| ||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Bible on Strategic Business Plans,
By Michael Schmidt (Noblesville, IN United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Plan for Profitability!: How to Write a Strategic Business Plan (Paperback)
I consider Mr. Hargrave's book, Plan for Profitability!, to be one of the most straightforward and instructional books on the subject of strategic business plans. I have reviewed and researched other books on the subject and they do not give a comparable depth and insight into the subject . Mr. Hargrave's book is based on his practical experience that includes writing over one hundred business plans for large and small companies. His business plan experience started while working at General Electric, when, in the early 1970s, the concept of strategic business planning was initiated company-wide. His business planning experience has helped him in leading many business start-ups, acquisitions and divestitures during his career. Since 1991, Professor Hargrave has been the Principal of the Hargrave Consultancy, www.hargrave.com. Mr. Hargrave presents the eleven elements of the strategic business plan. These elements are similar to what other writers present but these elements provide the information necessary to ensure a plan that is acceptable to potential investors. Mr. Hargrave presents the best details about `how' to put a strategic plan together, including several tools that he uses to help in the analysis process during the preparation of the plan. His Principle of Linkages is a very useful tool in organizing the process that leads to identifying and selecting the strategies, programs and goals for the company and its competitors. The mission is the first element and the foundation upon which the other elements of the strategic plan are established. The final element of the strategic plan is to develop the financial projections. These projections use the data from the previous elements of the plan to quantify the company's revenue performance. Mr. Hargrave's explanation of the financial information is very easy to understand. This book is one that will be used for many years to come in my business endeavors.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Plan for Profitability by Lee E Hargrave, Jr.,
By
This review is from: Plan for Profitability!: How to Write a Strategic Business Plan (Paperback)
The author of Plan for Profitability, Professor Lee Hargrave, had a long career in a variety of companies, large and small, in various senior positions, including Vice President, Chief Operating Officer as well as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has vast experience in writing strategic plans, having written over a hundred in his long career, spanning over 35 years. He has an excellent academic background. His book is, therefore, unique in that it gives practical hands on guidance to the reader to enable him to formulate effective strategic plans. The book is a step-by-step guide on how to write a practical business strategic plan. The reader is guided through the interrelated elements of a typical plan. These elements are the mission, market, competition, self-evaluation, opportunities, objectives, strategies, programmes, goals, resources and financials. The book has several examples from actual strategic plans, making it easy for the reader to understand the subject fully.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Strategic Business Planning in the Real World,
By
This review is from: Plan for Profitability!: How to Write a Strategic Business Plan (Paperback)
Unlike other strategic planning books I have read, which are mostly theoretical, "Plan for Profitability!" establishes its credibility early because the author clearly documents that the information and methods presented are gleaned primarily from his own professional experience - from actual strategic plans he has produced. Mr. Hargrave guides the reader through the logical thought processes required by planners to develop business strategies, and provides ample shortcuts to quickly resolve some of the stickier decisions. I found the book to be well organized and thorough, replete with charts, tables, and formulae to support the conclusions offered. The use of the semi-fictitious company, International Microwidgets, to apply and illustrate each section of the strategic plan, was both instructive and motivating. I looked forward to each chapter to see how the company would solve its mounting market share and production-cost problems. I also liked reading Hargrave's Law: "[A]n unfavorable trend will continue unabated unless positive action is taken to stop it and ... positive action is also required to sustain a favorable trend." (p.217) My first thought was, "Wow, a business principle taken directly from the Laws of Physics!" In Physics, however, you would assume that favorable and unfavorable trends are similarly "lubricated." Based on Hargrave's Law, we find that, in business, unfavorable trends are well-lubricated while favorable trends suffer from high friction. This accurately parallels media and marketing forces, too, wherein negative issues are heralded as "news" while positive information is virtually ignored. In my opinion, only one area of the book's content needed some "upgrading" to fit the late-90s and beyond (especially since it was published in 1999). Since the majority of the materials used for the book were from experiences in the 1970s and 80s, decades that placed little emphasis on the "strategic" value of Information Technology (I.T.), the inclusion of I.T. as more than a part of "Central Services" would have been appropriate. Nowadays, a corporation's business vision and its I.T. vision must be in alignment, which often results in an I.T. department becoming a "profit center" rather than a "cost center." Hey, what can I say - I'm an I.T. guy who has been frustrated more than once by a singular lack of coordination between I.T. "realities" and corporate strategies. Despite this minor, time-based nit-pick, I believe that I will get good mileage from "Plan for Profitability!" as I assist my client's firm with its first strategic business plan. Finally, should the author be compelled to reprint this book (a good thing), he should consider a more professional publisher. By no fault of Mr. Hargrave's, I found the production and editing values of the book to be substandard, including over 15 typographical errors, crooked pages, ink that smeared when highlighted, and a weak binding, allowing pages to separate from the book.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
