Strategic business planning as a water resource management tool

The way water utilities manage water resource issues is changing out of necessity. Today, water utilities are faced with constraints beyond those associated with water quality and delivery. Through interviews with participating utilities the authors identified a complex set of constraints including regulations, customer expectations, and environmental, political, and financial issues. Utilities reported that balancing these constraints while developing a better product in a competitive market is forcing them to reexamine how, when, where, and why resources are developed and managed. This article presents the Strategic Business Planning Model (SBPM) that was developed to enable utilities to integrate water resource development activities both within and outside the utility. The SBPM strategically integrates water resource planning elements and facilitates implementation of a holistic resource approach. The model is an iterative, long-term method for integrating all utility elements into a strategic business plan that organizes the internal and external intricacies and interrelationships necessary to operate in a successful, businesslike manner.