The Art, Science, and Craft of Decision-Making
Consider this high-level introduction to Strategic Management and its applications. Outline or take notes as you read, and pay attention to the key points identified in each section. Consider the three-legged stool explanation 5 minutes into the Kryscynski video you just viewed, especially the summary. How do the three legs compare with this book's three main processes of strategic business management?
Marketing Plans
Budgets as managerial tools
The classic quantification of a marketing plan appears in the form of budgets. Because these are so rigorously quantified, they are particularly important. They should, thus, represent an unequivocal projection of actions and expected results. What is more, they should be capable of being monitored accurately; and, indeed, performance against budget is the main (regular) management review process.
The purpose of a marketing budget is, thus, to pull together all the revenues and costs involved in marketing into one comprehensive document. It is a managerial tool that balances what is needed to be spent against what can be afforded, and helps make choices about priorities. It is then used in monitoring performance in practice.
The marketing budget is usually the most powerful tool by which you
think through the relationship between desired results and available
means. Its starting point should be the marketing strategies and plans,
which have already been formulated in the
marketing plan itself; although, in practice, the two will run in
parallel and will interact. At the very least, the rigorous, highly
quantified, budgets may cause a rethink of some of the more optimistic
elements of the plans.