Plan for Profitability!: How to Write a Strategic Business Plan

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Summary: Plan for Profitability!: How to Write a Strategic Business P
Review: Businesses have been through reengineering, consolidation, right sizing, and a host of methods to extract more dollars from their businesses. Unfortunately, most of these methods have been on the backs of the employees and have not made the businesses more competitive. Strategic business planning is a better solution than many of the methods that have been recently used in business and is a necessity in today�s competitive business environment. Through strategic business planning you can �plan for profitability� and be prepared for the competition and threats that may face your company. Plan for Profitability! is the only book of its kind that provides examples and step by step instructions on how to create a strategic business plan.

Mr. Lee E. Hargrave Jr. has distilled into the book the key elements in the creation of a strategic business plan. Many authors prepare short articles that focus only on theory and thought processes in an attempt to get you interested in using them as consultants. Mr. Hargrave is much more generous. He uses examples from strategic plans he has worked on and creates a fictitious company to step us through the entire process from start to finish.

Plan for Profitability! is the only book I found during my search of the available business literature, that steps you through examples that show you how to evaluate the competition and threats and also how to look for opportunities. It also shows you how the strategic business plan interfaces with the operational plan.

The following are some of the key concepts covered in the book:

a. The author firmly believes that with proper strategy you can plan for a business�s profitability.

b. A successful planner would have a broad educational background, working experience in a business enterprise, be able to reason in both the abstract and concrete, able to read financial statements, have strong communication and team skills, and be able to work in the shadow of the CEO.

c. Both the operational and strategic planning cycles have four sequential steps:

i. Identification of key issues;
ii. Guidelines for preparing the plan;
iii. Preparation of the plan;
iv. Review and approval.

d. There are 11 sequential steps to a strategic business plan: mission, market, competition, self-evaluation, opportunities and threats, objectives, strategies, programs, goals, resources and financials.

e. The credibility of the strategic plan rests squarely on the credibility of your market projects.

f. Market share is the single most important measure of a competitor�s position.

g. Projecting a company�s forward resource needs is probably the most tedious element in the preparation of the strategic plan.

h. The preparation of the financial statements marks the point in the preparation of the strategic plan where ambition and reality confront one another.

i. The company with the highest gross margin is likely to be the most profitable and the market share leader.

j. Unfavorable trends tend to continue unless positive action is taken to counter the trend.

The author of Plan for Profitability! uses a logical hierarchical outline to present his process of creating a strategic business plan. He uses bullets to make important points and a summary at the end of each chapter to reinforce the important information. The book uses numerous real life examples and a fictitious company to show the complete financial planning process. In the end there is short and concise business plan of the fictitious company. All the information is easy to follow and understand.

The author�s book treats the creation of a strategic business plan in a short, concise, and complete manner. This would be a great text for an MBA program on strategic planning, preparation of a business plan, or the reading of financial reports. The book could also be used as a guideline for creating your own strategic business plan. I could not locate anything that focused on the creation of a strategic business plan all the way from start to finish with a discussion of how to use financial statements.

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Summary: Excellent, excellent, excellent!
Review: Finally, here is a book that describes the strategic planning process in a clear and logical structure. It's about time. I've been doing strategic planning for 17 years and I am amazed at the lack of "how-to" information.

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Summary: The Bible on Strategic Business Plans
Review: I consider Mr. Hargrave's book, Plan for Profitability!, to be one of the most straightforward and instructional books on the subject of strategic business plans. I have reviewed and researched other books on the subject and they do not give a comparable depth and insight into the subject .
Mr. Hargrave's book is based on his practical experience that includes writing over one hundred business plans for large and small companies. His business plan experience started while working at General Electric, when, in the early 1970s, the concept of strategic business planning was initiated company-wide. His business planning experience has helped him in leading many business start-ups, acquisitions and divestitures during his career. Since 1991, Professor Hargrave has been the Principal of the Hargrave Consultancy, www.hargrave.com.
Mr. Hargrave presents the eleven elements of the strategic business plan. These elements are similar to what other writers present but these elements provide the information necessary to ensure a plan that is acceptable to potential investors. Mr. Hargrave presents the best details about `how' to put a strategic plan together, including several tools that he uses to help in the analysis process during the preparation of the plan. His Principle of Linkages is a very useful tool in organizing the process that leads to identifying and selecting the strategies, programs and goals for the company and its competitors.
The mission is the first element and the foundation upon which the other elements of the strategic plan are established. The final element of the strategic plan is to develop the financial projections. These projections use the data from the previous elements of the plan to quantify the company's revenue performance. Mr. Hargrave's explanation of the financial information is very easy to understand. This book is one that will be used for many years to come in my business endeavors.

Rating:
Summary: The Bible on Strategic Business Plans
Review: I consider Mr. Hargrave's book, Plan for Profitability!, to be one of the most straightforward and instructional books on the subject of strategic business plans. I have reviewed and researched other books on the subject and they do not give a comparable depth and insight into the subject .
Mr. Hargrave's book is based on his practical experience that includes writing over one hundred business plans for large and small companies. His business plan experience started while working at General Electric, when, in the early 1970s, the concept of strategic business planning was initiated company-wide. His business planning experience has helped him in leading many business start-ups, acquisitions and divestitures during his career. Since 1991, Professor Hargrave has been the Principal of the Hargrave Consultancy, www.hargrave.com.
Mr. Hargrave presents the eleven elements of the strategic business plan. These elements are similar to what other writers present but these elements provide the information necessary to ensure a plan that is acceptable to potential investors. Mr. Hargrave presents the best details about 'how' to put a strategic plan together, including several tools that he uses to help in the analysis process during the preparation of the plan. His Principle of Linkages is a very useful tool in organizing the process that leads to identifying and selecting the strategies, programs and goals for the company and its competitors.
The mission is the first element and the foundation upon which the other elements of the strategic plan are established. The final element of the strategic plan is to develop the financial projections. These projections use the data from the previous elements of the plan to quantify the company's revenue performance. Mr. Hargrave's explanation of the financial information is very easy to understand. This book is one that will be used for many years to come in my business endeavors.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for those who want a strategic plan that works!
Review: Mr Hargrave's book contains practical guidance to developing a sound, realistic and executable strategic business plan. Drawing from his wealth of business experience from working & leading various corporations and running his own consultancy practice, the book provides a detailed framework from which managers can follow to draw up their own plans. On top of that, explainations are given throughout the book on why certains steps are needful while others are superfluous, what key issues to consider and what pitfalls to avoid in formulating the plan. Three words that describe the content of the book will have to be: impactful, illuminating and practical. A must-read for managers and aspiring MBAs in strategic management. A second edition to bring in the role of IT in strategic planning would be great!

Rating:
Summary: A must-read for those who want a strategic plan that works!
Review: Mr Hargrave's book contains practical guidance to developing a sound, realistic and executable strategic business plan. Drawing from his wealth of business experience from working & leading various corporations and running his own consultancy practice, the book provides a detailed framework from which managers can follow to draw up their own plans. On top of that, explainations are given throughout the book on why certains steps are needful while others are superfluous, what key issues to consider and what pitfalls to avoid in formulating the plan. Three words that describe the content of the book will have to be: impactful, illuminating and practical. A must-read for managers and aspiring MBAs in strategic management. A second edition to bring in the role of IT in strategic planning would be great!

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Summary: The best book I've found on strategic planning
Review: This "No Nonsense" book is an essential guide into the world of strategy. Lee Hargrave own experiences on the subject guides us step by step through this complex field with a smattering of its history combined with the essential theory behind strategy. Ultimately he shows us how it all plugs together in the business environment of today, combined with his use of "real" examples and scenarios make his book all the easier to relate to. A truly profitable read.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: This book provides an excellent approach to strategic planning. It translates well-known theories to their practical applications. This is a good book for MBA students and strategic planners.

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Summary: Strategic Business Planning in the Real World
Review: Unlike other strategic planning books I have read, which are mostly theoretical, "Plan for Profitability!" establishes its credibility early because the author clearly documents that the information and methods presented are gleaned primarily from his own professional experience - from actual strategic plans he has produced. Mr. Hargrave guides the reader through the logical thought processes required by planners to develop business strategies, and provides ample shortcuts to quickly resolve some of the stickier decisions. I found the book to be well organized and thorough, replete with charts, tables, and formulae to support the conclusions offered.

The use of the semi-fictitious company, International Microwidgets, to apply and illustrate each section of the strategic plan, was both instructive and motivating. I looked forward to each chapter to see how the company would solve its mounting market share and production-cost problems. I also liked reading Hargrave's Law: "[A]n unfavorable trend will continue unabated unless positive action is taken to stop it and ... positive action is also required to sustain a favorable trend." (p.217)

My first thought was, "Wow, a business principle taken directly from the Laws of Physics!" In Physics, however, you would assume that favorable and unfavorable trends are similarly "lubricated." Based on Hargrave's Law, we find that, in business, unfavorable trends are well-lubricated while favorable trends suffer from high friction. This accurately parallels media and marketing forces, too, wherein negative issues are heralded as "news" while positive information is virtually ignored.

In my opinion, only one area of the book's content needed some "upgrading" to fit the late-90s and beyond (especially since it was published in 1999). Since the majority of the materials used for the book were from experiences in the 1970s and 80s, decades that placed little emphasis on the "strategic" value of Information Technology (I.T.), the inclusion of I.T. as more than a part of "Central Services" would have been appropriate. Nowadays, a corporation's business vision and its I.T. vision must be in alignment, which often results in an I.T. department becoming a "profit center" rather than a "cost center." Hey, what can I say - I'm an I.T. guy who has been frustrated more than once by a singular lack of coordination between I.T. "realities" and corporate strategies.

Despite this minor, time-based nit-pick, I believe that I will get good mileage from "Plan for Profitability!" as I assist my client's firm with its first strategic business plan.

Finally, should the author be compelled to reprint this book (a good thing), he should consider a more professional publisher. By no fault of Mr. Hargrave's, I found the production and editing values of the book to be substandard, including over 15 typographical errors, crooked pages, ink that smeared when highlighted, and a weak binding, allowing pages to separate from the book.