The amount of detail in a tactical sales plan is function of the company's environment and characteristics. A short-range sales plan should include considerable detail, whereas a long-range plan should be in broad terms. To establish policy detail in the short-range sales plan, the main question is use of the results. First, the major consideration is to provide detail by responsibility for planning and control purposes. Second, the short-range sales plan must provide detail needed for completing the profit plan components by other functional managers. That is, the production managers will need suffiaent detal for planning production levels and plant capacity needs; the financial manager will need sufficient detail for assessing and planning cash flows, unit product costs, inventory needs, and so on. Third, the amount of detail also depends on the type of industry, size of the firm, availability of resources, and use of the results by management
The relationships between the strategic and tactical sales plans are shown in Exhibit 5-1