A joint business plan starts from the facts of the last cycle — what sold, through which channels and stores, and what the promotions and investments delivered — and agrees what the two parties will try to achieve in the next one. Each objective carries a target for each period of the plan: sales, distribution, category share, new items, service levels. Each has an owner and a commitment behind it: which party funds which promotions and investments, and which party does which work.
A scorecard tracks the agreed measures against their targets, and the parties meet on a fixed cadence to review it — where they stand, what has slipped, and what to change in the periods that remain. The plan can be written from either side: a manufacturer planning with a key retail or distribution account, or a retailer or distributor planning with a key supplier.
The common failure is that the plan is a presentation and the money is elsewhere. Funding is committed in the plan, but the promotions, allowances and rebates that deliver it are set up separately, so the review compares targets with results without knowing what was actually spent to reach them. Tying each funded commitment to the promotion or agreement that carries it is what lets a review say whether the investment paid.