A formal meeting is conducted between the Board of directors and the major stake holders for discussions and inputs are taken from them. A process is formulated to take confidence of every employee and the management in the discussion and then Mission statement is agreed upon. By involving everyone in the discussions, the stakeholders will have faith in the planning process. As the strategic planning process is not done at lower level, it’s for the whole organisation so everyone should be taken in confidence.
Setting corporate objective The senior management and the major shareholders are involved in setting up a measurable target, which is done after taking in confidence of every stakeholder involved. The board of directors is more focused on the quantitative figures. They want to see the targets and these targets can only be made achievable only if all the stakeholders are involved. The marketing audit The marketing audit is conducted by either the internal marketing team or the external consultants. They audit both the internal environment and the external environment of the organisation by using various tools and techniques like PESTEL, Porter’s five forces, value chain, Ansoff model, BCG,PLC, etc. All the information and data (finance, sales, market share, infrastructure, etc) related with the organisation is analyzed and evaluated.
Internal and external environment both need to be audited. As both these factors have direct influence on the organisations growth prospects. By considering the previous record of information a realistic auditing can be performed. SWOT analyses At this stage, the data collected in the external and the internal audit is analyzed by the marketing planning team and based on the studies, the strength, weakness, opportunities and threats are analyzed. Only by considering the internal and the external audits, a true SWOT analyses can be achieved.
Assumptions Every factor which is not under control should be studied and mentioned in the plan, which can affect the planning strategies. It could be both internal as well as external factors of the organisation. Marketing objectives and strategies Marketing team should make proper presentations and plans to educate the stakeholders involved in the change. Opinions should be taken from every stakeholder. A good marketing strategy should be considered to convince the major stake holders about the strategic planning and its objective.
If the stakeholders are not satisfied with the objectives and the strategies then, the plan can never move ahead. They need to be taken in confidence should be well explained about the profits and advantages involved in taking up the planned strategy Estimate expected results The finance team should be involved with the marketing planning team along with the sales team to formulate the estimation of the expected results. Finance and sales team has expertise and experience, moreover they are in best position to calculate the estimated results as they are directly related with the business and they have better judgments.
Identify alternative plans By doing thorough study of the internal and external environment, and by analysing the past data of the industry and the results achieved and also by taking feedbacks from the stakeholders. By analysing the past data and the trends, it becomes easier to identify and prepare for the alternative plans. The budget The finance team studies the full strategic planning and then gets the data on the expected finance involved at various stages from different teams involved. Then finance team prepares approximate financial budget.
The financial aspects are handled by the finance team and they know better the expenses involved in the planning process. First year detailed implementation programme All the departments involved in the strategic planning process should be discussed with. The head of departments should be agree on the decisions taken by the planning team and then a written document should be prepared. Various departments are involved in taking forward the strategic planning process ahead. So while making a implementation plan, their inputs are required as they are the one who will actually be implementing the planning programme.
3. The External Marketing Environment and the Marketing Audit A marketing audit is a structured review of organisation’s current marketing activities. It is a fundamental part of the marketing planning process. Marketing audit enables oragnisations to anlayse its current performance as well as past performance which helps the organisation to identify the next steps forward. As the business environment is constantly changing, the marketing audit should be used as a reference tool, with constant updates reflecting changes in the external environment and organisation’s own internal business experiences.
Philip Kotler defined marketing audit as a comprehensive, systematic, independent and periodic examination of activities and resources in order to find problem areas and opportunities and to recommend a plan of action. Marketing audit can help organisation to refine its business processes and improve its productivity and profitability. Marketing audit has been broadly categorized into internal audit and External Audit. There are various tools and methods available to carry out these audits.
