.4X2 + 3.3X3 + 0.6X4 + 1.0X5

Z2-Score = 6.5X1 + 3.26X2 + 6.72X3 + 1.05X4

Where X1 = Net Working Capital / Total Assets

X2 = Retained Earnings / Total Assets

X3 = Earnings Before Interest & Taxes (EBIT) / Total Assets

X4 = Total Stockholders’ Equity / Total Liabilities

X5 = Sales / Total Assets

CHAPTER 5Section 5.1 Analysis of Financial Performance and Condition

Note that four of the financial ratios have total assets in the denominator and the other has total debt in the denominator. Thus, increasing assets through borrowing is not a good idea financially (unless performance improves), while one of the first things to do when a company is in financial trouble is to sell off some assets and use the proceeds to pay down debt. The final scores are com- pared to the following cutoffs to assess their significance:

Criteria Safe Region Gray Region Bankrupt Region

(Financially healthy) (In serious trouble)

Z-Score > 2.99 1.81 – 2.99 < 1.81

Z2-Score > 2.59 1.11 – 2.59 < 1.11

The last step in the analysis is the most important. What sense can be made of the numbers? What picture do they paint of the company’s performance over the past several years and current condition? You could draw any one of the following conclusions:

1. The company is very well managed, has been performing extremely well, and is in strong financial condition and overall financial health (all key indicators are good and none is bad).

2. The company is very well managed, has been performing extremely well, and is in strong financial condition and overall financial health except for one major bad thing, for example, having very high debt or declining total-asset turnover (a predominance of good indicators with one or possibly two bad ones).

3. The company turned in a mixed performance over this period and is neither perform- ing well nor in serious trouble. The results are, in fact, inconclusive (an equal or roughly equal number of good and bad indicators).

4. The company’s performance and financial condition is poor and key result indicators were declining steadily (or precipitously) over time; the company is or should be in seri- ous financial trouble except for one major good thing, such as increasing revenues (a predominance of bad indicators with one or possibly two good ones).

5. The company’s performance is poor, and key result indicators were declining steadily (or precipitously) over time; the company has not been managed well and is in seri- ous financial trouble (all indicators of performance and condition are bad and none is good).

After completing the financial analysis, only one of the preceding five conclusions is possible. Whichever one is selected, it must be supported with selected statistics that summarize the cur- rent financial performance, condition, and health of the company, or the conclusion isn’t valid. Because the principal ways for a company to finance any strategic initiative are through cash or debt (or in the case of a public company, stock), the financial analysis provides essential informa- tion to top management as to the company’s ability to fund a proposed strategy. As an example, an analysis of the financial data for Netflix presented in the multiyear income statement (Table 5.1) and multiyear balance sheets (Table 5.2) produces the conclusion summarized in the follow- ing section.

CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

Example of a Financial-Analysis Conclusion Based on the income statements and balance sheets to 2004, Netflix has performed very well financially, is in strong financial condition, and financially healthy.

In 2004:

• Revenues increased 86% (for the fourth straight year) • NIAT increased 231.6% (also for the fourth straight year) • Current ratio is 1.97 (good working capital) • D/E ratio is 0.61 (low debt, excellent financial leverage) • Cash flow is positive, and increased 94.1% to $174.46 million.

This conclusion is #1, where all the indicators are good and none are bad. When the conclusion is supported by data—particularly from the most recent year—it becomes hard to refute.

5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis Once a company has a firm understanding of where it stands financially, the next part of the internal assessment is conducting a SWOT analysis, which stands for a company’s strengths, weak- nesses, opportunities, and threats. To be sure, opportunities and threats are more appropriately part of an external analysis, but doing a SWOT analysis is so widespread as part of a strategic analysis that they are discussed together here for convenience. As was discussed in Section 3.2, the search for opportunities is an integral part of strategic thinking.

Strengths Strengths and weaknesses are the “internal” aspects of the traditional SWOT analysis. Whenever something—or someone—is reviewed or assessed, it makes sense to point out the good points or

Discussion Questions 1. What can you tell about a company’s operations from looking at the past few years of income

statements? 2. How much profit a company makes after all its expenses are deducted (NIAT) is shown on the

income statement. Yet, a company cannot “spend” the profits it makes—it can spend only cash, which is a balance-sheet item. How do you explain this?

3. In a balance sheet, total assets must equal or balance total liabilities + total stockholders’ equity. In what other ways is this principle of “balancing” useful?

4. In the newspapers, one often reads about companies that are “not managed well financially.” Given what you have learned in this section (and perhaps in a previous course on finance), what do you think this means?

5. The Z- and Z2-scores contain similar financial ratios as terms in their regression equations. From this, the two scores would go up with increasing working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, equity, and sales, and with decreasing assets and debt. However, all but EBIT and sales are balance-sheet items. Why do you think such bankruptcy indicators focus on balance-sheet items so heavily?

CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

what was done well, as well as the areas that need improvement. They are two sides of the same coin. This assessment is easy to do superficially, which is often the case, but difficult to do candidly and realistically. It is nearly always subjective, but less so if done by a group with multiple per- spectives, which is why companies sometimes hire outside consulting firms to help them analyze

their strengths and weaknesses. Regardless of who conducts it, the strength analysis should compare the firm to itself at some previous point in its history, perhaps 2–4 years ago, and determine what it is doing better and what has not improved.

It might also be useful to think of strengths as special capabilities or expertise. These are things a com- pany does well that have enabled it to be successful to this point, and how it has prepared itself to com- pete in the future. Comparing a company’s strengths against those of its competitors and identifying the industry’s critical success fac- tors (Section 4.1) also provides a useful assessment.

Typical strengths that companies have might include the following:

• Adequate financial resources to implement any likely strategy • Strong cash flow • Strong brand recognition • Effective differentiation • Effective advertising and promotion • Consistent high quality in products/services • Effective distribution • Economies of scale • Insulation from competition • Proprietary technology and patents • Low-cost leader • Product-innovation skills • Proven management • Visionary CEO, strong leader • Productive corporate culture that supports the strategy

The problem is that it can be easy to classify what a company does “well,” but what exactly con- stitutes a “strength”? The answer is subjective; it depends on how high a company’s internal standards are and how widely they are shared. For this reason, it should also compare strengths (and weaknesses) with its closest competitors. In assessing whether their company’s brand is a strength or a weakness, executives at Wendy’s must compare the brand to those of McDon- ald’s and Burger King. Similarly, the athletic apparel offered by Adidas must be compared to the

Sergiy Timashov/iStock/Thinkstock

Evaluating an organization’s strengths based on its competitors can provide a more accurate assessment of the organization.

CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

products offered by Nike. Because Wendy’s and Adidas are established and successful companies, it is tempting to consider Wendy’s and Adidas to possess strengths in terms of brand and apparel. These firms’ standing relative to their closest rivals, however, would suggest that these areas are in fact weaknesses.

Weaknesses Much like the strengths that a com- pany may possess, weaknesses are also internal. They include prob- lems that need to be corrected, deficiencies recognized through a comparison with competitors, or deficiencies relative to proposed strategies such as lacking the resources to grow. Whether or not what is identified is an actual weak- ness, it is the perception of a weak- ness that counts.

Some managers have no problem admitting to weaknesses when they are self-evident, while others find them hard to own up to in the belief that doing so casts them in a

bad light as an ineffective manager. Sometimes, if a company is having problems and the top man- agement team is meeting to discuss them, it is not unheard of for one department to find a way of blaming another department for the company’s problems. The production manager might blame human resources for inadequate training resulting in low quality. Marketing might complain that engineering and R&D failed to act on its good market intelligence to create new products. Or R&D could complain about a cut in its budget for something far less important. In all these examples, grappling with weaknesses is not about finding who is at fault or who is to blame. It is about gain- ing a realistic understanding of the company’s weaknesses so that steps can be taken to alleviate or correct them.

Weaknesses can take many forms, including the following:

• Obsolete facilities • Key skills and competences missing or obsolete • No core competence, hence no competitive advantage • Internal operating problems and inefficiencies • Too narrow a product line • Long cycle time to get product out • Poor marketing skills • A culture that hasn’t changed with the strategy • Weak or eroding brand image • Poor or negative cash flow from operations, including low or negative profits, resulting in

an inability to service debt or fund needed programs

Stockbyte/Thinkstock

When the top management of struggling companies meets, it is quite common for one department to blame the other for the company’s poor performance.

CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

Weaknesses become real when compared to other companies in the industry. For example, you might think your company has low costs and believe that to be a strength only to discover that your costs are among the highest in the industry. Suddenly, that supposed strength becomes a weakness. A new CEO participating in a SWOT analysis with his or her new management for the first time will have a different frame of reference and a different set of standards from the managers, so the CEO might have difficulty agreeing with them on what strengths and weak- nesses the company has. As noted previously, it is the perception that is important.

These illustrations show that when making any assess- ment, even a seemingly casual one like identifying a strength or weakness, you are using an implicit stan- dard or reference in making it. More experienced people will tend to be more critical because they may once have worked in organizations where they have observed things done better, thus raising their own standards. Again, the goal here is not to be “right” at the expense of someone else being “wrong.” Rather, it is to reach consensus on what is real and problem- atic so that it can be attended to and the firm’s future prospects improved.

Opportunities An analysis of strengths and weaknesses covers what is internal to the firm, but that is only half the story as it pertains to assessing a company’s potential success or failure. In order to stay competitive in an industry, one has to go looking for opportunities that would improve the company’s situation.

An opportunity has a specific technical definition; it is a product-market issue. It must include a product or service the firm offers, including the existing ones, and a defined customer group at which that product or service is targeted, including the existing ones. The following are examples of real opportunities (and concentration strategies):

• Staying with an existing product and existing market and penetrating the market further. • Improving the product for an existing market; that is, implementing a product-development

strategy. Examples include automobile companies producing new models annually, and software companies releasing upgraded versions of their software.

• Creating a new product for an existing market, which is also a product-development strat- egy. Examples include Nike offering athletic apparel in addition to athletic shoes for the same market, Microsoft creating application software for users of its Windows operating system, and Calvin Klein selling perfumes as well as clothes.

• Expanding the market for an existing product by implementing a market-development strategy such as promoting the product to appeal to young adults in addition to teenagers

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

When Ford Motor Company bought Jaguar, Ford’s company executives found multiple weaknesses and wondered how Jaguar had survived.

CHAPTER 5Section 5.2 Conducting a SWOT Analysis

or lowering the price so that more people can afford to buy the product. Facebook, for example, has gradually expanded its market from young people to people of all ages.

• Finding a new market for an existing product, which is another market-development strat- egy. Examples abound of companies going regional from being just local or a regional company going national or entering a new country, all without changing the product or service. For example, Indian automobile manufacturer Mahindra & Mahindra is planning to start selling pick-up trucks in the United States by 2016 (Hamprecht, 2011).

If a company goes to the trouble of identifying opportunities, it does so only when doing strategic planning, usually once a year. But why not institute and formalize an opportunity-finding mecha- nism that would operate all the time, generating ideas and proposals on a continuous basis? This is what is truly meant by “being opportunistic.”

Many companies have instituted new-product-development committees that are responsible for evaluating new-product proposals. For promising proposals, the committee asks for more infor- mation or requests a prototype demonstration. Proposals that indicate potential for commercial success are provided with necessary support and development. (Cooper, 1993). While such new products could form the basis for a future revenue stream, the probabilities for most companies are distressingly small.

By its very nature, the process can be likened to a funnel, where a large number of items are successively narrowed to a small number: only a few of the many ideas for new projects are researched further, even fewer are found to be feasible, fewer in turn are finally adopted, and fewer still achieve success. Indeed, many fields experience a similar, narrowing effect. Consider the example of the game of baseball. Each year more than 2 million youngsters worldwide play on Little League teams, many with dreams of one day making it to the “big leagues.” Players who actually reach the minor league level number a few thousand while the active rosters in Major League Baseball include only 750 players.

Contrast such a system to another where the number of ideas vastly increases, and sifting through them becomes a fulltime job for several people. Avenues for involvement include asking custom- ers for suggestions, reaching out beyond engineers to all company employees, and accepting ideas for improvement of all shapes and sizes—not just product innovation. In such an environment, a company can focus on opportunity-recognition, and rejuvenate its revenue model on an ongoing basis.

New technology, or more accurately newer technology brought to market faster, is a rich source of new opportunities. It is a risky business, however, especially when the pace of technological change is very fast. The key thing that separates the good opportunities from the bad ones is how well margins can be maintained over time or how well the resulting product can resist imitation or obsolescence over time. In a hypercompetitive industry, that is difficult to accomplish; companies should expect only temporary advantages at best (D’Aveni, 1995).

Change produces both threats and opportunities. Many companies, however, worry only about the threats and do not undertake systematic or frequent enough searches for …

,

Operational and Budget Planning

Learning Objectives

By the time you have completed this chapter, you should be able to do the following: • Understand the differences between operational and budget planning. • Learn what doing such planning entails and why it must be done. • Appreciate broader operational issues such as systems and systems thinking, information systems, building consensus, and the role of policies.

• Understand who is involved in operational planning and issues involved in getting it done before the start of the new fiscal year.

8

Fuse/Thinkstock

CHAPTER 8Section 8.1 Some Broad Operational Issues

Chapter Outline

8.1 Some Broad Operational Issues

8.2 Operational Planning

8.3 Budget Planning

8.4 Participation in Operational Planning

8.5 Getting It Done in Time

No strategy is useful unless it can be implemented, and no strategy can be implemented with any degree of success without doing operational and budget planning. This chapter explains how to do such planning, why it’s important, and other important process issues.

8.1 Some Broad Operational Issues Some aspects of operational planning are more encompassing than just planning programs, projects, and tasks for people to do. These include systems and systems thinking, manag

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