Value Planning : The New Approach to Building Value Every Day

"If each individual in your organization became Shareholder Value-focused and made all of their decisions accordingly, you would have an almost incomprehensible competitive advantage." -Lawrence B. M. Serven. For some time now, the conviction has been growing that traditional business planning methods are flawed and inefficient. At many companies, attempts have been made to address the problem with new budgeting systems, complete benchmarking studies, and reorganizations of finance functions. Unfortunately, while such initiatives may help reduce planning time, fundamentally they do little or nothing to make the planning process more effective. In this groundbreaking book, Lawrence Serven exposes the real reasons why planning so often fails to get results, and shows you how to transform the planning process from an "exercise in minimization" into a potent, results-driven management system that consistently creates shareholder value. While most books on the subject discuss value creation in terms of grand strategic moves made by upper management, Value Planning takes a bottom-up approach. Lawrence Serven demonstrates how it is the cumulative effect of all of the little decisions made by individuals throughout an organization, every day, that makes or breaks shareholder value. More importantly, he shows you how to capitalize on that fact, and use business planning as a strategic management tool for aligning all levels of an organization-from the executive suite to the mail room-behind the common goal of increasing shareholder value. Short on theory and long on step-by-step practical guidance, Value Planning gives you a complete blueprint for implementing a comprehensive value planning management system in your enterprise. Each chapter isolates a key aspect of value-driven business planning and contrasts it with traditional business planning models. Within each chapter you will also find valuable, easy-to-perform self-diagnostics that help you to assess your company's c