Chapter 01 - Strategic Planning and the Marketing Management Process
oTheir managements failed to recognize that business strategies need to reflect changing
environments and emphasis must be placed on developing business systems that allow
for continuous improvement.
Present-day business managers realize that the true mission of the organization is to provide
value for three key constituencies: customers, employees, and investors.
Strategic planning includes all the activities that lead to the development of a clear
organizational mission, organizational objectives, and appropriate strategies to achieve the
objective for the entire organization.
Strategic planning, if performed successfully, plays a key role in achieving equilibrium
between the short and the long term by balancing acceptable financial performance with
preparation for inevitable changes in markets, technology, and competition as well as in
economic and political arenas.
The strategic planning process is depicted in Figure 1.2.
In the strategic planning process the organization gathers information about the changing
elements of its environment.
This information is useful in aiding the organization to adapt better to these changes through
the process of strategic planning.
B. The Strategic Planning Process
The output of strategic planning is the development of a strategic plan.
Figure 1.2 indicates four components of a strategic plan: mission, objectives, strategies, and
portfolio plan.
Organizational Mission
The organization’s environment provides the resources that sustain the organization,
whether it is a business, a college or university, or a government agency.
Every organization exists to accomplish something in the larger environment and that
purpose, vision, or mission usually is clear at the organization’s inception.
As time passes, the organization expands, and the environment and managerial personnel
change. As a result, one or more things are likely to occur:
oThe organization’s original purpose may become irrelevant as the organization
expands into new products, new markets, and even new industries.
oThe original mission may remain relevant, but managers begin to lose interest in it.
oChanges in the environment may make the original mission inappropriate.
The result of any or all three of these conditions is a “drifting” organization, without a
clear mission, vision, or purpose to guide critical decisions.
oWhen this occurs, management must search for a purpose or emphatically restate
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