Instead of committing to a single plan, be ready for each of the possible futures
A marketing plan rests on a series of assumptions about the future: the market will grow by this much, the competitor will hold this price, the exchange rate will stay in this range, the new product will be ready in this month, the budget will be this much.
It is rare for all of these assumptions to hold. Scenario planning is, instead of a single “most likely” plan, constructing in advance more than one future in which the critical assumptions play out differently, and determining now, for each one,
which campaigns, which channels, which budget allocation, and which targets will apply. Optimistic, base, and pessimistic scenarios are diversified by triggers such as a competitor’s price cut, a delayed launch,
the unexpected growth of a channel, or a budget cut. The aim is not to predict the future, but to know what to do whichever future arrives.
Without scenario planning, the marketing plan loses its validity at the first unexpected development of the year. When the budget is cut, which campaign will be sacrificed is debated on the spot; when a competitor cuts prices, the response
comes days later and inconsistently; when the launch is delayed, the entire channel plan tied to it falls through. Redoing the plan takes as long as the first plan did, and the market does not wait in the meantime. The most common weakness is that scenarios
remain in a presentation: which campaign belongs to which scenario, which budget item will be activated under which condition — because there is no counterpart in the system, everyone makes their own interpretation at the moment of execution.
In Minerva, scenario planning is carried out as part of marketing planning and program management, on top of the budget management and campaign structure. More than one plan version is defined for the same period; in each version,
campaigns, channels, target segments, budget items, target turnover, and opportunity figures differ according to the scenario. Because scenarios operate on common campaign and business partner data, comparison is made side by side;
which scenario will be activated is tied to defined trigger conditions and an approval flow. When a scenario is made the active plan, campaigns, budget, and targets take effect in a single operation; actual results are compared with the assumptions of all
scenarios so that which assumption held, and at which point the plan deviated, is tracked. Planning starts each year not from scratch, but from the scenario and actual data of the previous period.
Do not lock your marketing plan to a single future; build the scenarios in advance, define the triggers, and when conditions change, switch not to a debate but to a ready plan.