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Benefits and limitations of strategic planning
Importance of planning
Benefits and limitations of strategic planning
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“Planning is fundamental part of our lives.” “Planning is a process by which you formulate a particular intent, identify one or more associated goals, and then decide on the action you will take to realize your intent and achieve your goals.” Simerson, B. K. Planning is not exclusively for anything special or only business related. Every individual has to plan many things in their lives on a daily basis. Planning can be as simple as daily shopping or as complex as raising and educating your child. We plan, because we want to maximize the productivity and outcomes of our efforts in a limited time. Planning is also an essential function of management of an organization. The better plan an organization has, the more successful they will be. They plan because they want to manage the times in order to achieve the most important goals. No matter what our role is in an organization; we all have a major role to make that organization successful. We all have an important role to work toward the organization’s goals and developments. There are two major types of organizational planning that a manager will be working towards that. Tactical and Strategic planning are both being used by managers for pursuing organization goals. Simerson, B. K These two ways of planning are relevant and one completes the other. In order to understand the relationship between these two types of plans, it is necessary to know that “Strategic plan are designed with the entire organizational in mind and begin with an organization’s mission” whereas “tactical planning typically …show more content…
(2) It also involves careful preparation, prudent analysis of information and data, credible decision making, and utilization of various tools and techniques.” Simerson, B.
The strategic plan is planned those who influence resources and understand how a set of tactics work together, it is identifying and setting a vision. On the other hand tactical planning utilizes the resources to achieve the goals and support the vision. Those doing this type of planning face having to plan the usage of limited resources into actions to achieve a set of goals. I don’t think the two can really be separated, but rather they go hand in hand (Owyang).
Strategic Planning—the process of developing a plan to achieve organizational purpose—is a management tool used to focus a workforce’s energy. Strategic planning ensures that the workforce achieves an organization’s mission. It is used by large organizations to increase the chances for long-term growth and profitability (Auka, 2016). Lockheed Martin’s strategy is well-aligned with the organization’s mission, vision, and values, reviewed carefully by a well-qualified team, and regularly measured against the appropriate objectives. This has positioned the corporation for success.
Strategic planning is defined by intestorwords.com as the process of determining a company’s long-term goals and then identifying the best approach for achieving those goals. But this definition is too broad and does not identify the true advantages of strategic planning for large to small businesses. Strategic planning provides the foundation for the policies, procedures, and strategies for obtaining and using resources to obtain the goals of the organization. Some believe that in today’s rapidly changing environment, strategic planning is becoming more difficult and therefore more obsolete because changes are occurring so fast that plans-even those set for just months into the future-may soon be obsolete. The fact is that with the fast changing environment it is even more important to have strategic planning in every business today.
Planning aims to reduce uncertainty. It does this by forcing managers to look ahead, anticipate change, consider the impact of change and develop appropriate responses. (Robbins 2012) Through attempted monitoring of conditions in a changing environment, one is able to respond quicker to new information and new circumstances, thereby becoming more flexible. In addition, having the environment under constant observation enables managers to analyse how the organisation will differentiate itself from its competitors, therefore facilitating more chan...
Strategic planning or Top-Level management are the executives of a company and are responsible for the long-term goals and strategies. Tactical planning or the middle level managers take the long-term goals and classify them to smaller more specific goals. Finally, operational planning or the frontline managers are responsible for developing plans to accomplish short term objectives that in turn accomplish goals identified from upper management.
Working without any plan can flunk our targets. Supposing that we are running one company, it is unlikely that we can manage our company very well without any explicit plans or strategies, not to mention that our company is likely to be on the brink of bankruptcy. Not only in business, it is unlikely that we can succeed without any plans in other aspects. Therefore, explicit plans play a vital importance in success.
Planning is a way to respond to the changes occurring in the environment around a person systematically. Planning is an approach towards the problem solving rationally. It can be taken as a remedial tool for creating change in the current situation in systematic and efficient way.
“Planning: is specifying the goals to be achieved and deciding in advance the appropriate actions needed to achieve those goals” (Bateman & Snell, 2004, p. 16).
The first function of management is planning. Planning is a process that managers use to identify and involve goal setting and decide the best way to achieve the goal.(Bartol 2007) Planning connect the gap between where we do, where we intend to go. It predict the possible things to happen which would not otherwise happen (MSG 2012). There are several steps to the planning process, which are determine the goals of the organisation, evaluate the current position, consider possible future conditions, identify possible alternative actions and choose the best. Planning is the criteria thinking through goals and making decision to achieve the goal of the organisation’s objective, which requires a systematic way. Also objectives focus the managers how to achieve the final result as managers have to predict anything will happen, avoid the problem and fight back to competitors. An example of planning, which is the President Canon Inc Tsuneji Uchida and lead Canon Company become the no.1 in the global business (Canon.Inc 2011). Tsuneji Uchida has to understand what is the company objective and goal. First, make decision to protect the position and the aim of canon, improve the operation more diversity. Second, he creates the new design of camera and new technology, he plan to do these things to maximise profit.
Tactical plans have shorter time frames and narrower scopes than strategic plans. Tactical planning provides the specific ideas for implementing the strategic plan. Operational plans support tactical plans and are the tools for executing daily, weekly, and monthly activities. They include policies, procedures, methods, and rules. GE has essentially grown in size and benefits since 1980’s. GE centralized financial management and strategic planning control, and practiced strategic planning management.
Fayol (1949, as cited in Mcnamara, 2009) have proposed “planning” as one of the four major functions on...
The planning aspect, which was totally absent before, is now the starting point for every assignment. The purpose of the plan is to give myself a direc...
Planning can be used to help the organization map out a way to efficiently achieve their goals. The beginning of the planning process should include analyzing of the current situation. From this information the company can determine the goals and start to outline the steps that need to be taken to ensure that the goal will be met. Other planning activities that should be completed are determining the company’s objectives and were they want to be in the future. This will help them to choose their business objectives and strategies. In addition, the company should look at the resources that they have available and determine if they are sufficient to achieve the organizations goals.
As Schermerhorn states in Management planning, organizing, leading, and controlling are the tools needed by managers to accomplish performance goals. It is crucial that managers be able to recognize and act upon problems or opportunities as they arise. Planning is perhaps the cornerstone of the four processes. All good processes were at some point given great detail so as to anticipate possible problems and solutions to those problems. When the Honda Motor Company decided it needed to refine its inventory they didn't just jump at the first idea that was proposed; they first set their objectives and discussed ways to meet those objectives. After giving careful consideration to processes and the streamlining of those processes human error rose as the top need for change. Sounds simple you might respond; in reality it is much more complicated.
Within an organization, different types of planning are necessary to help establish the visions and goals a company has. Strategic and operational planning is essential for the success of a business. For example, Sports Authority has recently filed for bankruptcy, which is likely due to a lack of planning skills. With the addition of strategic and operational planning, the risk of going bankrupt could be significantly reduced. The many planning steps and strategies involved in these types of planning are what eventually produce the most success.