EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CORPORATE PLANNING IN MANAGEMENT PROCESS
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EXAMINATION OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CORPORATE PLANNING IN MANAGEMENT PROCESS
Chapter one
1.1 Introduction.
Corporate planning is the process of selecting objectives, purposes, or goals and determining what should be done to achieve them, both broadly and explicitly. It is done at the corporate level and covers the entire organisation, paying special attention to the numerous departments, sections, divisions, and branches that comprise the organisation.
Corporate planning, often known as strategic planning, is a tool that helps management make strategic decisions. The goal of strategic planning is to achieve a sufficient process of innovation and change inside the organisation.
It is a process that a corporation goes through to plan out what has to be done and, to a significant part, how to do it. This substantially simplifies the manager’s duty and allows him to make the most efficient use of time, labour, equipment, facilities, and money.
Corporate planning is a systematic study that aims to discover the needs of any organisation. It is also a deliberate endeavour to reach the intended target, as well as an examination of the expected obstacles and the development of a plan for achieving a set of objectives.
Corporate planning is done on a long-term basis and entails an integrated approach to all aspects of the company’s activities by treating the company as a corporate entity in which all of the different branches, departments, and units that make up the organisation are collectively taken care of rather than as a collection of individual outfits.
Any action that does not aid in the firm’s strategic decision making is not corporate planning, even if it appears to incorporate many of the ”proper” parts of planning, such as an intricate five-year plan, which frequently does not impact strategic decision making significantly.
Effective corporate planning does not have to be elaborate or convoluted; it must be logical and focused on the strategic decision to be made (Lorange, 1980).
The examination of the organization’s surroundings is a critical component of corporate planning. This type of research will encompass past events, current actions, and projections into the future.
The ultimate purpose of the process is to match the company’s strengths and weaknesses with environmental opportunities and threats in order to perform favourably and efficiently in the environment
which will lead to the achievement of the organization’s objectives and goals. Corporate planning is comprised of two primary components. They are both operational and strategic planning.
Operational planning is concerned with the day-to-day operations of a firm and is carried out across functional areas such as production planning, marketing planning, financial planning, manpower planning, and so on.
It also includes single-use plans that are created to achieve a specific goal and then discarded once completed in order to deal with recurring and predictable circumstances. Strategic planning, on the other hand, is the process of identifying an organization’s goals as well as establishing the methods required to ensure that policies and programmes are implemented. It is the formal process of identifying long-term goals and ways to achieve them.
Corporate strategic planning is the pattern of decision-making in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purpose, or goals, as well as the principal policies and plans for achieving these goals.
It also defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the type of economic and human organisation it is or intends to be, and the nature of economic and non-economic contributions.
It seeks to communicate with its shareholders, employees, customers, and communities. It is the type of plan that incorporates a time frame and strategic formulation.
It is a long-term planning strategy with a minimum three-year timeframe. It is also a sophisticated device that has the ability to evolve in the long run, creating extra resources that will facilitate and
hastens the achievement of long-term goals and allows the organisation to obtain some relative advantages over its current position and competitors.
According to Steiner (1979), corporate strategic planning consists of the following nine steps:
1. Setting goals and selecting missions and objectives.
2. Identify current objectives and strategies.
3. Environmental analysis.
4. Corporate evaluation or resource assessment.
5. Identifying strategic opportunities and threats.
6. Determine the extent to which the strategic shift is required.
7. Strategic decision making.
8. Strategic Implementation.
9. The strategic measurement and control procedure,
As can be seen from the preceding, strategic planning is a formalised long-term planning process used to identify and achieve organisational goals. It truly provides consistent parameters for the organization’s activities and assists managers in identifying and selecting risky and safe possibilities.
It also reduces the possibility of errors and unpleasant shocks because goals, objectives, and strategies are subject to meticulous evaluation and are less likely to be flawed and unworkable.
Thus, strategic planning should be included in every planning process because it addresses the long-term and fundamental character of a corporation and provides an overall framework for the organisation.
It tackles the organization’s goals and defines the strategies and policies necessary to achieve them, as well as developing detailed plans to guarantee that the tactics are implemented in order to reach the desired outcome.
Strategic planning gives framework, whereas operational planning converts everything into current and day-to-day actions and continues from there. They complement each other, and the corporate planning process of the
organisation. As a result, it is clear that corporate planning is critical to the performance of management tasks as well as the attainment of the organization’s goals and objectives. It is frequently stated that management without planning is insufficient and meaningless. This is because planning allows management to recognise and understand its potentials, scan its surroundings, and allocate resources wisely.
Management functions such as planning, organisation, coordination, leading and directing, controlling, staffing, motivating, and budgeting are all interconnected, regardless of the manager’s skills. It is particularly interesting to notice that these activities represent a phase in business planning.
This is due to the fact that managers must first organise, lead, coordinate, and motivate others. They must create plans that provide the organisation goals and directions, deciding what needs to be done, how it should be done, and who will execute it.
As a result, managers must engage in corporate planning, which defines fundamental goals and objectives in specific terms, determines how to achieve them, provides a basic long-term framework into which other forms of planning can fit, and all of these actions are based on some method, plan, or logic, rather than on a bunch, in order to strongly influence an organization’s survival and growth in today’s volatile environment.
This surely allows it to perform the management functions of organising, staffing, leading, coordinating, and managing effectively and efficiently.
1.2 Background of the Study
The Nigerian business is so unpredictable that only those who can properly scan it, forecast potential changes, and then apply all available resources in accordance with the mandates and demands of the environment can succeed. The study looked at the organization’s business plan and its implementation.
It showed how consultations, deliberation, and the conditions for effective planning were adequately addressed. The study also found that management functions such as organising, staffing, coordinating, reporting, leading, and budgeting rely on good corporate planning.
The dynamics of planning at Diamond Bank were evaluated. The evolution, implementation, success, and benefits of corporate planning within the bank were highlighted.
The findings revealed that Diamond Bank’s corporate planning process has been implemented pretty effectively. The employees embrace it, participate fully to its achievement, and demonstrate loyalty and devotion to the plan. Management encourages them through incentive and good communication.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Corporate planning is a formal, methodical managerial process organised by responsibility, time, and information to ensure that management executes operational planning, project planning, and strategic planning in order to lead and control the enterprise’s destiny. The planning process also includes decision making. The is the process of planning and deciding on a course of action to tackle a particular situation.
This decision is taken at any stage during the planning process. There is also a strong link between planning and controlling; control cannot occur until a plan exists. As a result, control compares actual facts about what happens throughout the implementation of a plan to the budget.
Corporate planning specifies how human and material resources are coordinated, the amount of people to be hired, the type of equipment to be employed, and the quality and quantity of other resources that will be required to achieve organisational goals.
So, having said that, one understands the need for corporate planning and expects many organisations to take it seriously. The unfortunate reality in Nigerian organisations is that only major organisations and multinational corporations engage in corporate planning; small and medium-sized businesses, on the other hand, rarely do.
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