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Last week we delved into what constitutes an ‘Integrated Activity Plan’. Once this is in place we need to address the challenges that can inhibit effective Execution.

Coordination starts in the Integrated Activity Planning step with the Calendar. If this calendar is planned well, the coordination required in Execution is significantly easier to manage. At this stage, the challenge is organizing the business to make sure the right things are in the right place at the right time.

The Superior Integrated Way helps with this organization by translating the Calendar into shortened Cycle Plans that define the detailed execution plans. It also helps the business make choices around developing content and executing in market to ensure everything and everyone is working towards the same goals.

The Sales Force is our face in the market. They interact with customers and execute the activities that our consumers and shoppers come into contact with. Because of this, it is crucial to our success that the sales force fully understand what actions need to take place when and were.

It is also imperative that they are able to communicate why certain choices have been made with our customers. Only through deep understanding can we expect buy-in from the sales team and collaboration from our customers. Selling stories are created here for just this purpose – to guide the sales force through the detailed execution plans. Equally Customer Selling Stories are developed to facilitate communication between the sales force and the customer to create buy-in and understanding.

Critical to successful execution is the ability to react to changes in market conditions. Competitors do unexpected things. Sometimes the assumptions behind plans do not turn out the way we forecast. Agile businesses are ones that can quickly measure what is happening and have a fast decision making cycle to take action and adapt.

As plans are executed in the market, a programme of regular cycle meetings is needed to evaluate what is working and what is not and adjust plans in real time. By tracking across three areas of Market Spend Effectiveness (MSE) – impact, execution and efficiency – we can quickly identify where the plan needs to be influenced.

Long-term success is based on incorporating learning as the business grows and evolves. Capturing and sharing learnings over time and across teams leads to the development of strong activity plans year on year. In addition to MSE evaluation, we can understand what is working and what needs to change by tracking the effectiveness of the sales execution in outlet to ensure that activities are being implemented to plan.

Without solid implementation, it is impossible for the business to truly understand the drivers of activity success or failure – is it due to a flaw in the execution or a flaw in the plan?

How do we use the outputs of Execution?

Each individual activity has its results captured, reviewed and learning identified in accordance with MSE principles. The results are tracked throughout the duration of the activity to allow for course correction if needed and again at the end to evaluate overall effectiveness and capture learnings. The MSE Evaluation by Activity output can help with the on-going tracking of an activity.

The post MSE Evaluation Summary output captures learnings from across all activities during the year. Amongst other things it should be a key document to review at the start of the next planning cycle, at the beginning of the Integrated Activity Planning step. Analysing what worked well in the past versus what did not will lead to the smarter investment decisions and more robust design of activities. The basis of this analysis should be the individual MSE evaluations by activity.