INTRODUCTION
Planning is an activity we perform before taking action. It is an anticipatory decision making process of deciding what to do and how to do it before action is required. Its purpose, he continued, is to facilitate progress and improve performance and that planning allows integrated, consistent, and purposeful action. Although mistakes can be avoided and problems can be anticipated and overcome before crises arise, but that planning must be based on prudent forecasts and reasonable premises. And that it cannot be done in an atmosphere of blind optimism and disregard for competitive and environment realities.
Strategic planning, or top management planning, includes the development of overall company objectives and is primarily concerned with solving long-term problems associated with external, environmental influences.
STRATEGIC PLANNING IN BIG BUSINESS
Selecting any of these requires that a company engage in strategic planning. How far into the future a firm projects depends on the industry and the anticipated business environment. After a firm has developed a vision for its future it compares where it would like to be with where it is now and where it will be if it does nothing. The difference between where a firm would like to be and where it will be if it does nothing is called the planning gap. Strategic planning is primarily concerned with closing that gap to state Leon, Reinhawch et al (1980).
Tactical planning: This again, he states in concerned with the efficient, day-to day use of resources allocated to a department manager’s area of responsibility. These managers typically work with a one-year operating budget. For example, he says that a sales manager may be required to develop an operational plan to sell a certain number of items within a specific period.
Administrative planning: In contrast to strategic planning, which established the mission of the organization, administrative, planning, according to Kinard, Jerry (1988)? Is the process that structures a firm’s resources to achieve maximum performance? Administration plans do not involve such matters as plan layout, merchandise display, and servicing customers, he says, they concentrate rather on product aims, selection of geographical areas, and policies dealing with the major functions of the organization (production, marketing, finance, research, personnel etc.)