Background Of Strategic Planning

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Background of the Study
According to Albanese and Van Fleet (1983), every organization has an internal and an external environment that are interdependent. The continuous evolution and interaction of internal environment components and the dynamic and chaotic nature of the external environment occasioned by constant changes in socio-cultural-demographic factors, competition, political-legal aspects and technology has made strategic management popular in realizing a firm’s strategic choices and strategic position in search of excellent performance (Robinson and Pearce II, 2009). According to Burnes (2000), the contingency theory postulates that organizations are open systems and there is no one best way of managing an organization. This is …show more content…

According to Thompson et al (2007), strategic planning is a competitive move and a business approach that managers make use of in order to achieve the targeted levels of performance, grow the business, conduct operations, attract and please customers and compete successfully. On the other hand, according to Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (2008), strategic planning includes making of strategic choices to position a firm at an advantage against competitors in the long-term. Strategic planning can also be defined as a top management function concerned with making decisions in connection with the determination of the organization functional policies, objectives, strategies, mission, philosophy and vision (Sababu, 2007). To put it briefly, strategic planning is a long-term and a rational process, action oriented and futuristic in nature since it transforms strategic thoughts into strategic actions and involves selecting from among likely courses of action to make strategic decisions that bring an organization to its general objective (Namaswa, 1989, Bruce and Longdon, 2000, Drucker, …show more content…

Environmental analysis is a significant constituent in the strategic planning process since it ensures formulation of correct strategies made from an informed perspective of the prevailing organizational conditions and the organization’s competitive external environment, (Ansoff 1990, Barney 2007, Bruce and Longdon, 2000). Strategy formulation entails making strategic decisions or strategic choices based on the organization’s strategic issues and the strategic options at hand, (Lynch,

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