[#BusinessManagement] #Startup, #Authorization, #Budgeting,
#Forecasting, #InternalControl, #Project, #Change, #Integration (3/5)
4.
According to
3., what information does the Business Analysis (BA) provide for the [Business Review
Meeting] (BRM)?! (suggestions including 4 charts: Achievement and Trend Report,
Cash Flow Control Chart and Sales Analysis, [Early Warning, Opportunity and
Action Progress Summary])
BRM needs to use BA, therefore, the
content of BRM = BA + [other discussion].
Do you agree?!
In BA field, please also refer to articles in Key WorkPerformance Index, and Somethingabout Business Management; as for [other discussion], please your
companies answer some questions before my further explanation:
(1) In meetings in your companies similar
to BRM, regardless of the
form of meetings or works atmosphere, do
all the meeting participants think those meetings are important?! My
answer is: it depends on who are those participants (or, who are assigned to
attend those meetings), or, we can know whether people take meetings seriously
by the work titles or work levels of people doing the work presentation; do you
agree?!
I think BRM is very important, it is a
meeting that all the top management team members come together discussing operating
work results and action plans. What’s your idea?! In your companies, who are
those meetings attendees?!
(2) Are those BRMs in your companies
effective?! What will happen if you cancel
those BRMs?! Or, nothing big will
happen?!
My suggestion is, before meetings are
held, make sure your expected outcome will be fulfilled in the meetings.
(3) In above(1) and (2), regarding the
reviewing, it is to review normal
things or something not normal?! Or, everything needs to be reviewed?! So,
everyone needs to attend the meetings or only abnormal events related work
departments need to attend the meeting?!
Above 3 issues are for your considering
those reports in your BRM or information sharing or the way you review our [work efficiency] and [work
effectiveness](these are two elements of [internal control]); there are
some situation you would agree: BRM is held weekly or monthly, it may need to
invest time and people efforts in it, however, 90% of the work contribution is
invested before meeting in [input information in reports] + discussing
solutions in meetings. If these situations exist in your companies, please
consider: are purposes of contents of those [reports] required?! What will happen if those information
won’t be provided?! [Discussing work solutions in meetings], especially
those involving in cross- departments or multiple subsidiaries related issues…is
it possible to hold related discussion before these meeting?! Please refer to
below suggestions for your considering required meetings adjustments:
-
Although, there are always written reports, it is better
to allocate and use time in discussing about something [abnormal], [new], [significant]
and [policies].
-
In normal situation, if things are progressing on time (e.g.:
products designing), there is no need to report orally/a written report is
enough, to hold a meeting for its discussion when time is sufficient.
-
To hold a pre-meeting is required sometimes (in any form,
oral discussions between two people also count).
What’s your idea?!
And, yes, accordingly, in this section,
it shares things should be discussed in BRM, including those BA and please
modify the content in BA according to your management environment and adjust
reporting frequency and the content of the reports; in BRM here, it is to
report to CEO; and all the department heads report their operating work results
to their CEO and doing related discussion in BRM, after that, the CEO(in
document or in actual meeting) must report to Chairman or the Board of
Directors about their monthly
work result; about BRM content, please click and see below Business Review Meeting agenda( BRM agenda) and its related work forms:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UUmxpEIbxHNJ_nzoIIYkIfezcps9wpex/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=110707784186047219702&rtpof=true&sd=true
(1) Before BRM, above mentioned the content
of Budget or Operating Plan (such as: 5W1H or action plan defined by fish-bone
diagram) have already been allocated
the works based on [work roles and responsibilities of all departments],
so, in BRM agenda, the reporting sequence is arranged by [department].
(2) Tabs in BRM agenda file: [2025/04] Business Review Meeting agenda,
information input in [Item] is defined by the things related work department
would like to report, thus, please revise the content in each line under the [Item] for your meeting; in all the
departments, the [a work scope controlling person = defined in the perspective
of a project manager], this person controls work progress of all related works
within the work scope, and, [this work scope controlling person and work doer]
is not necessary work in the same department; just take [Market Dynamic] as an example, the nature of market
dynamic belongs to [Marketing Department] professional work scope, the
responsible person is [Chief Marketing Officer], however, current month
[Presentation] is by Legal Department because they want to update its
government newly announced regulation of its business industry.
Usually, companies who have divided [Marketing] and [Sales] into two
work departments have found there are also something duplicated in description
or in actual works between these two work departments’ work roles and responsibilities,
e.g.: to report the competitors’ situation; in order to avoid any duplicated work causing information omission on the
contrary or things not be reported, I suggest the companies contribute
time and efforts in ensuring the completeness of information gathered, if there
is duplicated works, it may be more easier and quick to communicate orally
about its related work allocation.
(3) I suggest [Human Resources] department
report be placed at the front
of the meeting agenda, it is mainly because personnel changes will affect
meeting participants and speakers changes.
Human Resources related reporting
items, please also refer to below articles:
- How to know Group HQ HR policies have been followed byall the subsidiaries globally?
- [#DressCode] What’s your style today?
-
[Know the #Purpose first] Dealing with employees’
complaining others
(4) In [Finance Performance] Report, I
define the BPA Manager(=BPA person) is the report and coordination work
responsible person of Finance Department, besides reporting the variance
between accounting closing actual number and budget amount, if there is
something not usual (e.g.: overdue accounts receivables), then, the responsible
report person should be of [Sales Department]:
-Finance Performance Report and BPA; in overall situation, it is BPA
person to ensure the amount
alignment among all actual number, budget and forecast of all the work
departments. For example: Sales actual amount, Sales budget amount and Sales
forecast amount, these 3 information in Accounting Department, BPA and Sales
Department should be the same.
-Achievement and Trend Report, this is a summary chart, it includes
actual operating work result, budget number and to analyze those number for
doing forecast related amount; it must point out the amount of possible operating risks and opportunities, and,
propose response plans, these risks and opportunities are possible the major reasons for full year
financial reforecasting. The amount and explanation in the statement
come from related involved work departments or subsidiaries. However,
[To share my point of view, in internal
control, this idea may differ from your Groups’ idea or the ways you’re doing
things]:
i. Regardless HQ or subsidiaries, after
Accounting monthly closing, BPA person can do the analysis work of actual and
budget number overall comparison and raise questions of fundamental level (gross margin, the variance and actual
amount and budget number, ratios…etc.).
Reason: BPA person has attended budgeting
meetings and they have kept related documents and contents on hand.
ii. In Budget,
the achieving rate of income amount, or, the possibilities of winning bid of
engineering categories, rate of success of obtaining sales contracts…etc.,
there is only Yes or No, 0% or 100%, no middle value of it.
Reason: The
middle value only exists in [work progress] 0%、30%...95%、100%; regarding achieving rate, there is
only can achieve or not, 0% (cannot) or 100%(can). If it is not 100%, please be
advised to ask your Sales Department/subsidiaries to raise request as [what do
you need to get the achieving rate as 100%].
Usually, in an
aggressive business work culture, [before] the Accounting closing, their Sales
Department/subsidiaries would have already requested for resources or
discussion in order to ensure their achieving the sales targets.👈 What is the
business work culture of your companies?!
iii. [Gross margin total amount target] or [Single item margin rate target]👈 Which kind of target your company is controlling every month?
In companies of multiples categories
products, I suggest it is [Gross margin total amount target], because you can
utilize tie-in sales among your various kinds of products according to
seasons/adjust sales price per customers’ preference by locations and
inventories transferring+ reducing required time cost and work hours of work
approval for sales price adjustment; to control overall sales amount increase
rather than controlling margin rate, it is possible to drive overall margin
amount increase.
Please your companies discuss this issue.
iv. In your companies, every month, the
Accounting or BPA would prepare
[inventory turnover rate] report, and before closing, Accounting will also
receive inventories (material) purchasing payment request documents. Regarding slow
–moving inventories items, if the payment requester department, because of any
reason, repurchase those inventories and request for payment again, is there
any work [mechanism] of Accounting can find out this kind of situation, or,
does Accounting have the [work rights and responsibilities] of must reject the payment request?!
It is a real case that the slow-moving
inventories were repurchased /paid due to these kinds of companies less control
mechanism, they were fraud. How do your companies prevent from it?!
v. In products development R&D work
progress, it is managed by R&D department itself, some of the work progress
will reflect on R&D expense payment request or spending work progress.
In all the payment work procedures in
companies, before cashier or Treasury Department paying the money, Accounting
Department will review the request documents. Hence:
Regarding the consistency of companies’ R&D [work progress], expense [amount] and the [content] of expense, is it possible [Accounting Department] doing the 2nd time verification works (checks and balances and/with R&D)?! The purpose is to push, control budget, and avoid duplicated and not necessary expense.👈 Please consider this concern by the size of the R&D expense in your companies.
-
Balance Sheet Accounts Work Progress. It is very important to follow up
Balance Sheet Accounts Work Progress (in this file, I’ve shared my point of
view, you will know the [importance] and the reasons), however, it is usually
not been discussed in business review meeting by high -level managers, it is
communicated by accountants with each responsible persons and track the work
progress…it causes accountants’ work burden; are your companies in the same
situation?! This is weird. I suggest you consider overall situation in your
companies and make decision with caution about whether you need to define this
item as a significant thing in your meeting discussion.
-
Cash Flow Control Chart (including:[Cash
Flow Chart] working paper; regarding cash flow preparation or how to read it,
please consult to your external accountant or related work professionals). The functions of [Cash Flow Control Chart] includes [tracking
work progress of revenue realization], [a reminder of not to use Received In Advance, and, to push goods delivery or providing
the service in order to make Advance becomes Revenue, then the companies can
use those received money], [to forecast required time needs to invest for Fund Management].
(5) 7P Sales Analysis and Action. 7P is a kind of Marketing professional knowledge, I’m not its inventor; I intentionally included [marketing related] knowledge into [sales] analysis and I think it is [necessary] because [one of the marketing work purposes is to increase sales result]👈 some bosses and people in marketing managerial roles don’t agree with this concept, however, I’ve never got the opportunity to know thee complete reason of why they disagree; and what’s your idea about this?!
Please also refer to this article when you read this paragraph: [#KPI/#Regional FPA] Boss asked: What’s morevaluable can you input and done by your team than consolidating data submittedby subsidiaries?
7P=Products + Price + Promote +
Place
+ People + Process +
Physical
Event
i. [7P Sales Analysis and Action], it has integrated 7P and above 5W1H
and People, Machine, Material, Legal,
Environment, Safety and Health; the purpose of this chart is to use its
format to remind chart users of starting to do their sales planning before the
beginning of another new year and they must consider all related work aspects
completely before doing any analysis work, this chart is a [check list
of the dimensions they are considering]. Regardless planning or analysis, it is
not required to fill up all its fields:
a. In planning: to fill up all the fields,
it means, there must be lots of business activities to be held in the upcoming
year, it may lose focus and unable to do everything in the plan.
b. In analysis: to fill up all the fields,
it may cause from planning work in the beginning of the year was incomplete, it
may be a waste of time cost of preparing budget then, and it is advised to
trace back to the root cause of incompleteness and implement improvement.
c. (TOP10) Clients’ opinion [Please see: 7P Working Paper]: this is because some market dynamic
information source is clients’ opinion, what
clients need is market ( do you agree?!); another purpose of discussing
clients’ opinion in BRM is to urge
sales persons to communicate with clients, care for customers and do new
clients development.
d. Warning and opportunities: I believe everyone knows these two
dimensions, however, not everyone remembers to consider these two items when
doing operating planning (budgeting) and analysis works; please remember to
assess relevant amount or percentage and put into these columns.
About the structure of 7P chart, please
adjust 7P dimensions according to annual sales budget (plan) of your companies,
thank you!
For example: There is a buyer company
in a seller -side market, when the buyer is doing sales planning and consider
its work Process, its work progress is controlled by the seller side, and it
needs to invest lots of time into researching, however, it will get less result
from it. Thus, does this buyer need to do planning in the same way in the
future?!
Please see below assumptions when reading the case in that file:
The business model of the company is
majorly relying on dealers’ sales (B2B), there is also
retailing sales to consumers (B2C), it is observing the growth of its B2C
result for its making decision for its establishing physical stores or an
e-store.
a. Place (Location): it must control the sales amount situation of its [TOP10
clients] and analyze the change and risks and opportunities of Product and Price.
b. Promote: the company centralizes and
does its TV commercials and print ads works and provides for its clients (areas
or countries) for use.
c. Physical Evidence: grant for clients
for products exhibition.
d. People and Process: in its
predetermination, this dimension is not major, only remark the description is
necessary.
Reminder : because, in this case, its major business is focusing
on TOP10 clients management, this is already an outcome of its [decision],
thus, its 7P sales analysis is also focusing on TOP10 clients status
researching, and, it is also possible that after doing this for several
times, this company thinks it is necessary to revise this work decision. If
your company has already promoted products to all proper sales channels, it is
also possible the priorities of your 7P analysis should focus on products sales
speed and volumes per sales channels; accordingly, this chart is to remind
users of the completeness of the dimensions of their thinking.
ii. 7P involves in customers preference of
different types and purchasing intentions, if there is not enough time to
gather enough customers’ opinion samples (e.g.: FMCG industry), please be
advised to obtain at least 30 employees/friends/neighbors/accessible clients’
opinion for your brainstorming discussion. It is required to select opinion
providers’ professional background or personal profile according to the purpose
of your opinion survey.
(If the 30 samples advice is effective
to you: this honor belongs to marketing study program of EMBA of National Cheng
Kung University; however, it if is not, it is me not remembering the right
number of samples of opinion! I also sincerely suggest you not to ignore the
power of your [employees opinions], your employees are also your clients, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon!👈 Employees are the assets that the companies
spend time and invest recruiting work professional capability to acquire.)
iii. Sales forecast work effectiveness and
frequency: in the companies I worked for, the most effective and efficient way
to do sales amount forecast is: to report sales actual result every day, at the 2nd
week of the month, it can accurately predict current month’s sales target is
achievable or not, there is high accuracy (there are direct stores and dealers’
sales channels in its business model).
And people who are involved and will
receive those messages including: sales team + department head, BPA+CFO, CEO.
Regarding sales analysis and action, it is reported once a month only.
What is the reporting frequency of the sales result and forecast in your
company?!
iv. If you are a multinational group, there
are multiple subsidiaries under, and your business management work model
including work team of 1 subsidiary( 1 legal entity) needs to report to more
than 2 regional offices [multiple legal entities] (such as logistics
headquarter, RD headquarter, bookkeeping headquarter and marketing headquarter
etc.), please be advised to consider the work alignment of [cash flow], [data
flow], [inventory flow] of subsidiaries (please refer to 7.Integration
work practice sharing), the purpose is to [simplified] their reporting line,
and, it is to ensure there are people
reviewing the reports content.
Subsidiaries teams have made lots of
work efforts to produce HQ assigned analysis reports, however, in fact, in HQ,
there is no one reviewing those reports, and this kind of case happened in real
world before.👈For
your reference of how your company can avoid this kind of situation.
v. BPA may be a team work, the team
members separately managing the figures submitted from locations (North,
Middle, South or countries of subsidiaries); please answer: in your company, is
your BPA team member familiar with the market in the scope they are
supervising?! What is the preference or what is the most popular products and
their features of your company in their market?!
In above work issues, how does your company
define BPA work objectives? How to measure the effectiveness of their work objectives? How to their work
objectives achieving rate? Please share your idea.
In my opinion, above things related to
work checks and balances and work efficiency all belong to [internal control]
work filed, what’s your idea about this opinion?!
(6) Explanation of other items:
i. Inventory Demand and Supply Control：below is the [cost of goods sold] I would like to share
with you; there are bosses not familiar with financial statements, however,
they think this formula is very useful, it can be used in many situation to
calculate amount and volume. Share with you:
Current period beginning balance (3/31) inventory amount +
current period(4/1~4/30)inventory received amount –
current period ending balance(4/30) inventory amount =
Current period(4/1~4/30)Cost ofGoods
Sold amount
ii. Customers Complaints Work Progress
Report, Audit Findings Improvements Work Progress, Early Warning,
Opportunity and Action Progress Summary: in your opinion, regarding the [estimated work completion date]
of all kinds of work progress, who is the most appropriate person to define
it?!
I think it is the [Work Owner]； however, if the interested parties
think the defined date is too late and they would like to define an earlier
one, and, if the Work Owner accepts their idea, it also belongs to the Work
Owner’s work decision. If the idea between interested parties and Work Owner is
not the same, it is possible the Work Owner is lack of resources or has less
manpower to do it, I will advise them to do further discussion for other work
solution and ensure the consider work quality is the first priority.
iii. Early Warning,
Opportunity and Action Progress Summary:
In this summary, it is assumed its [Auditing Department] directly
reports to the Board of Directors, it is not included in the management scope
of its CEO, the purpose is to remind this summary users, though, Auditing
Department is not under CEO, it also needs to add [audit finding items and
improvement work progress] in this chart.
It is like other kinds of charts using for tracking work progress,
please be advised to add these columns:
a. Work Owner: usually, the companies would like to
define the work owner is an [individual]. I tend to advise to define it as a
[department’s] work role and responsibility, because, people may have job
rotation or leave the company they work for, especially when this person needs
to report to a higher level manager, this manager also needs to be responsible
for the work result of the work owner person. Thus, although, it is easier to
remember a person’s name, in the management point of view, I suggest it input a
[department’s] name.
b. Estimated Work Completion Date: this has been explained in last
paragraph. Please remember, the companies need to define another rule for [the
extension] of your [estimated work completion date] and link it to the work
performance review related policies.
c. Amount Affected(or percentage, or number): to quantify the work result affected
by work progress will help everyone to [look at] the overall situation and make
consensus.
In this paragraph, do you feel 7P is
new to you?! To be short, 7P is your key success factors; thus, please allow me
to ask you and you only have 3 seconds to think before answering, or, you can
consult to your CEO or Head of BPA:
In hiring work process, you would like
to introduce the KSF ( =Key Success Factor) of your company, and what it is?
( what is the first thing pop up in
your mind?!)
3 seconds!
3
2
1
=>Please make consensus among all those answers before
you start to prepare 7P.
(EX: in retailing industry, they may say: I have the
largest number of stores + my
products are the most powerful and popular+ so we can offer the lowest
sales price! Thus, some distributors start their planning in products selection
or pricing point of view; and what’s yours?!)
5.
Change and integration are also project-based work; please
define OO first. What do you think OO is?!
Clue: define OO
before doing anything.
Answer: OO=
Purpose. Do you agree?
Actually, everyone knows this, however,
not everyone knows how to describe it, or, people don’t know the right words to
say. In this blog, in [format] ofmanagement policies development, and just take [Group Central ProcurementPolicy] as an example, the first section of a policy is also the [Purpose] followed by [Scope], [Roles and Responsibilities]…etc., please be advised to
utilize [topics of the paragraph] to define what you want to change or
integrate, and, at the same time, you can feel, in the overall change and
integrate work process, you are doing a project management work practice.
6.
For example: to change corporate work culture, the difficulty
may come from people who have management power= people who want to change the
work culture, it is possible.(This may differ from your company's corporate
culture or environmental perception)
Below case is a
result of an interview, the root cause of companies differs.
Superior said: In the future, I hope you can provide
opinion, the more the better, I don’t like you
just following work instructions.
However, the superior usually reacts, not a specific
case -
Reaction1: Why do you have this kind of idea?!
Reaction2: This is work order, just follow my
work order, and don’t ask so much! (Actually, this superior prefers employees
following the work instructions.)
Reaction3:(No response, ignore employees’
opinion, because this superior thinks
employees always work against work instruction and do not respect managers’
work authority).
Reaction4:(No response, because this superior
doesn’t understand those employees’ opinion, at the same time, he/she thinks, it is shameful a manager
needs to consult to team members’ idea. And, he/she thinks managers should know everything, and [in all aspects], managers need to be more outstanding than
team members.)
Accordingly:
Companies’ work culture = Bosses and
superiors’ point of views, the attitude and behavior they show every day.
What are the roots causes of [thing]
your companies what to change?! It needs to be figured out by interviewing and
investigation, it cannot be changed within a day; to change, need to know the
[root cause], and change it accordingly.
I personally don’t agree with above [Reaction4];
I’ve shared related idea in above section, the business work culture I’ve
experienced was: the boss or manager is managing the overall situation of a
company or work department, including assessing their own work capability
in order to allocate works or recruit what is needed, the purpose is to achieve
overall company goal or department work objectives+ it doesn’t need a
superman or a perfect person in a team, because this kind of person doesn’t
exist. What’s your idea?!
The way to deal with above case of [change
its company’s work culture]:
Please assume,
in the companies, there is no the 3rd./external parties to assist
the employer or employees side for crossing departments communication or for
crossing work level communication, it is difficult to have a person who can
properly deliver employees’ opinion to let boss or managers understand it.
Method1: Employees’ opinion mailbox related work
mechanism + persons of management power (=boss, managers)clearly inform
employees how their opinions will be handled objectively.
Method2: to launch employees overall
opinion survey, the companies will have unexpected employees feedbacks.
Including Method1, employees hope their opinion will be objectively handled,
they can speak freely; the companies
[surely] have the rights of choosing to accept opinion or not.
Method3: Managers learn to say the name
of this blog: What’s your idea?! (=What do you think? , how do you feel?!)👈 Especially to
employees who usually [don’t want to think], they consult to managers’ or
colleagues’ idea before doing things; managers need to lead the communication
with employees and encourage them to raise questions, and employees need to say
after thinking. And, managers also need to examine themselves whether their own
interacting attitude need to adjust something, why employees dare not or don’t
want to share opinion with you?!
Method4:….Please forward this article
to your boss! (Please also remind bosses of sponsoring
first!😆 )
If you have better idea of doing it,
please share via ExpertsSay.
Thank you!
1.
What is Project,
what is Risk?! Who can serve as the project manager?! Does Risk mean Danger?
2. How the founders can authorize hired managers appropriately so that the managers will not overstep their authority without approval?!
P01-P02 https://whatsyouridea1996.blogspot.com/2024/03/startups-plan-control-integrate-eng.html
3. What is the connection among the operating plan (business plan and financial model), budget, forecast and business analysis?! Are they just putting the same number in different places, right?!
P03 https://adv1996.blogspot.com/2024/05/startups-plan-control-integrate-eng03.html
4.
According to
3., what information does the Business Analysis (BA) provide for the [Business Review
Meeting] (BRM)?! (suggestions including 4 charts: Achievement and Trend Report,
Cash Flow Control Chart and Sales Analysis, [Early Warning, Opportunity and
Action Progress Summary])
5.
Change and integration are also project-based work; please
define OO first. What do you think OO is?!
6.
For example: to change corporate work culture, the difficulty
may come from people who have management power= people who want to change the
work culture, it is possible.(This may differ from your company's corporate
culture or environmental perception)
P04-P06 https://whatsyouridea1996.blogspot.com/2024/05/startups-plan-control-integrate-eng04.html
7.
Share: 1 form that must be used in integrating the work
processes.
8.
Because money is very important, use [internal control] in finance and
accounting work operations to explain the internal control issues when
establishing subsidiaries/business expansion. (Please answer first: In addition
to morality and conscience, why should the CFO of the subsidiary need to obey
the finance and accounting work instructions from HQ?!)
9.
Only companies that need an e- approval platform and need
[approval records] and [approval efficiency] should read this.
P07-P09 https://whatsyouridea1996.blogspot.com/2024/05/startups-plan-control-integrate-eng07.html
10.
Summary: Internal control, something about business
management.
P10 https://adv1996.blogspot.com/2024/05/startups-plan-control-integrate-eng10.html