Week 3 Thursday, 21 November 2019 9:12 am By the end of this week you should be able to: . explain the reasons for planning · identify the most commonly used types of planning. Why do managers plan When meeting goals in complex business environments, planning is essential. Planning involves: ... defining the organisation's goals, establishing strategies for achieving those goals, and developing plans to integrate and coordinate work activities. It is concerned with both the ends (what is to be done) and the means (how it is to be done). (Robbins et al. 2017, p. 276). There are at least four reasons for planning: · Planning provides direction for managers and non-managers. It reduces uncertainty by forcing managers to look ahead. It reduces overlapping and wasteful activities. · It sets the goals or standards used in controlling. Types of planning As planning helps managers cope with uncertainty by forcing them to look ahead, anticipate change, consider the impact of the change, and develop appropriate responses, they use a number of planning types and tools to support their planning. Contingency planning Robbins et al. (2017, p. 52) say that 'a good way to describe contingency is 'if, then'. If this is the way my situation is, then this is the best way for me to manage in this situation'. Planning for events such as disaster or terrorism are examples of contingency planning. A more familiar example of a contingency plan could be deciding to drive to work to cater for the possibility of an upcoming train strike. Scenario planning While contingency planning deals with shorter term issues, scenario planning is concerned with longer term issues. It involves exploring scenarios to help organisations deal with issues that may occur in the future. Watch the following video for a good grounding in the concept of scenario planning.
Benchmarking Benchmarking is 'a technique that makes use of external comparisons to better evaluate an organisation's current performance and identify possible actions for the future' (Schermerhorn et al. 2014). Simply put, it is borrowing excellent ideas from similar organisations for use in your own. PESTEL (or PESTLE) analysis framework A PESTEL analysis is a framework or tool used by marketers to analyse and monitor the macro-environmental (external marketing environment) factors that have an impact on an organisation. (Professional Academy 2019) The PESTEL acronym stands for the following factors: P-Political. E-Economic. S-Social. · T-Technological. · E-Environmental. · L-Legal.