The three sets of factors illustrated in the figure below have to be evaluated simultaneously when designing marketing channels. All three sets interact and so the design process is necessarily interactive.
1. “The plan is nothing, planning is everything“ Analysing the financial statements of a company is absolutely necessary to assess its creditworthiness, but it can hardly make any sound predictions about the company’s future.
Presentation of the table This is, as an example, the budget of the Moscow branch of a Russian bank. We are in March 2000, and the March 2000 figures have just been calculated. The last three columns, on the right, show the year-to-date (January to March) actual figures for last year (1999), this year (2000) […]
Useful operational tool As already said, this is not a theoretical exercise. This is the tool that will be used by all the operational areas to project their activity in the future, and then to check that they effectively realise what they planned.
The whole bank financial statements The bank publishes consolidated financial statements, which show audited figures. These figures are then used, internally and externally, to compare one year to another and see the actual trend in the bank risk profile and profitability.
The necessity of a constant monitoring The different reports have to be carefully checked each time they are produced (daily for the turnover, monthly for the profit and loss of the month, quarterly and yearly for more comprehensive figures).
Different levels of assessment Assessing a strategy is something to be done by the different levels of management involved in the change. Depending on their responsibilities, the interest will be different, and the information tools will be adapted as well.
What are the internal control and audit missions? The first understanding of these functions is naturally the controls being done to ensure the local and central management that the activity is run the way it is expected. These controls can be considered as essential ex-post reviews of an activity.
The importance of a framework of procedures and controls In any type of company, there is a need of clear definitions of functions and processes, which are detailed in a manual of procedures. Such a manual ensures, if used, that the processes, duties, controls are the same in all the entities of the company.
Range of products Normally, a branch network can only sell products authorised by the head-office, with details given for each of the product (minimum and maximum size by operation, margin or fee depending on the size).
