Westernacher

Strategic Planning

Companies recognize the need to create and execute a globally transparent, collaborative plan, enabling them to be proactive in strategy setting and execution, as well as having keener insight into business operations.

Organizations everywhere are quickly discovering that simply measuring and reporting is not enough to remain competitive. The success of a company lies in its ability to maintain a clear visibility of the future. However, creating the data transparency and analysis models necessary to support strategic decisions poses one of the most formidable challenges for managers today.

Implementing enterprise-wide strategic planning enables optimization of specific functional areas as well as coordination between functions. A well-designed decision support system can be the central channel through which the corporate strategy is communicated and through which the implementation of strategic goals is ensured.

However, decision making and planning in most boardrooms of even the largest multinationals are often based on unreliable numbers. There is a certain amount of ambiguity associated with future events which is an inherent part of strategic planning. Nonetheless, a great deal of uncertainty can be alleviated, as it stems from a lack of transparency and accuracy in data, on which the assumptions and rationale of strategic plans are often based. Strategic planning must be based on sound data, which is diligently assembled and tested; and used coherently across the enterprise, particularly in cases where many geographies and business units are impacted.

How Westernacher Can Help

At Westernacher, we are aware that today’s dynamic business environment calls for precise business planning and accurate forecasting. The need of the hour is managing performance across the enterprise. Analyzing past performance and planning improvements are the crucial elements in the process. Westernacher brings structure and clarity to these tasks by subjecting these processes to the same high level of discipline that one would apply to other areas of the business.  We enable creative minds to build their ideas on rigorous analytical foundations by implementing the following three components:

• Current State Analysis

In most cases, companies cannot derive and plan new strategies effectively without having superior insight into the current state of the business. Information technology in most companies nowadays has become sophisticated and powerful, but it continues to fail in providing the top management with market research data overviews and a globally consolidated current state, which allow for drill-down. On an ongoing basis, Westernacher builds the capabilities and the systems needed to provide just that. This does not result in a one time study, which ends up in a binder on a shelf, but in the form of continuously updated reporting systems.

• Centralized Planning Repository

This repository constitutes a structured and centralized way of storing all quantitative and qualitative information regarding strategic plans. Trivial though it may seem, lack of transparency and central access to a common knowledge base used for strategic planning is actually one of the key avoidable causes of wrong strategic decisions.

• Strategy Impact Analysis

This is a systematic way of analyzing and presenting the impact of strategic plans on the key performance indicators that drive the future performance of the company. This component is based on a balanced score card model of the company’s value drivers.

Why Westernacher?

Our particular know-how is in the design and implementation of solutions on the basis of SAP ERP and BW platforms.

Using a best practice approach we can assist you to implement:

• Integrated Design of your planning and strategy communication processes
• Budget Planning and Control following the Advanced Budgeting Philosophy
• Product-oriented Process Cost and Profitability Analysis
• End-to-end Design of process chains (e.g. New Product Development, Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash)

Our special focus is on effective Change Management attuned to the special needs of your company. It is very well known in business that change is the only constant. In order to retain competitiveness, you must be able to turn ideas into action quickly, decisively, and with confidence.

We help you transform your strategy into an adaptive plan of action by creating driver-based forecasts, uniting financial and business planning, converting corporate goals into clearly communicated objectives, and ensuring regular, company-wide participation in your scheduling and planning cycles.

Benefits of our Strategic & Business Planning solutions:

• Common data platform & transparency of decision support information for strategic planning throughout the enterprise
  
• Central control of access to the strategic planning data as well as version control
  
• Full and consistent global integration of up-to-date operational information from both the logistical and the financial business functions into the planning process
  
• Pre-designed industry specific planning processes and tools
  
• Clear-cut Change Management roadmap to get the organization from the current state to the end-state vision