Joint Business Planning: Turning Insights Into Commercial Plan

Year

2026

Company

Blistex

Project Type

Brand Strategy

Why it matters

Market intelligence only matters if it changes decisions. The annual Joint Business Plan meeting with our China distributor was the test - two brands, competing priorities, and a partner who'd heard HQ promises before.

Blistex needed a growth story: the portfolio was concentrated, the market was shifting, and the brands winning looked nothing like us. Stridex needed a protection story: strong category position, but operational gaps during peak promotional periods were creating unnecessary vulnerability. I had to build one plan that addressed both - backed by evidence strong enough to earn buy-in, not just deliver a mandate.

Why it matters

What I built

For Blistex, I designed a tiered portfolio architecture where each product has a distinct mechanism, occasion, and price point - eliminating internal cannibalization and creating a clear ladder from the mass tier into the higher-growth segments identified in my market analysis.

For Stridex, the problem was operational, not brand. I built a shipment performance analysis proving the brand consistently exceeded volume forecasts but timing gaps during promotional peaks were handing share to competitors. That analysis turned a vague "we need better supply" conversation into specific, measurable operational commitments from both sides.

The biggest structural problem was China's product registration timeline - 18+ months before a new product can reach traditional retail. I designed a dual-channel framework where one channel scales proven products and the other incubates new launches with real consumer data before the full investment.

The unlock

Data earns trust. Structure earns alignment. I led every recommendation with the market evidence - not opinions, not HQ preferences - so the distributor was looking at the same reality we were. Then I structured every priority as a two-way commitment: "HQ provides X, distributor delivers Y." That shifted the dynamic from top-down mandate to mutual accountability. Both sides saw themselves in the plan. That's what moved it from presentation to adoption.

What changed

The dual-channel strategy was adopted. An innovation pipeline with channel assignments was agreed upon. A new agency was onboarded and briefed using the market intelligence I built. A quarterly review cadence was established on a shared data baseline. And operational commitments were formalized for both sides - with specific metrics, not just good intentions.

The same framework is now being adapted for other international markets - same approach, different data, same principle: give people a structure they can decide inside of.