Reality Strikes - 2010 Strategic Planning in Uncertain Times

INDIANAPOLIS – Incomprehensible Excel spreadsheets. New government regulations (real or potential). Sleepless nights.

For thousands of companies, August and September traditionally represent a critical time when conflict resolution skills come to fore. Business planning departments send out performance files with 2009 budgetary data and ask executives, directors and managers to come up with some kind of meaningful 2010 forecast and operational goals.

Given limited financial resources and a conservative outlook at best for 2010, interdepartmental quarrels can break into open corporate warfare.

For many – and particularly in a time where the Fed is making vague comments about how they think the economy is “stabilizing” – strategic planning and budgeting can be a nightmare. As one executive told me recently in an expression of dark humor: “Which would I prefer: planning for post-recession growth with no money or getting a root canal? That’s a tough choice.”

With a trimmed-down work force, weak customer demand and anxiety about new government regulation resulting in additional costs, strategists can’t just trot out their 2009 spreadsheets, overlay a 5 percent multiplier and send them back to the accounting department. What’s the new reality? Documented performance.

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