Here I go again!

It has been a long time since I wrote a business plan, sales plan, or marketing strategy.  But given the choice I guess I do like doing this.  Unfortunately it is a bit difficult when you don’t know enough about the company the division will integrate with.  There are many “assumptions” to make and those of you that know me know how I feel about that word “assume” and what it does to us all.

 Hopefully in this case that will not be the case.

 Here are some of the things I do know:

  1. I know what the target development is and what the ultimate conceptual goal of the division will be.
  2. The sectors available are broad, however, very defined within the current organization.  Thus these separate divisions will be utilized in the development of the new division.
  3. There are two organizations with prospective resources for the use of prospecting sources for the new division.  However, currently, only one source is definitely available.  Reliability/updated information within the database may be at question however.  The primary focus of the new division is different than the current primary focus of the organizations and thus actual key decision makers might not be in the current data set.

What I will need to know more about is below:

  1. Communications methods to generate new leads are already in place.  How will the other divisions be compensated in helping the growth of this new division to start with?
  2. I will need more information on current sales process to establish the required capabilities of the new division.
  3. What is in place to currently monitor or measure KPIs and report on them?  Is Microsoft Dynamics a viable option?
  4. How are the partners going to endorse the new comer to the division and reinforce help from the other divisions in the start of the growth period?
  5. Continual customer feedback (be it successful or unsuccessful) needs to be monitored and KPIs reported on.
  6. Continual improvements and changes will happen but what will be the KPIs for the changes in activities?
  7. What is the current competitor activity in the Metroplex region and how far does the organization want to reach beyond the Metroplex?
  8. What is the current customer numbers and from those numbers what is the profile, numbers, and mixture (financial, legal, entertainment, healthcare, etc.)?
  9. What are the current buying trends, needs, preferences and perceptions of the current customer base identified in step 8?
  10.  Define specific services, values and trends (by demographic)
  11. Demographically speaking what are the current trends for technology and staffing as it relates to the customer base identified in steps 8-10?
  12. What is the current pricing and values based on customer perception at this time and how is that based on the current business model?
  13. What are current competitor activities, strength, weaknesses, products, services, prices, sales methods etc.?  (Competitors such as Matrix, CompuPros, etc.)

Thoughts, comments, suggestions?  Anyone see anything “glaring” that I’m missing at this point?

I think I feel comfortable with knowing those are the things to tackle.  I also need to sample current projects to get a feel for the current bugeting numbers to create a proposed business plan off of in conjunction with the above information.  It is feasible that once these items are at least somewhat quantified a true sales projection, marketing plan, and business strategy can be properly formulated.  At this time however I can formulate based on current contracts, customer base, and current KPIs a basic plan.