Planning: Concepts and

Practices
Planning

 Planningis the process by which

managers establish goals and define the
methods by which these goals are to be
attained. Planning involves selecting
missions and objectives and the actions to
achieve them; it requires decision
making, which is choosing from among
alternative future courses of action.
Objectives

 Sinceplans are made to attain goals or

objectives, every plan and all its support
should contribute to the achievement of
the organization’s purpose and objectives.

 Anorganized enterprise exists to

accomplish group objectives through willing
and purposeful co-operation
Nature of Planning

The nature of planning can be understood by

examining its four major aspects. They are;
 It is a contribution to objectives,
 It is primacy among the manager’s tasks.
 It is pervasiveness, and
 The efficiency of resulting plans.
Types

 Hierarchical Plans:
These plans are drawn at three major hierarchical
levels, namely, the institutional, the managerial and
the technical core. The plans for these three levels
are;
 Strategic plan.
 Administrative or Intermediate plan.
 Operational plans can also be categorized according to
frequency or repetitiveness of use. They are broadly
classified as;
Types

 Standing Plans:
Standing plans are drawn to cover issues that
managers face repeatedly. Such a standing plan may
be called a standard operating procedure (SOP).
Generally, five types of standing plans are used;
 Mission or purpose
 Strategy
 Policies
 Rules
 Procedures
Types

 Single-use Plans:
Single-use plans are prepared for single or unique
situations or problems and are normally discarded
or replaced after one use. Generally, four types of
single-use plans are used. These are;
 Objectives or Goals
 Programs
 Projects
 Budgets
Types

 Contingency Plans:
Contingency plans are made to deal with
situations that might crop up if these
assumptions turn out to be wrong. Thus
contingency planning is the development of
alternative courses of action to be taken if
events disrupt a planned course of action.
Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining

its strategy and making decisions on how to allocate
resources to pursue that strategy. To determine the direction
of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current
position and the possible avenues through which it can
pursue a particular course of action. Strategic planning
generally deals with at least one of three key questions:
 What do we do?
 For whom do we do it?
 How do we excel?
Common Components of a Business Plan

A business plan include external and internal

analyses, marketing and branding, investments, debt,
resource allocation, suppliers, production processes,
competition, and research and development. While
different business models include different components
in their planning, based on unique organizational or
industry needs, the central theme is that all aspects of
the strategy should be researched and discussed prior to
incurring the costs of operations.
Planning Process

Situation-Target-Proposal

 This method involves the following steps:

 Situation: Evaluate the current situation and how it
came about.
 Target: Define goals and objectives (sometimes called
ideal state).
 Proposal: Map a possible route to the goals and
objectives.
Planning Process

 Draw-See-Think-Plan

 This method involves addressing the following questions:

 Draw: What is the ideal state or the desired end state?
 See: What is today’s situation? What is the gap between today’s
situation and the ideal state, and why?
 Think: What specific actions must be taken to close the gap
between today’s situation and the ideal state?
 Plan: What resources are required to execute these specific
actions?
Business Plan

 Preparing a business plan draws on a wide range

of knowledge from many different business
disciplines: finance, human resource
management, intellectual-property management,
supply-chain management, operations
management, and marketing. It can be helpful to
view the business plan as a collection of subplans,
one for each of the main business disciplines.
Marketing Plan

 A marketing plan may be part of an overall business

plan. Solid strategy is the foundation of a well-
written marketing plan, and one way to achieve this
is by using a method known as the seven Ps.

 A product-oriented company may use the seven Ps to

develop a plan for each of its products. A market-
oriented company will concentrate on each market.
Each will base its plans on the detailed needs of its
customers and on the strategies chosen to satisfy
those needs.
Marketing Plan