Some opportunities are more costly than others, a fact that can be overlooked if managers focus only on the plans and likely outcomes alone. Graphical planning grids help managers summarize the interaction of several key factors identified by the company to be important to successful business ventures. In the GE Planning Grid, the interaction of factors in the three green boxes provides the kind of fit the company desires between its resources and environmental trends. This approach to managing multiproduct firms treats each product, division, or SBU like stock in an investor s portfolio. The main weakness of this approach is that it encourages management to take a short run view of financial returns, often at the expense of long run commitment to the marketing concept.
Risk assessment varies from market to market.
International markets may be evaluated according to the likelihood of drastic changes in the political environment. Also, risk is increasingly calculated on an environmental sensitivity continuum for all relevant environments. In this graphic, a too-narrow focus on the first year s results might cause the marketing manager to abandon this product as too costly.