The IBP advantage: The key to managing campaigns, KPIs and decision-making

In the previous three parts of this white paper series we spent some time discussing concepts that underpin the Portfolio Review. We also deep-dived into the ongoing shaping of an organisation’s portfolio and more specifically innovation strategy and management. Now, in this final part, we will focus on why brand growth principles and marketing campaigns (whether they be consumer or customer-centric) need to be integrated and managed through the portfolio steps of Integrated Business Planning (IBP). In aid of this we need to think about the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and how we set up a decision-making matrix (RACI) that both helps us identify owners of measures and define who is the ultimate decision maker in our portfolio IBP process.

A large number of organisations spend a considerable part of their marketing budgets on building plans to make their products and brands both easy to think of and easy to find. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science talks to this in the form of mental and physical availability and the role these have in improving brand penetration. The Portfolio Review in the IBP cycle plays a key role in ensuring these plans stay in synergy and are delivering the right return for the organisation. IBP ensures they are integrated effectively in the business plan and are feasible.

The output of the Portfolio step of IBP should provide the clear assumptions that sit behind these campaigns and galvanise any broader action to ensure brilliant execution, as well as ensure the demand plan is shaped in accordance with the assumptions, or any misalignment is aired and resolved. To aid this we need clear accountability to enable decisions to be made both in design and implementation.

Across the commercial team (broadly the sales and marketing organisation) we need to ensure we are working together to build plans that facilitate the growth of brands and products (within the broader portfolio), achieve the triple win (customer/consumer/company), and ultimately deliver the strategy. Ultimately we are driving for plans that deliver a healthy portfolio. As the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing state this is both driving mental availability or salience (i.e. establishing the memory structures that mean brands are thought of at the moment of purchase) and physical availability (making products and brands easy to buy by being both available, easy to find, and accessible). IBP provides the framework to enable and evaluate these plans, react to any course correction needed, and will ultimately drive for far better execution.