Chapter 4

Develop a Common Planning Process and Information System

Plans are nothing, planning is everything.

—Dwight Eisenhower

Things should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

—Albert Einstein

APPARENTLY sophisticated marketing firms often lack a common planning process across their silo units. In too many cases, the silo units are able to use their homegrown planning process, and the results are predictably uneven and ad hoc. Even when a common planning process exists, it is often too open to interpretation and adaptation or is so convoluted, full of jargon, and confusing that it is ineffective or worse. There is often a lot of potential improvement available in the silo planning and strategy creation arenas. And it is a rare ...

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