Organizations have problems when senior business executives are involved in troubleshooting everyday issues. Even if a company engages in strategic planning processes like Integrated Business Planning (IBP), it won’t get the expected results without proper execution at lower levels. 

Strategic thinking and planning benefit from formalized processes — and so does shorter-term execution. Integrated Tactical Planning (ITP) formalizes weekly and daily execution processes to align short-term corporate activities with long-term goals and empowers middle management to make the tactical, ground-level decisions in the areas in which they enjoy expertise. ITP provides a framework for cross-functional teams to manage near-term changes to plans inside the current quarter.

The concept of the “time fence” is one way ITP focuses the attention of middle-management decision makers and reduces the chaos that can prevail in day-to-day decision making. The time fence refers to the point when expenditures on variable and semi-variable expenses begins, in the effort to meet future demand commitments. Short-term decisions are made with reference to that critical time constraint. ITP re-aligns and re-optimizes core process plans across the product, demand, supply, and finance teams. Review and re-planning are done weekly, typically over a 13-week horizon to ensure the success of the long-term strategy. Tactical planning helps teams solve problems quickly to keep the strategic plan on course. Instead of reacting to unexpected anomalies, the tactical planning process is proactive, identifying potential crises and adjusting plans according to new information. 

ITP experts have first-hand experience optimally re-aligning near-term plans. With the help of such specialists, ITP can be stood up in weeks and operationalized within a month. They offer advice, coaching, and mentoring to companies on how to use ITP to quickly resolve problems and to achieve proven results. What sort of results? Read on to find out.