JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

TECHNOLOGY
NAME REGISTARTION NUMBER

1. JEFFERSON MWENDWA KITEME HDE215-0651/2019

2. THEODORE DENNIS HDE215-0643/2019
3. SIMON MACHARIA HDE215-0654/2019
4. EYAHUMA MOSES HDE215-0705/2019
5. EMELDA ANYANGO HDE215-0714/2019
6. MICHELLE NJOKI NDUNG`U HDE215-0637/2019
7. MOYI ESTHER LUKALE HDE215-0712/2019
8. CHARITY MUTHONI WACHIRA HDE215-0605/2019
9. AUSTINE NGUGI HDE215-0625/2019
10.MURIGI MERCY WAMBUI HDE215-1414/2019

UNIT NAME: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

UNIT CODE: HESM 2209
GROUP: (I)
INSTRUCTOR: MR. CHARLES WANJAU
ASSIGNEMNT: DISCUSS ON THE FOLLOWING TOPICS OF INTEREST.
1. STRATEGIC PLANNING
2. TACTICAL PLANNING
3. OPERATION PLANNING
INTRODUCTION: STRATEGIC PLANNING.
Strategic planning is the process of documenting and establishing a direction of your small
business by assessing both where you are and where you’re going.
Strategic planning is the art of creating specific business strategies, implementing them, and
evaluating the results of executing plan, in regard to a company’s overall long-term goals and
desires.
The strategic plan gives you a place to record your mission, vision and values, as well as your
long term goals and the action plan you’ll use to reach them.
A well written strategic plan can play a pivotal role in your small businesses growth and success
Strategic planning remains relevant in modern business.

2
ADVANTAGES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
1. It allows organizations to be proactive rather than reactive

A strategic plan allows organizations to foresee their future and to prepare accordingly. Through
strategic planning, companies can anticipate certain unfavorable scenarios before they happen
and take necessary precautions to avoid them. With a strong strategic plan, organizations can be
proactive rather than merely reacting to situations as they arise. Being proactive allows
organizations to keep up with the ever-changing trends in the market and always stay one step
ahead of the competition.
2. It sets up a sense of direction

A strategic plan helps to define the direction in which an organization must travel, and aids in
establishing realistic objectives and goals that are in line with the vision and mission charted out
for it. A strategic plan offers a much-needed foundation from which an organization can grow,
evaluate its success, compensate its employees and establish boundaries for efficient decision-
making.
3. Increases operational efficiency

A strategic plan provides management the roadmap to align the organization’s functional
activities to achieve set goals. It guides management discussions and decision making in
determining resource and budget requirements to accomplish set objectives — thus increasing
operational efficiency.
4. Increase market share and profitability

Through a dedicated strategic plan, organizations can get valuable insights on market trends,
consumer segments, as well as product and service offerings which may affect their success. An
approach that is targeted and well-strategized to turn all sales and marketing efforts into the best
possible outcomes can help to increase profitability and market share.
5. 5. It can make a business more durable

A business may be booming one year and in debt the next. With constantly changing industries
and world markets, organizations that lack a strong foundation, focus and foresight will have
trouble riding the next wave. According to reports, one of every three companies that are leaders
in their industry might not be there in the next five years, but the odds are in favor of those that
have a strong strategic plan. Strong strategic plan management helps organizations manage their
strategic and operating plans, track performance, and report to stakeholders.

3
DISADVANTAGES OF STRATEGIC PLANNING
1. Complex process

Strategic planning process consists of many steps that are connected to each other and must be
constantly adjusted. Some unexpected factors also appear that may change the whole strategy
and as a result, strategic planning process.
2. Low rate of successful implementation

Due to its complexity and heavy commitment to strategic goals, strategic planning is rarely
implemented successfully. Often, the poor implementation is the reason for failure, although it is
more often the case of misaligned operational and strategic goals.
3. Costly to perform for small and medium businesses

Strategic planning, the same as marketing or proper human resource management, adds a lot of
expenses to an organization. Managers or strategic planners have to be hired, additional efforts
are required towards analysis of external and internal environments and some tools have to be
designed to properly implement strategic planning process. Although all of this is done to some
extent by all organizations, mainly the large enterprises are the ones capable to hire competent
personnel to implement strategic plans.

TACTICAL PLANNING
4
Tactical plans are a set of actions to be undertaken within the next 1-3 years. These actions must
be aligned with the strategic plan of the business. It outlines actions to achieve short-term goals,
generally within a year or less. Tactical plans outline what each department needs to achieve,
how it must do so and who has the responsibility for implementation. Tactical planning occurs
after a business, team, or individual has created a strategic plan that outlines general goals and
objectives.
Once the requirements of the company for the next 5 or 10 years are determined, the next step is
to determining how each functional area will contribute to achieving these strategic goals.
Importance of tactical planning.
1. Tactical planning drives execution of strategic plan through all levels of the organization.
-It aids in formation and working out of plans.
2. Turns strategy into action. -makes strategy get into action
3. Increases number of people working on the business versus in the business. - this entails
it increasing the number of people working towards improvement of the company which
are both workers and customers rather than increase in customers only.
4. Tactical plan prioritizes our activities and ties our overall work to overall strategy. -it
takes into consideration what an individual does in an organization and relates it to the
goal or aim of a company's strategy.
5. Tactical planning result in company-wide involvement by in and out accountability. -
involves all parts of the company in action. There is much transparency and
accountability.

Advantages of Tactical Planning.

1. Tactical planning’s is a crucial part of the business.

5
It is not the same as operational plans and strategic plans. The short-term outcomes are targeted
in real-time and shorter spans. Tactical plans executed in an adept manner assist businesses to
excel within the respective markets.
2. Tactical plans are usually flexible and carry a lesser risk to fail than strategic plans.

Strategic plans tend to do undoable harm to the company in case of failure. The tactical plans, on
the other hand, can be changed from time to time. Thus they do less harm to the company than
strategic plans, if gone wrong.
Disadvantages of Tactical Planning.
1. It can cause a slowdown in a firm’s operations if the plan is extensive.
2. Consumes an excessive amount of time while planning and little to no time implementing the
plan.

OPERATIONAL PLANNING
Operational planning (OP) is the process of planning strategic goals and objectives to technical
goals and objectives.

6
It describes milestones, conditions for success and explains how, or what portion of, a strategic
plan will be put into operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial
application, a fiscal year or another given budgetary term. An operational plan is the basis for
and justification of an annual operating budget request. Therefore, a five-year strategic plan
would typically require five operational plans funded by five operating budgets.
Important of operational planning.
To ensure that your business is reaching its goals, you need to have an operational plan in place.
As a way to track progress and keep everyone on task, you should add project management
software to your business.
Having an operational plan is crucial. It’s an all-star playbook for your business – reviewing the
performance of key staff members through quality management, and recognizing how the overall
team can work together to meet targets. Without an operational plan, you’re out of the league.
An operational plan ensures you can identify areas that aren’t generating as much revenue as
they should, or are causing losses, and can help you establish what needs to change. Being able
to continually update and refer to a short-term plan enables a comprehensive understanding of
what the goals are and provides a guide for every step of the process. As a result, your agents
should be well aware of what’s expected of them and with the right tools self-manage meeting
these targets.
Operational plans bring accountability into daily tasks. By having a comprehensive plan of
expectations for the performance of your business, if discrepancies occur, you should be able to
analyze your plan and identify where these have taken place and how they can be resolved.
These plans are a great way of managing other performance indicators too.

Advantages of Operational Planning.

1. Operational Plan ensures you can identify company's weaknesses and helps to determine the
courses of action to be taken to increase profits.

7
2. Operational planning enhances work accuracy. i.e.) Free from mistakes.
3. Operational planning enhances effective communication among business partners.
4. Operational planning helps to evaluate employees and management performance.

Disadvantages of Operational Planning.

1. Time consuming.
In this planning, the business checks and analyses every department and come up with a
strategy for each one of them. Doing so it will take a lot of time.
2. Costly
Since they are not analyzing the company as a whole but in departments, the amount of money
spent on implementing and evaluating the strategies will be higher.

REFERENCES

8
 Barker, V. L. & Duhaime, L. M. (2001). Strategic change in planning
process: Theory and empirical evidence, Strategic Management Journal, 18,
13-38.
 Hambrick, D.C. & Schecter, S.M. (2002). Planning for mature industrial
product business units, Academy of Management Journal, 26, 231
 Johnson, G. (1987). Strategic change and the management process,
Blackwell Oxford.
 Scherrer, P.S. (2003). Management business : Planning Process. Planning
Process.