Truck Parts and Service | Heavy Duty Trucking, Aftermarket, Service Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/772191
14 Cover Story "We look at what will get us to that point in the future." Known as short-term planning, this strategy allows a company to look at its operation in the present and develop strategies to improve into the future. According to business planning software LivePlan, creating a short- term business plan to reach goals is not without challenges. The company cites employee attitudes and equipment as two viable short-term concerns. To address these issues, LivePlan advises putting in place short-term solutions to address problems. Employee training courses, equipment servicing and quality fi xes are short-term solu- tions. These solutions set the stage for addressing problems more comprehen- sively in the longer term, the company says. Medium-term planning applies more permanent solutions to short-term problems. In the long term, companies want to solve problems permanently and reach their overall targets, LivePlan says. No matter the length, effective busi- ness planning is critical to a company's long-term success, and its ability to raise capital and grow successfully. A properly prepared business plan should tell a company's story, make an argument and conservatively predict the future. Since all companies have different stories to tell, there is no hard "set in stone" plan to follow, says Azhar Kozami in the book "Business Policy and Strate- gic Management." Every business must choose what's best for its own individual needs. A well-written business plan also should lay out an optimal growth path and strategy, as well as the rationale for selecting one strategy over other alternatives. LivePlan says growing a business requires setting short- and long-term goals. Often the short-term goals are the steps necessary to achieve the longer- term goals, and LivePlan says busi- nesses should choose related areas such as advertising and revenue, and base short- and long-term goals within these categories. An example of a short-term goal is to increase your advertising budget each month for the next three months. An example of a long-term business goal that the short-term goal helps achieve is to double business revenue by the end of the fi scal year. Short-term goals are goals a business sets out to accomplish in six months or less, and typically are fl exible. "When you look at things at six- month increments, you get a better idea of what's really taking place," Settles says. When it comes to achieving short- term goals, a good place to start is deter- mining what you can do in the time you have available. For example, suppose an aftermarket distributor's long-term goal is to double its customer base. To do so, it creates a plan that involves a series of short-term objectives. The company then moves from one short-term objective to the next, knowing that each completed ob- jective brings it closer to its overall goal. That may require developing adver- tising plans, customer service goals or cost cutting measures. There are many variables to look at when deciding the best options for a short-term goal. "Our fi scal year starts on July 1, so I spend the previous couple of months planning for that," Settles says. "In De- cember we look at the numbers com- pared to what we projected in July and see if it's real. We talk with our managers and see what's what, what's realistic, and start from there." Weldon Parts must do that when considering plans to roll out across its 18 locations. "We have to look at it by region and then down to the specifi c stores when we T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | J a n u a r y 2 0 1 7 When you look at things at six-month increments, you get a better idea of what's really taking place.BBB – Dave Settles, president of Weldon Parts