Management Planning and Control Systems

1. Management Planning

Typically this work is done in close conjunction and coordination with senior executives of the client. Its focus is to enable the client to plan and manage its business to attain its projected cash flows, profitability and return on investment.

The work entails the consultant reviewing the planning process in place, the reasons for it, its accessibility to the company's managers, its strengths and its weaknesses. These provide the point of departure for the development of a new planning process, which desirably meet a number of specific company requirements;

Examples of these include:

	Coordinating the planning of separate activities into the optimum plan for the total business;
	Focusing planning on a multiyear horizon;
	Providing top management with alternatives for their timely decision(s);
	Coordinating capital expenditure planning and operations planning;
	Providing a base line measurement of business performance to be used to identify areas needing special management attention on an ongoing basis;
	Encouraging managers to plan for a reasonable range of future conditions;
	Enabling top management to set planning targets for subordinates;
	Focusing managers on (1) cost-effectiveness and (2) profits.

The outputs of our work, which would be approved by the company executive(s) with whom we interface, is typically contained in a planning manual which is designed to be a living document and to guide the various participants in carrying out their responsibilities.

2. Control Systems

The essence of this work is to assess the company's management controls either for (a) the total company, (b) one of its businesses, or (c) one of its major development projects.

In this work, typically we:

	Identify the principal control requirements of the company, e.g., a clear consistent control environment, statement of approval authorities, clear definition of management responsibilities, budgeting and forecasting, cash management, etc.;
	Analyze the degree to which the company is meeting its control requirements;

The data to make these judgments, as developed by us, include a selective review of all control reports, site visits, interviews, etc. Following this assessment, we develop conclusions and specific recommendations, to include an implementation program. These materials are then incorporated into a draft report, reviewed with the client's management, modified, as desirable, and the report is then finalized.