Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Business planning approach -Outside-In or Inside Out ?

I was in a teleconference last Saturday , where there where people, from three countries participating in the conference.

It was the prelude discussion, with my recent Business planning work on raising fund for building a telecom setup in Middle East . The execution of the plan would require huge amounts of funds to be there.

“ So, what do you think would be the components of the plan ? – a question thrown towards me.
And the discussion headed around the key issues, which a business plan could address.

However, they are different from the issues, which a Business plan should address.
A business plan could address the technology structure , architecture and implementation and marketing of the technology .

What a business plan should address, is the Business DNA (the core value proposition ) , the long term viability of that value proposition and expansion of that value proposition to different categories or management functionalities.. like Finance , Marketing , Talent Management , Operation , Business organization .

Can you understand the difference between , what a Business planner is perceived to do and what he really does.?

Infact , he is perceived to take a outside-in approach and cut and paste all details and organize them in a proper document structure.

In reality ,to make a successful business plan , the planner should understand the core thought of the Business – i.e .. what does the business stands for ? and then extend that understanding to diversified group of business functionalities and process, that the business will undertake.

And then only , the process of collecting information and oragnising them in a document structure could work very well.

Infact a good business plan is created by a combination of inside-out and outside-in approach .

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