BBA 211

INTRODUCTION TO BUSINESS
ADMINISTRATION

UNIT 3.4.
O R G A N I Z AT I O N A L P L A N N I N G TO O L S A N D T E C H N I Q U E S

LECTURER: MR. MPANDE, D .

Managers use Planning tools and techniques to help their
organization be more efficient and effective.
There are three module of Planning tools and techniques.
 Techniques For Assessing The Environment
 Techniques For Allocating Resources
Contemporary Planning Techniques
Techniques for Assessing the Environment

Three techniques help managers do that: environmental scanning, forecasting, and

benchmarking.
1. Environmental Scanning
The screening of information to anticipate and interpret changes in the environment.
Competitor intelligence - gathering information about one’s competitors. It helps to
answer May questions: who are competitors? What are they doing? How they doing?
A variety of sources of information is easily accessible.
reverse engineering - analyze a competitor’s product becomes illegal corporate
spying when proprietary\ownership materials or trade secrets are stolen fine line
between what is legal and ethical and what is legal but unethical internet opened vast
sources of data.
Global scanning - screening of information on global forces that might affect an
organization that has global interests. Requires more extensive procedures than those
used for scanning the domestic environment
2. Forecasting
Environmental scanning establishes the basis for forecasts,
which are predictions of outcomes.
Forecasting Techniques Forecasting techniques fall into two
categories: quantitative and qualitative.
Quantitative forecasting applies a set of mathematical rules to
a series of past data to predict outcomes. These techniques are
preferred when managers have sufficient hard data that can be
used.
Qualitative forecasting, in contrast, uses the judgment and
opinions of knowledgeable individuals to predict outcomes.
Qualitative techniques typically are used when precise data are
limited or hard to obtain.
3. Benchmarking
Benchmarking, the search for the best practices among
competitors or non competitors that lead to their superior
performance.
Types of Benchmarking
There are four primary types of benchmarking: internal,
competitive, functional, and generic.

1. Internal benchmarking is a comparison of a business process

to a similar process inside the organization.
2. Competitive benchmarking is a direct competitor-to-
competitor comparison of a product, service, process, or
method.
3. Functional benchmarking is a comparison to similar or
identical practices within the same or similar functions outside
the immediate industry.
4. Generic benchmarking broadly conceptualizes unrelated
business processes or functions that can be practiced in the
same or similar ways regardless of the industry.
Techniques for Allocating
Resources
 Budgeting
A budget is a numerical plan for allocating resources to specific
activities. Managers typically prepare budgets for revenues,
expenses, and large capital expenditures such as equipment.
 Scheduling
Detailing what activities have to be done, the order in which they
are to be completed, who is to do each, and when they are to be
completed. e.g Gantt charts
 Breakeven Analysis
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BE =
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 FIN.
D. MPANDE