Hrm/531 Week 4

11. A careful review of this information by staff will determine if the process was successful or if additional iterations are necessary.

12. Once staff reaches consensus that the plan makes sense and is a workable document, implementation commences.

13. Formal sign-off by staff may be in order.

Implementation requires daily, weekly and monthly monitoring by the total organization to assure some semblance of conformance to the plan vs. actual. Generally, monthly updates including changes as required for the balance of the year are accepted and implemented. Major changes in any actual vs. forecasted numbers must be reviewed, analyzed for impact and acted upon.

The process is repeated annually, and the more often it is done, the better we become at doing it. If the market place is changing rapidly, major recasting of the plan may be

This worst case scenario is a contingency plan that hopefully will never be implemented, but one that occasionally is warranted. Once prepared, the management staff has a clear understanding of their respective mission, assignments and necessary actions, should this contingency plan require exercising.

The plan is formulated by first getting consensus from the firm’s strategic planners as to how really bad the business can really get. If the bottom falls out of the economy as predicted, to what level will our gross sales fall? One firm we are familiar with had gross sales in 1979 of ninety-six million dollars and proceeded to develop a worst case scenario in 1982-3 at a gross sales level of thirty-six million dollars. Once this key level is established, then all the other parameters must be brought in line with this sales figure, in an attempt to preserve some portion of the bottom line