Strategic Planning and Management Development
Throughout the business industry the people who are most associated with the business
process has found strategic planning and management development requires constant
shifting back and forth between long-run and short-run thinking (Dess and Miller, 5).
Planning is a business process that involves one or more people (depending on the type
business) whom decide where the business objectives lie and how to initially accomplish
them over a period of time. Strategic management development is a business process that
also involves one or more people (again depending on the type of business). This particular
process essentially allows the application of the basic planning process at the highest levels
of the organization (Rue and Byars, 100). In applying strategic management development,
the long-run direction of a business can be established, because developing strategy helps
outline the management process.
Planning enables a manager or an organization to actively affect rather than passively
accept the future (Rue and Byars, 95). A business with a direct sense of direction
essentially commits to making it happen, in turn making the business more capable of
having an impact throughout the business industry during its future. It is extremely
important for a business to have a direct sense of direction, because without it it is much
more likely to sit back, let things happen, and then react to those happenings in a crisis
mode (Rue and Byars, 95). A business that is consistently strategically planning will not sit
back, let things happen, and then react to those happening in a crisis mode. This is because
most businesses view their business strategic planning process to be successful not as a
single plan, but as a system consisting of management plans and decisions (Vaghefi and
Huellmantel, 10) that constantly stays active.
One has to realize too formal planning is the first step into developing strategy throughout
one management process. In order for effective planning and strategy development to take
place, the planning process has to essentially come first and continue to be a process
throughout the strategy development stages as well as the strategic management process.
Planning is a process that has to be continual in the sense that it is not realistic for someone
being able to logically plan for everything that comes along. There is literally nothing that
initially separates these two processes, because one cannot effectively be complete without
the other. Although, strategic plans address the most important decisions the organization
must make; yet, they are the least systematized of all managerial decisions (Vaghefi and
Huellmantel, 10). By using the concept of planning first, then taking in account those
plans, strategy development can effectively be applied to one management process to see
how short-term and long-term essential interactions (goals and objectives) within a
business will be achieved.
One might still be thinking though, Why does a business take the time to actually sit down
and strategically plan? To be more specific, an organization management process cannot
run smoothly without having effective strategic plans laid out for the business itself. A
manager within an organization where plans are not recognized as effective will most often
find themselves having to make reorganization a standard process. One of the overall
reasons for businesses having to implement strategic planning is business has changed at a
fast rate over the past several decades. This is due to the way rules and procedures for
living and working effectively have changed, and in turn causing old paradigms to be
ineffective (Kaufman, 34). In addition, businesses are at a point due to globalization and
other new paradigms of business that one is at point now where the need to challenge
oneself and get out of one comfort zone is crucial in being a real force in the business
industry of today. Businesses are finding that strategic planning involves challenging
existing paradigms, and the need to learn and think strategically to add an understanding of
what to do next (Kaufman, 34). By taking into account the needs for thinking and planning
strategically, businesses have found formulating plans and strategically applying them
through the management of a business will increase one capability of preventing problems,
making smart decisions, improving management/employee relationship, and most often
help cope with change (Pearce and Robinson, 11). Another way of answering and initially
describing why businesses plan is businesses want a formal process of defining
requirements for delivering high payoff results; for identifying what and how to get from
our realities to future ones that add value to society at the Mega level. It is not rigid or
lock-step, but rather a self-correcting set of defining requirements and relationships for
stating What Is in terms of results, and moving ever closer to What Should Be results and
payoffs (Kaufman, 41).
Before businesses became as complex as they are now there was little need for a business
to establish organizational structure, because they were relatively simple. In business of
the Twenty-First Century, most businesses are being exposed to no longer having a
competitive edge. This is due to many businesses having embraced the international
market for new markets and profits. Furthermore, larger companies are not the only ones
being affected. Business management throughout are being forced to relate to the newer
aspects of the business industry. In addition, is causing strategic planning to be a necessity
for organizational structure to take place for businesses to keep running effectively. In the
book Beyond Workplace 2000, a very logical perspective is presented about what
organizations and management are going to look like during the twenty-first century. High
