Concept Of Planning
Throughout human history, people have tried to achieve specific purposes, and in this effort some sort of planning has always found a place. In modern times, the former Soviet Union was the first nation to devise an economic plan for growth and development. After World War II, national economic planning became a popular activity, particularly among developing countries, with the goal of systematic and organized action designed to achieve stated objectives within a given period. Among market economies, France has gone the furthest in planning its economic affairs. In the business world, Henri Fayol, the French industrialist, is credited with the first successful attempts at formal planning.
Accomplishments attributed to planning can be summarized as follows:
1. Planning leads to a better position, or standing, for the organization.
2. Planning helps the organization progress in ways that its management considers most suitable.
3. Planning helps every manager think, decide, and act more effectively and progress in the desired direction.
4. Planning helps keep the organization flexible.
5. Planning stimulates a cooperative, integrated, enthusiastic approach to organizational problems.
6. Planning indicates to management how to evaluate and check up on progress toward planned objectives.
7. Planning leads to socially and economically useful results.
Planning in corporations emerged as an important activity in the 1960s. Several studies undertaken during that time showed that companies attached significant importance to planning. A Conference Board survey of 420 firms, for example, revealed that 85 percent had formalized corporate planning activity.2 A1983 survey by Coopers & Lybrand and Yankelovich, Skelly, and White confirmed the central role played by the planning function and the planner in running most large busi-nesses.3 Although the importance of planning had been acknowledged for some time, the executives interviewed in 1983 indicated that planning was becoming more important and was receiving greater attention. A 1991 study by McDonald's noted that marketing planning is commonly practiced by companies of all sizes, and there is wide agreement on the benefits to be gained from such planning.4 A 1996 survey by the Association of Management Consulting Firms found that business persons, academics, and consultants expect business planning to be their most pressing management issue as they prepare to enter the next century.5
Some companies that use formal planning believe that it improves profits and growth, finding it particularly useful in explicit objective setting and in monitoring results.6 Certainly, the current business climate is generating a new posture among executives, with the planning process being identified by eight out of ten respondents as a key to implementing the chief executive officer's (CEO) chosen strategy.7 Today most companies insist on some sort of planning exercise to meet the rapidly changing environment. For many, however, the exercise is cathartic rather than creative.
Growth is an accepted expectation of a firm; however, growth does not happen by itself. Growth must be carefully planned: questions such as how much, when, in which areas, where to grow, and who will be responsible for different tasks must be answered. Unplanned growth will be haphazard and may fail to provide desired levels of profit. Therefore, for a company to realize orderly growth, to maintain a high level of operating efficiency, and to achieve its goals fully, it must plan for the future systematically. Products, markets, facilities, personnel, and financial resources must be evaluated and selected wisely.
Today's business environment is more complex than ever. In addition to the keen competition that firms face from both domestic and overseas companies, a variety of other concerns, including environmental protection, employee welfare, consumerism, and antitrust action, impinge on business moves. Thus, it is desirable for a firm to be cautious in undertaking risks, which again calls for a planned effort.
Many firms pursue growth internally through research and development. This route to growth is not only time-consuming but also requires a heavy commitment of resources with a high degree of risk. In such a context, planning is needed to choose the right type of risk.
Since World War II, technology has had a major impact on markets and marketers. Presumably, the trend of accelerating technological change will continue in the future. The impact of technological innovations may be felt in any industry or in any firm. Therefore, such changes need to be anticipated as far in advance as possible in order for a firm to take advantage of new opportunities and to avoid the harmful consequences of not anticipating major new developments. Here again, planning is significant.
Finally, planning is required in making a choice among the many equally attractive alternative investment opportunities a firm may have. No firm can afford to invest in each and every "good" opportunity. Planning, thus, is essential in making the right selection.
Planning for future action has been called by many different names: long-range planning, corporate planning, comprehensive planning, and formal planning. Whatever its name, the reference is obviously to the future.
Definition of Planning
Planning is essentially a process directed toward making today's decisions with tomorrow in mind and a means of preparing for future decisions so that they may be made rapidly, economically, and with as little disruption to the business as possible.
Though there are as many definitions of planning as there are writers on the subject, the emphasis on the future is the common thread underlying all planning theory. In practice, however, different meanings are attached to planning. A distinction is often made between a budget (a yearly program of operations) and a long-range plan. Some people consider planning as something done by staff specialists, whereas budgeting is seen to fall within the purview of line managers.
It is necessary for a company to be clear about the nature and scope of the planning that it intends to adopt. A definition of planning should then be based on what planning is supposed to be in an organization. It is not necessary for every company to engage in the same style of comprehensive planning. The basis of all planning should be to design courses of action to be pursued for achieving stated objectives such that opportunities are seized and threats are guarded against, but the exact planning posture must be custom-made (i.e., based on the decision-making needs of the organization).
Operations management, which emphasizes the current programs of an organization, and planning, which essentially deals with the future, are two intimately related activities. Operations management or budgeted programs should emerge as the result of planning. In the outline of a five-year plan, for example, years two through five may be described in general terms, but the activities of the first year should be budgeted and accompanied by detailed operational programs.
A distinction should also be made between planning and forecasting. Forecasting considers future changes in areas of importance to a company and tries to assess the impact of these changes on company operations. Planning takes over from there to set objectives and goals and develop strategy.
Briefly, no business, however small or poorly managed, can do without planning. Although planning per se may be nothing new for an organization, the current emphasis on it is indeed different. No longer just one of several important functions of the organization, planning's new role demands linkage of various parts of an organization into an integrated system. The emphasis has shifted from planning as an aspect of the organization to planning as the basis of all efforts and decisions, the building of an entire organization toward the achievement of designated objectives.
There is little doubt about the importance of planning. Planning departments are key in critiquing strategies, crystallizing goals, setting priorities, and maintaining control;8 but to be useful, planning should be done properly. Planning just for the sake of it can be injurious; half-hearted planning can cause more problems than it solves. In practice, however, many business executives simply pay lip service to planning, partly because they find it difficult to incorporate planning into the decision-making process and partly because they are uncertain how to adopt it.
Requisites for Successful Planning
If planning is to succeed, proper arrangements must be made to put it into operation. The Boston Consulting Group suggests the following concerns for effective planning:
• There is the matter of outlook, which can affect the degree to which functional and professional viewpoints, versus corporate needs, dominate the work of planning.
• There is the question of the extent of involvement for members of the management. Who should participate, and to what extent?
• There is the problem of determining what part of the work of planning should be accomplished through joint effort and how to achieve effective collaboration among participants in the planning process.
• There is the matter of incentive, of making planning an appropriately emphasized and rewarded kind of managerial work.
• There is the question of how to provide staff coordination for planning, which raises the issue of how a planning unit should be used in the organization.
• And there is the role of the chief executive in the planning process. What should it be?9
Though planning is conceptually rather simple, implementing it is far from easy. Successful planning requires a blend of many forces in different areas, not the least of which are behavioral, intellectual, structural, philosophical, and managerial. Achieving the proper blend of these forces requires making difficult decisions, as the Boston Consulting Group has suggested. Although planning is indeed complex, successful planning systems do have common fundamental characteristics despite differing operational details. First, it is essential that the CEO be completely supportive. Second, planning must be kept simple, in agreement with the managerial style, and unencumbered by detailed numbers and fancy equations. Third, planning is a shared responsibility, and it would be wrong to assume that the president or vice president of planning, staff specialists, or line managers can do it single-handedly. Fourth, the managerial incentive system should give due recognition to the fact that decisions made with long-term implications may not appear good in the short run. Fifth, the goals of planning should be achievable without excessive frustration and work load and with widespread understanding and acceptance of the process. Sixth, overall flexibility should be encouraged to accommodate changing conditions.
Initiating Planning Activities
There is no one best time for initiating planning activities in an organization; however, before developing a formal planning system, the organization should be prepared to establish a strong planning foundation. The CEO should be a central participant, spearheading the planning job. A planning framework should be developed to match the company's perspective and should be generally accepted by its executives. A manual outlining the work flow, information links, format of various documents, and schedules for completing various activities should be prepared by the planner. Once these foundations are completed, the company can initiate the planning process anytime.
Planning should not be put off until bad times prevail; it is not just a cure for poor performance. Although planning is probably the best way to avoid bad times, planning efforts that are begun when operational performance is at an ebb (i.e., at low or no profitability) will only make things worse, since planning efforts tend initially to create an upheaval by challenging the traditional patterns of decision making. The company facing the question of survival should concentrate on alleviating the current crisis.
Planning should evolve gradually. It is wishful thinking to expect full-scale planning to be instituted in a few weeks or months. Initial planning may be
Philosophies of Planning formalized in one or more functional areas; then, as experience is gained, a company-wide planning system may be designed. IBM, a pioneer in formalized planning, followed this pattern. First, financial planning and product planning were attempted in the post-World War II period. Gradual changes toward increased formality were made over the years. In the later half of 1960s, increased attention was given to planning contents, and a compatible network of planning data systems was initiated. Corporate-wide planning, which was introduced in the 1970s, forms the backbone of IBM's current global planning endeavors. Beginning in 1986, the company made several changes in its planning perspectives in response to the contingencies created by deteriorating performance. In the 1990s, planning at IBM became more centralized to fully seek resource control and coordination.
In an analysis of three different philosophies of planning, Ackoff established the labels satisfying, optimizing, and adaptivizing.10 Planning on the basis of the satisfying philosophy aims at easily achievable goals and molds planning efforts accordingly. This type of planning requires setting objectives and goals that are "high enough'' but not as "high as possible.'' The satisfying planner, therefore, devises only one feasible and acceptable way of achieving goals, which may not necessarily be the best possible way. Under a satisfying philosophy, confrontations that might be caused by conflicts in programs are diffused through politicking, underplaying change, and accepting a fall in performance as unavoidable.
The philosophy of optimizing planning has its foundation in operations research. The optimizing planner seeks to model various aspects of the organization and define them as objective functions. Efforts are then directed so that an objective function is maximized (or minimized), subject to the constraints imposed by management or forced by the environment. For example, an objective may be to obtain the highest feasible market share; planning then amounts to searching for different variables that affect market share: price elasticity, plant capacity, competitive behavior, the product's stage in the life cycle, and so on. The effect of each variable is reduced to constraints on the market share. Then an analysis is undertaken to find out the optimum market share to target.
Unlike the satisfying planner, the optimizer endeavors, with the use of mathematical models, to find the best available course to realize objectives and goals. The success of an optimizing planner depends on how completely and accurately the model depicts the underlying situation and how well the planner can figure out solutions from the model once it has been built.
The philosophy of adaptivizing planning is an innovative approach not yet popular in practice. To understand the nature of this type of planning, let us compare it to optimizing planning. In optimization, the significant variables and their effects are taken for granted. Given these, an effort is made to achieve the optimal result. With an adaptivizing approach, on the other hand, planning may be undertaken to produce changes in the underlying relationships themselves and thereby create a desired future. Underlying relationships refer to an organization's internal and external environment and the dynamics of the values of the actors in these environments (i.e., how values relate to needs and to the satisfaction of needs, how changes in needs produce changes in values, and how changes in needs are produced).
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