Corporate Planning - Coursework Example

The manager can then postpone the decision or take no action. The second reason why managers may fail to make a decision is need to maintain the status quo. The company may be performing extremely well and the manager may wish to pursue existing strategies to maintain good performance. Alternatively, the manager may be undergoing high pressure to comply with existing rules, policies or procedures. Consequently, the manager will have little room to introduce change. Therefore, maintaining status quo becomes better option.

Sales forecasting is one of the core functions of the sales and marketing department. Sales forecasts must be realistic and inspiring to the sales and marketing department as well as to other departments of the company. Inspiring and achievable sales forecasts can be achieved by considering internal and external factors that affect company’s performance. The first issue is the internal environment of the company. Internal environment of the company is comprised of key personnel in the sales and marketing department, finance department and production department.

The key personnel in the above key departments should be involved during sales projections. According to Haines (2008), sales executives should set their own sales targets. The managers of key departments proceed to discuss the targets and check if they are achievable. For example, the production managers confirm if sales targets are in tandem with the production capacity and finance managers confirms if the targets are in line with company’s revenue targets. The second factor to be considered when a company makes sales forecast is the external environment.

External environment include the competition, purchasing power of the consumer, political events, fashion and styles, changes in population, and the state of the economy. The sales forecast team should make use of facts from the