Archive for September, 2003

Budget cuts put plan in danger, what to do?

Putting my corporate hat on, today I’m thinking about how you would square plan commitments that were predicated upon an assumed, specified marketing spend, with a budget cut that reduces or eliminates that spend.
The most obvious first move, namely, taking down forecasts in immediate response to a budget cut, is not very sporting. Budget-cut math is cause-and-effect - they know you’re likely to take a hit, and that your product’s performance may suffer.

At the same time though, everyone knows initial projections in the MRD (market requirements document), MAP (market attack plan, or business plan began life as inexact, optimistic hopes, and, further, that they’ve been subject to all sorts of distorting tradeoffs during development. Plan is plan, but I have not seen many initial projections match real life sales.

Still, it remains product management’s job to make the sales happen. So, for practical, political and professional reasons, I’ve found the product management team simply must get creative about how to execute on the go-to-market strategy with the resources available. Once the product has been in the field for some time, (for example, closer to the end of the first quarter after launch), the team will have more info and perspective to take a better swat at new projections.

For tracking performance under these conditions, I recommend triangulating among three numbers: actual results, original projections, and the revised ones. If any team members are worried about deflecting concerns from individual performance, involve management early to help validate new projections. That will help mitigate nasty surprises.