ABSTRACT
Talking about marketing plans gets confusing unless marketing professionals focus on a specific organizational level. This chapter looks at the “ideal” method of planning in a single-industry firm, or in a business unit of a diversified company. Although responsibilities were delegated to functional managers, the president was very involved with day-to-day activities in design and engineering, manufacturing and marketing. Marketing’s annual plan included actions essential to meet its required sales and profit volumes and specified required resources. While the managers were developing their annual plans, it became evident that parts of the business plan had to be changed. For example, when marketing was fleshing out its annual plan, it realized that the timing of its sales would likely differ from the original estimate.
