Abstract
Corporations often begin each year with a corporate strategy, a business plan and high expectations of success from their pending business operations. As they execute the business plan they meet with successes and failures, all the time wondering if they should reassess future business plans. Are they better off drilling the remainder of the proposed opportunities, or should they reconsider other opportunities? These decisions are frequently impacted by emotion and intuition as much as by technical analysis.
Throughout the year, corporate executives routinely share information with analysts and stakeholders about their results to date. The information reflects their reactions to the results received to date as tempered by their expectations for the remainder of the year. This system of information collection, analysis, decisions and communication frequently lacks consistency and can be quite time consuming.
This paper will illustrate how companies can use portfolio management techniques to improve the efficiency of their business plan monitoring and the quality of the information available to the decision process. We will show how portfolio management can be used to track corporate performance and continually reassess the remaining business plans throughout the year. As results are derived, the company can use portfolio processes to monitor the expected business results and the probability of meeting their goals. We will illustrate how portfolio management can help decision makers determine when to change plans and when to stay on the planned course.
