Integrated business planning (IBP) remains largely misunderstood. It is often viewed through the lens of functional process improvement or promoted as an information technology implementation.
IBP is a holistic approach that brings together sales, marketing, finance, supply chain and IT to collaborate and make informed decisions. IBP projects operating plans over a rolling 24-month horizon and each month focuses on changes from the previous period, fostering an environment that allows senior management to hold functional teams accountable for performance and resulting in superior business results. Senior enterprise executives must buy into the IBP process and drive it.
IBP shifts the enterprise planning mindset away from static goals and unchanging numbers towards thinking about business planning in dynamic terms. IBP also addresses the uncertainty in the business environment.
The main advantage of IBP is that it connects company functions and executive teams that are often isolated from one another. Companies often have siloed organizational processes that produce multiple plans in different departments, which may work counterproductively to each other and to enterprise planning more broadly. The multiplicity of plans and processes can have a negative impact on business performance and breed distrust among departments. IBP seeks to coordinate efforts among organizational functions to create a unified planning process that produces results that all can trust.
IBP is a dynamic process supported by scenario planning — which seeks to focus on a range of potential conditions and outcomes, promoting flexibility and resilience. Information technology has its place in implementing IBP as an enabling system. Oliver Wight often implements dashboards — proprietary tools that reflect changes in the company performance over time — so executives have information at their fingertips about strategic gaps to drive action. Case in point, Oliver Wight developed Ollie Accelerator, a new cloud-based technology platform that uses digital dashboard visualizations to operationalize business strategy. Results matter — and that’s what Oliver Wight focuses on. Oliver Wight consultants get IBP up and running quickly — to deliver results swiftly.
Learn more about IBP in A Holistic Approach to Business Planning.
