Levels Of Planning Essay

Essay 1

Introduction

Planning has become an essential activity in many businesses, allowing them to set desirable objectives and develop suitable actions toward their attainment. Planning of operations has long been standard practice in companies today. In other words, every business operation done today is carefully planned for. This involves everything from delivering goods and services to the creation of new information management systems and the construction of new buildings.

It’s critical to remember that planning is a time-consuming and complicated process that, in the majority of cases, relies on the size and complexity of businesses. According to Upton, Teal, and Felan (2001), organizations need formal techniques for determining how to proceed in order to achieve organizational change or create projects.

Furthermore, the successful execution of the aforementioned variables will be heavily influenced by a company’s prior planning and prioritizing of activities. The study presented in this paper found that planning is extremely important for assisting businesses in detecting unexpected possibilities, predicting the future, and avoiding errors. This paper examines the many forms and levels of planning available to corporations.

Levels of planning

In order to successfully execute an end-to-end learning plan, IT departments must diligently consider a number of key factors. The first three levels in the ITIL model are functional, business, and corporate; each with its own set of responsibilities and processes. According to Shelett (2002), many businesses choose to develop plans at one or both of the levels mentioned above, but they must ensure that their plans for each level are aligned to guarantee that all resources are focused on delivering those goals.

She believes that “disparity in departments” is one of the reasons for poor corporate performance. She claims that ineffective corporate approaches and cross-purposed functions are signs of departmental disharmony in an organization. While each of the three levels has its own applications and goals, some organizational management may fall short in terms of making their distinctions. The following is a brief discussion on each of the three levels.

Corporate level

Although there is an organization’s overall strategic direction determined at the corporate level, it is more often decided on the national level. Senior leadership within a company carries out planning at the corporate level as Kuye and Oghojafor (2011) explain. This might be referred to as a large strategy because it represents that layer of decision-making that dictates all of the lower levels’ operations.

At the corporate level, a leader is someone who has an aim and a vision, both of which are required in order for the company to achieve its set goals and objectives. Furthermore, Sharma et al. (2008) point out that planning at the corporate level entails identifying and performing a thorough study of numerous strategic alternatives as well as fundamental competencies regarding the company’s future operating environment. This implies that corporate-level planning is indeed critical and should not be overlooked throughout an organization’s existence.

Business level

At the organizational level, Anderson and Joglekar (2005) suggest that all companies may be classified into specific organizations that operate within certain industries. These businesses create plans that are tailored to their own situation and reflect their present standing and available resources in relation to the competitive environment they operate in.

In reality, competition at this level might take the form of price rivalry or a unique selling proposition. A company’s distinctiveness may be demonstrated in this stage through product or service delivery, which it can then leverage to obtain higher margins, according to Gustavsson (2008).

Functional level

The operational level of planning is concerned with company support functions, such as human resources, manufacturing, marketing, and finance departments. Human resources, manufacturing, marketing, and finance departments are examples of such support functions mentioned by Lichtenthaler (2008). Strategies are developed at the functional level; Schellekens et al (2010) suggest that it supports overall corporate and business plans.

Individuals in business employ goals and actions set by their bosses to stay aligned to and contribute to the achievement of set objectives. Furthermore, the operational level of a company is accountable for ensuring that each and every component of it is managed professionally.

In any case, operating at this level is known to violate an organization’s goal of ensuring that its departments are aligned with each other in terms of the specified goals and objectives necessary to be accomplished within a specific time frame.

Types of planning. Marketing planning

Planning is critical to the success of any business, as it ensures that marketing targets and objectives are met. Marketing in an organization covers all of those activities that result in awareness about the availability of certain goods and services, allowing for appropriate levels of production to meet changing demand and supply.

It also entails the strategic movement of completed items and services to various locations as determined by consumer demand, according to Greenley, Hooley, and Saunders (2004). It has been seen as a method for businesses to gain attention, promote their services and products, and boost their brand. In many organizations that deal with goods or services, entry mode selection is part of a deliberate strategy between competing growths.

At the top levels, senior managers have been required to make critical decisions about entering and managing marketplaces. These options are determined by management ideology, company resources, and the market’s nature. Marketing is essential for every business’s success these days when the worldwide marketplace is rapidly becoming increasingly competitive due to consumerism trends’ dynamism.

Because marketing has the ability to create a competitive edge for particular institutions and their offerings in the market, this is the case. It’s on this note that Bunnell (2005) claims that marketing planning is the most important notion in an organization because it enables the effective application of appropriate methods and mobilizes required resources.

The idea of marketing planning is a complex structure that examines a client’s needs, product quality, and balance with manufacturing costs and international organizational cultures in order to assess if they match the organization’s major objectives and missions. This was also mentioned by Greenley et al. (2004), who stated that it is particularly essential for new businesses to incorporate effective methods that can help them access markets that have already been saturated while expanding into new areas.

Strategic planning

As Slotegraaf and Dickson (2004) note, strategic planning is an important component in determining how well an organization will perform in the market. It’s a type of planning that helps companies figure out how to go forward with their operations, allocate resources, and achieve anticipated results.

Planning is the first stage in developing a market’s ideals, which results in the proactive identification of how they will be addressed to gain a competitive edge. It also establishes the processes that a firm would use to achieve its goals. It may be the most important step since it lays the groundwork for all subsequent procedures.

According to Bunnell (2005), successful strategic planning is defined by certain elements, the most important of which is a company’s strategies, values, mission, and vision. A strategic planning process is an important tool that businesses use to achieve their objectives.

The authors of Fergusson and Langford (2006) state that there are many planning technique options, some of which include Situation-Target-Proposal and Draw-See-Think-Plan. The former focuses on analyzing an organization’s present status, whereas the latter focuses on the ideal state, objectives, and goals, as well as the path to achieving those goals.

This is when the action plan setting begins. Another crucial stage in the process is implementation, which involves following a planned procedure for strategic marketing.

The latter is a guided and organized strategy marketing approach in which previously developed plans are put into practice in the marketplace. According to Kaissi, Begun, and Nelson (2008), the outcomes of strategic implementation are necessitating an alteration or manipulation of the original plan.

These considerations are made to enhance stronger objectivity. From implementation, an organization is able to get the marketing results of its products. Under this consideration, the result indicates the number of sales, customer satisfaction, and efficacies of the markers.

Environmental planning

Over the last four decades, the significance of the environment in determining a business entity’s location has grown increasingly significant, according to Burby (2005). This has mostly been driven by knowledge about the substantial influence that poor environmental contaminants have on both ecological systems and human society.

In agreement, Daniels (2009) argues that the environmental planning process is essential for organizations to make decisions necessary to implement projects. Environmental planning necessitates the creation of methods that guarantee efficient management of human and natural systems’ interactions.

Environmental planning aims to ensure that human and organizational systems operate in harmony, equity, transparency, orderliness, and effectiveness. According to Burby, these have been achieved through governance structures, infrastructure systems, management of natural resources, regional development, urban development, and social and economic development.

The social, economic, and political capacity of a nation to adequately describe people’s needs at various levels is based on business or organizational management and operations, according to de Abreu and Cavalcanti (2011). They are the main basis for deriving the natural system’s interdependence quality. Most significantly, they have control over all of the company’s resources.

Following the United Nations Conventions on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, it was discovered that natural resources management cannot be effectively handled alone with other systems throughout the world. The environmental management system is a model for global corporate governance that sets requirements to be adopted by various businesses worldwide.

The capacity of an engineering firm to succeed in today’s highly competitive market is completely dependent on its ability to successfully execute environmental planning and integrate the environmental management systems, according to Daniels (2009). Following the mass protests and natural environment devastation, the requirement for highly efficient management tools to ensure sustainable growth, profitability, and resilience of natural systems has drastically increased.

At all levels of management, environmental management systems are used to guarantee that high production standards are assimilated using a Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle at the operational level. Buysse and Verbeke (2003) recommend incorporating environmental management systems into consulting services if an organization is able to ensure its clients with the required flow, harmony, and coherence in their operations for greater profitability.

Hansen, Karna, and Juslin (2003) recommend that engineering companies’ services should be taken a step further in order to better understand the various complexities of company management across industries and businesses. Environmental management systems differ from other systems in that it emphasizes continuous assessment, continuous improvement, and long-term business focus through strategic planning.

In this regard, EMS considers the effects of the company on the environment and develops the necessary mechanisms to address them. Karna, Hansen, and Juslin add that engineering companies’ services should curve clients’ long-term serviceability in the 21st century as a major compliance network.

The Coca-Cola Company, for example, has been granted ISO 1400 standards certification for its integrated environmental planning evaluation in 2007. After recognizing the adverse effects of excessive energy usage, excessive water usage, and aquatic pollution from its effluents on the environment, major changes were implemented to increase profits, improve customer cooperation, and enhance ecological integrity.

Coca-Cola used engineering applications to describe its systems in its year 2007 financial statement, replacing old and less effective ones (Daniels, 2009).

However, this mechanism has been accused of having serious issues such as the high cost of application and the time it takes to see results. De Abreu and Cavalcanti (2011) note that consultancy services are mostly based on the ability to recommend the most effective systems in the shortest period of time, which is a negative aspect for EMS and its customers.

Operations planning

Many experts believe that operations planning is one of the subsets of strategic planning. Its importance stems from its ability to answer two questions: how and what part of a strategic plan should be used by an organization in order to achieve a goal. It not only offers short-term solutions for attaining set objectives, but it also provides justification for and gives a solid foundation for operating budget requests spanning one to three years.

According to Linea and Jonsson (2010), an operational plan, such as a strategic plan, should answer the issues of how to measure progress, how to achieve it, and what metrics to use. They continue that operations plan contains monitoring progress procedures, implementation schedules, resource and staffing needs, desired outcomes, quality standards, and clear goals.

Modern organizations, according to Boulaksil and Fransoo (2010), are heavily dependent on operational planning that spans several levels. The use of teams has been incorporated into the overall organizational culture to allow for natural participation by all employees in order to achieve a certain objective.

Teams, therefore, provide a new operating environment for harmonizing people’s ideas about running and managing key operations. Employees can learn faster from their colleagues and apply important concepts to advance their points at the group as well as organizational levels through teams and team activities, according to behavioral theories.

Teams operation, according to Sodhi and Tang (2011), establishes an organization’s natural outline, so aligning people with organizational citizenship behavior is critical. While establishing a firm’s team’s operations, competition and rewards at the individual and team levels have been credited for expanding a required gap toward ethical business practices.

Proactive planning

Fruchter and Mantrala (2010) note that while proactive planning is essential for preparing for issues that haven’t happened yet, most businesses don’t practice it. One of the main advantages of an organization that plans ahead and prepares in advance is the opportunity it gains to equip itself or use against any event that may happen. Situations like this can be caused by uncertainty, strikes by employees, riots, earthquakes, and floods, all of which can have a negative impact on a company.

In their definition of leadership, Sauma and Oren (2006) include a leader’s duty in assisting his or her people in attaining specific goals via proactive planning. Situational leadership implies that you have an excellent understanding of the current environment scenario as well as the capacity to adapt to it.

Scholars at this time appear to place a premium on organizations being extremely proactive in addressing both long and short-term issues while making decisions. Burns’ transformational leadership theory is based on the idea that both the leader and followers have important talents that must be fully utilized in order for businesses’ goals to be realized.

Fruchter and Mantrala (2010) note that this approach is significantly superior in generating a proactive capacity to cite and address problems and issues, as opposed to other techniques where the evaluation takes place at the conclusion of a specific procedure. Its simplicity also makes it possible to break down into smaller parts, which allows all participants in the assessment to contribute and be involved with addressing difficulties and issues.

Conclusions

To sum up everything, it is critical to point out that the many sorts and degrees of planning alternatives accessible in businesses are truly important when it comes to achieving a company’s objectives. The essay’s topic was the thesis statement that organizational planning has evolved into an essential procedure that has aided many organizations in creating desired goals and drafting corresponding actions towards their achievement.

Even if you’re not an engineer, understanding how to design a system in software is important. From the discussion, it’s clear that planning is an essential component of any business’s plan and future direction. Furthermore, planning occurs at three different levels: functional, corporate, and business levels. These may be seen in various types of organizational planning, which ensures that ideal adjustments, contributions, and coordination are made possible.

 

Essay 2

The significance of establishing strategies to achieve corporate objectives is evident in the success of enterprises. Having a clear purpose and core values for everyone in the organization instills clarity of goals for all employees. It also provides clarity in the simplest terms of what the business does when paired with the organization’s reason for existence.

Employees at all levels and in every business need to understand that their work is built on a vision and well-articulated purpose, with cores and goals laid out for organizational success. Of course, they’re aware that everything will come down to measurable, tactical activities in the end. People desire to be linked to high aspirations and a meaningful place to devote their time.

Strategic planning is the process of developing a future vision for an organization and laying out a strategy to achieve it. It specifies the action steps by which a company intends to reach strategic goals (Barnat, R. (n.d.)). In essence, strategic planning is utilized just for one goal: helping businesses accomplish better – ensuring that members of the organization are working toward the same objectives, monitoring and adjusting the organization’s direction in response to a changing climate. When an institution needs to alter course, this is when it is most commonly used.

It compels people to take steps and draws everyone in the company, from top to bottom, toward a clear objective. Long-term goals are most effectively addressed through strategic planning. It’s difficult to say precisely when you’ll finish a project; however, three to five years is typical for long-term goals.

Planning entails envisioning the goals of the firm and determining the necessary actions to reach its intended goal, whether it’s strategic or operational. Strategic planning is your company’s long-term objective; it provides your organization a sense of direction and is an indication of where you want to go. Operational planning is concerned with your organization’s short-term and/or continuous operations and procedures, which are in alignment with the long-term strategy.

According to Strategic Planning: A Practical Guide to Strategy Formulation and Execution, “The nature and scope of change associated with your strategic plan; current and developing challenges and opportunities that influence the organization’s capacity to achieve short- and long-term success; and the amount to which optimal effort is being applied, appropriate behavior is occurring, and performance is generating required results and outcomes” (Simons, Bryon K. 2011 p.258). The outstanding achievements of a fantastic company are the ultimate proof of its quality.

 

Essay 3

Planning based on format, organizational hierarchy, and usage frequency is the most common type of planning, according to Dessler (2001).

PLANNING BASED ON FORMAT

Descriptive planning focuses on the goals and methods for achieving them, as well as how those goals and methods will be measured. Planning a person’s career is an example of descriptive planning. Budgeting is a plan that has been quantified using financial terms. Graphics planning is a type of plan that explains what needs to be done and how to do it in the form of bar graphs. Gantt chart, for example, depicts the time period needed to complete an activity in the form of a bar graph.

PLANNING BASED ON ORGANIZATIONAL HIERARCHY

The three layers of an organization are top management, middle management, and lower management. Top Management (strategic plan) Strategic planning focuses on long-term concerns for the organization’s survival, development, and overall success. To stay competitive, companies must be visionary and must create long-term strategies to confront changing market conditions. Developing a strategy to compete with rivals and guarantee long-term survival and growth is part of strategic planning.

The marketing function is crucial in this process since it provides information and other inputs to assist with the drafting of the long-term strategic plan. Middle management (tactical planning) Tactical planning concentrates its goals on a shorter time period, generally between one month and a year. After that, middle managers provide direction, essential resources, and feedback on performance as tasks are completed by team leaders or supervisors.

They generally require more extensive information than top executives, but less than team leaders and supervisors. They also utilize business support systems, knowledge management systems, and user productivity tools to do their jobs. Operational planning is carried out by lower management (operational plan).

The data that operational employees need to conduct their duties on a daily basis is what they receive. In many organizations, operational workers also require information to carry out responsibilities and judgments given by supervisors, which is referred to as empowerment and gives employees more responsibility and accountability.

PLANNING BASED ON FREQUENCY OF USE

Once-a-time usage planning is a strategy that’s only employed once. Designed especially for specific goals. For example, the company may open multiple branches, but each plan is limited to a single branch and not to others.

Because it has various resources like money, manpower, customer distribution, branch area size, and so on. A standing plan is a plan that is often utilized. Managed situations that frequently arise in an organization such as employee disciplinary problems through standing plans of three types: policy, procedure, and regulations.

Policy principles or broad guidelines to manage circumstances are one kind of policy. ii. Action Steps or activities involved in dealing with a specific scenario if it arises are the second kinds of procedure (also known as action). iii. Regulations Specific instructions for executing an activity are the third type of regulation (also known as legal).

RECOVERY PLAN (TOP MANAGEMENT) BUILD A PROFITABLE NETWORK

Malaysia Airlines will realign the network in response to demand and profitability, resulting in the closure of MAS’s unprofitable routes to South Africa and Argentina as well as its sole destination in Latin America. Other lengthy journeys that are unprofitable will also be discontinued. Malaysia Airlines will optimize aircraft utilization in order to achieve efficiency while fulfilling objectives.

Travelers have taken note of the carrier’s new strategy, which includes remodeling its carriers. The airline aims to win or regain back its premium long-haul passengers through changing carriers. Aging widebody aircraft will be phased out, and new passenger facilities will be built in order to achieve this goal. MAS will rely on best-in-class revenue management to manage corporate travel sales and improve our internet booking engine. MAS will focus on marketing and branding improvements as well as ancillary income growth.

RELENTLESS COST FOCUS

Malaysia Airlines will see a considerable boost in productivity and efficiency if more of its planes are utilized. Then MAS will optimize assets and resources across the organization. After that, Malaysia Airlines will evaluate and overhaul legacy processes and work techniques where feasible. Finally, Malaysian airlines will reform procurement and contracting methods, as well as existing contracts for greater cost savings.

FOUNDATION (OPERATIONAL PLAN)

Customer experience improvement Improve product quality and deliver a superior business class product offering in line with the best in the market, as well as drastically improve customer support levels at all touchpoints. Operational improvement Continuous process and work procedure optimization are required. Reduce red tape Remove outdated procedures to promote innovation. Inject new thinking into problem solving and difficulties.

To maximize your chances of success, you’ll want to choose a strategy that reflects who you intend to become and the impression you want people to have of you.