Pianificazione aziendale - Prof. Guido Ortolani - a.a. 2025/2026
Section outline
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23/2/26 - 26/2/26
The document presents the business plan as a strategic management tool that connects ideas, objectives, and actions with expected financial results. It is not just a set of numbers, but a method for turning strategy into concrete plans, performance control, and continuous adaptation. Its effectiveness depends on integration with internal communication, evaluation, and incentives, as well as on the firm’s life stage and the uncertainty of the external environment.
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The document examines the planning and control system (P&C) as an integrated set of tools and processes aimed at translating corporate strategy into operational actions and measurable results. It outlines key elements such as objectives, budgeting, reporting, and performance indicators, highlighting their role in monitoring business performance and supporting decision-making. The text also emphasizes the importance of alignment between strategic and operational planning, as well as the system’s ability to adapt to internal and external changes.
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The document explains how the accounting system supports business management through the analysis of financial statements, especially the balance sheet and the income statement. Using a practical business case, it shows how different management events—such as capital contributions, incorporation costs, financing, investments, rent, wages, and sales—affect the firm’s assets, liabilities, equity, and operating result over time. The lecture highlights that the balance sheet alone is not sufficient to represent the full economic and financial condition of a company, since costs and revenues must also be captured through the income statement. Overall, the material emphasizes that financial reporting is essential for evaluating a firm’s solidity, profitability, liquidity, and efficiency.
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This lecture explores financial statement analysis as a key component of the business information system and as an essential tool for evaluating a company’s overall condition. Starting from the role of financial reporting and accounting data, the lesson examines the main objectives of analysis: assessing profitability, liquidity, solvency, and structural soundness in support of managerial decision-making. It then presents the main phases of financial statement analysis, including the collection and verification of accounting information, the reclassification of balance sheet and income statement data, the calculation of indicators and margins, and the interpretation of results. Particular attention is devoted to the financial reclassification of the balance sheet, the analysis of working capital, liquidity margins, commercial cycle dynamics, capital structure, and profitability measures such as EBITDA, operating income, and net income. Overall, the lecture shows how accounting data can be transformed into meaningful indicators for understanding business performance, financial equilibrium, and the firm’s capacity to create value over time.
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The document traces the evolution of strategic planning from its early structured and rigid models to more flexible and dynamic approaches. It highlights key contributions from scholars such as Drucker, Chandler, Mintzberg, and Barney, showing how planning shifted from long-term forecasting and control toward adaptability, internal resources, and continuous learning. Traditional tools like BCG and Porter’s models are presented alongside their limitations in increasingly complex and uncertain environments. The lecture emphasizes that modern planning must be adaptive, innovation-driven, and supported by dynamic capabilities, enabling firms to continuously renew their competitive advantage in rapidly changing markets.
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This lecture explores how firms analyze their external environment and industry structure to support strategic decisions. It introduces macro-environmental analysis through the PEST framework, highlighting political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological factors that shape business opportunities and threats. It then explains how to define an industry and assess its key economic characteristics, such as market size, competition, and innovation. Finally, the document presents Porter’s Five Forces model to evaluate competitive dynamics and profitability, emphasizing how industry structure influences firm performance and strategic positioning.
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This lecture continues the analysis of industry dynamics, focusing on the factors that determine a firm’s competitiveness and profitability. It examines key success factors such as product quality, pricing, customer service, communication, distribution, technology, and production efficiency. The lecture also highlights the importance of analyzing sector trends to understand market evolution, anticipate risks, identify opportunities, and assess long-term industry attractiveness. Particular attention is given to sector growth, profitability indicators, structural variables, and the industry life cycle, with examples from the beverage market
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The teaching activity consisted of a guided exercise using spreadsheets, aimed at developing a forecast income statement for a company operating an e-bike rental service in a tourist destination. Students were asked to analyse the impact of different managerial and economic assumptions on the company’s operating result by preparing three alternative scenarios: pessimistic, realistic and optimistic. During the exercise, students worked with key business variables, including average daily rentals, average rental price, annual operating days, variable costs and fixed operating costs. Based on these data, they set up formulas and spreadsheet links to calculate production value, operating costs, value added, EBITDA, operating income, pre-tax income and net income.
Special attention was devoted to the effective use of spreadsheet tools. Students used drop-down menus to select the relevant scenario and applied the INDEX and MATCH functions to automatically retrieve the values associated with each scenario. The exercise also included the use of the Goal Seek function to determine the number of daily rentals required to achieve a target net income.
This activity enabled students to integrate knowledge of business planning, economic and financial analysis, and practical spreadsheet skills. Through an applied and laboratory-based approach, the exercise supported the development of students’ ability to build forecasting models, interpret alternative scenarios and use quantitative tools to support business decision-making.
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The lesson focused on investment evaluation techniques and Excel-based financial exercises, with particular attention to cash flow analysis.
Key financial indicators were analyzed, including NPV (Net Present Value), IRR (Internal Rate of Return), and Payback Period, to assess the profitability and sustainability of investment projects. The session highlighted how cash flow analysis supports decision-making by measuring expected returns, investment recovery time, and overall financial performance.
Practical Excel applications were used to calculate and interpret these indicators, improving understanding of investment planning and financial evaluation processes.
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This final lecture serves as a concluding overview of the entire course, focusing on how to prepare a Business Plan as a tool for planning, control, and communication with managers, banks, investors, and partners. It shows how business strategy can be translated into objectives, actions, timelines, and financial figures, covering the executive summary, company description, marketing, technical, financial, and organizational feasibility.
The key message is that an effective Business Plan must be clear, realistic, data-driven, financially consistent, and regularly updated over time.
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