In spite of the considerable size of these two organizations, they still must face up to the

challenge of keeping their vitality to ensure self-renewal of their respective portfolios of business. There
are 4 important dimensions adopted by the ANSCOR Group and SMC to help them cope with the future.
One dimension pertains to the determination of the companies’ future directions through hierarchy of
strategies. Second dimension is the delineation of the major phases of the strategic planning process.
Third characteristic is the creation of a strategic structure through which competitive strategies can be
developed. A final dimension is the identification of a set of interactive and iterative steps that the
planning process consist of. In connection with this, the companies decided to create teams that will be
useful in creating strategic plans and effective planning processes, which are the Business Family Team
which concerned on determining how to compete within a broader business area and the Business
Element Team which task is to develop clear competitive strategies for a particular product/market niche
to beat specific competitors. They also have the Corporate Strategy Group which serves as the working
committee of the two teams headed by Mr. Andres Soriano Jr., the CEO of the 2 companies.

Implementing Strategic Planning

Basic aspects of the approach which can be described in terms of 4 important Domensions.

1. The Strategic Planning Approach

a. Hierarchy of Strategies
3 Levels of strategy
- Corporate level
- Business Family Level
- Business Element Level
b. Major phases of the strategic planning process
- Objective setting
- Strategic Programming
- Budgeting
c. The Strategic structure (manufacturing, sales, R & D )
 To provide specialized functions and clear responsibilities for operating tasks. Provide a
framework to enable the organization to operate more efficiently.
 A company must be able to examine what environmental exposure it takes on through
the products and markets it is pursuing.
 The ANSCOR Group and the SMC addressed this issue by creating a strategic structure
on the basis of Business Family and Business element Teams.
 The Business Family and Business Element Teams are composed of people drawn from across
the organization.
- The intention is to get the best combination of insights, talents and brains to meaningfully
work out the objectives and strategic programs for each business.

d. A pattern of interactive and iterative Steps of the planning process (Snake Diagram)
 A framework for the pattern of interaction and iteration has been developed, spelling out
the tasks of each team at each strategic level and in each phase of the planning process.

2. Implementation steps at the ANSCOR Group and SMC

a. Commitment of top management

 Mr. A. Soriano, Jr. and a few of his top executives were held to clarify and operationalize
the concepts, and to ensure that they were comfortable with the approach. It was
important that all the senior executives could thus trust the new process.
 Conduct a number of workshops on the strategic planning process involving top people in
each company and upper management to get a first-hand experience of how the process
was intended to work.
  Broad commitment among upper management- common feeling that the decision to
implement the strategic planning process was based on the desire of a broad
management group, and a welcome activity to participate in.
 This step of soliciting broad management support at the outset is a key to making the
implementation of the process successful.

b. Strategic Structure
 Mr. A. Soriano, Jr. together with his senior executives gace the go-ahead to actually start
developing plans using this approach beginning January 1982.
 The first activity undertaken was Mr. A Soriano to form the Corporate Strategy Groups
(CSG) of the ANSCOR Group. (composed of 9 senior executives)
 Read further page 388

c. Planning Calendar
 The CSG also prepared a planning calendar identifying in detail the steps that have to be
undertaken in each phase.

d. Process consultants
 Role of the Corporate Planning Departments of the ANSCOR and SMC;

i..to arrange for various logistical aspects such as establishing the planning calendar,
developing suitable guidelines for presentation of plans, among others.
ii. ..to act as advisers to the strategy teams, in clarifying for them aspects of the process
that might seem unclear and unfamiliar.
iii. to assist the CSG in their analysis and review of the planning inputs.

3. Some implementational problems and their solutions

Problem
1. The planning process may have been
time-consuming and involved more work
than one might reasonably expect of
people.
Solution
There was a lot of encouragement from the CEO and other
CSG members of both companies. Practical problems relating
to setting both strategic and operating activities were handled
in a pragmatic and straight forward manner and in good spirit.

2. Sometimes there was a tendency to
gravitate towards too much internal focus
in developing the objectives and strategic
programs.
3. third problem experienced by both
companies was that there were some
Business Family and Element Teams who
were asking for "hand-holding" to guide
them through the process.
there were in fact several dramatic meetings wherein planning
teams came to realize that they had to accept a new
environmental reality and that it would not be sufficient to live
on the success of past strategies.
When occasional "stumbling blocks" were encountered,
however, the teams were encouraged to seek informal help
from members of the Corporate Planning Departments. As a
result, there was in general a great sense of pride and
ownership of the plans that were finally developed.
4. Some benefits of the planning process

Five major areas of benefits accruing from the strategic planning process

1. There is a clearer understanding of what it truly takes to succeed in a competitive world.

2. The process has led to a more involved, keener team spirit, and a sense of team
responsibility for successful implementation of the objectives and strategic programs.
3. There is more open communication among managers in the corporation as a result of cross-
functional memberships in Business Families.
4. The planning process has provided the mechanism for top management to be more exposed
to a broader set of people with particularly high potential.
5. The process has highlighted more explicitly what the nature of t he critical strategic resource
bottlenecks in the organization.