04 Jul 2022
To assess the impact on businesses following the COVID pandemic, geo-political uncertainty, and now the war in Ukraine, Oliver Wight conducted a survey of senior executives in major organisations across the Asia Pacific region throughout May 2022. The results show that world events are seriously impairing the effectiveness of planning processes for many businesses.
More than 50 executives were asked six key questions relating to business planning and execution and responses reveal that organizations are struggling in particular, to manage their short-term planning and execution effectively. Difficulties in the supply of materials and forecast accuracy are impacting customer service, while high costs and problems in recruiting talent are exacerbating difficulties in the management of the business, and customer service is suffering, with nearly two thirds reporting on time customer delivery performance of below 90 per cent.
“The results are very insightful,” says Stuart Harman, Partner at Oliver Wight. “We found that many respondents identified shortcomings in their planning processes, however the results suggest that many are simply trying to deal with the problems rather than taking steps to address them, which is concerning.”
The report also reveals that only half of the respondents have a formal process for managing the short-term, with many relying on the talent of their people to manage day-to-day issues in a largely ad-hoc, informal and unstructured way. With the extreme challenges they are currently facing, allied to an absence of effective planning processes, businesses report a consistent lack of the right inventory and executives regularly being drawn into emergency and crisis meetings with a focus on the latest month’s figures.
Harman continues, “There is clearly a need for businesses to optimize their planning processes if they are to improve performance and break the vicious circle of prioritising short-term demands over effective long-term planning.” He states, “Introducing a formal short-term planning process like Integrated Tactical Planning (ITP) ensures the signed-off Integrated Business Planning plans are being deployed effectively at a weekly and daily level, which ultimately helps improve customer service, inventory levels and other key metrics Without a process like ITP, businesses will continue to struggle and executives dragged into solving issues in the here-and-now."
Respondents were offered a free copy of our new book on effective short-term planning and execution, ‘Integrated Tactical Planning’, plus the opportunity to win a place on one of our executive education courses.
The see the report, download it here.
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