Strategic planning (business administration)
In contrast to operational planning, strategic planning is the part of corporate planning with which the strategic corporate goals are to be pursued.
General
Strategic and operational planning together result in corporate planning. It is intended to ensure that the company goals ( e.g. profit maximization , cost recovery principle ) can be achieved. The strategic planning serves to ensure the viability of the company . Important features of each plan are in the business administration planning subject , planning subject , planning data and planning horizon . Typical of strategic planning are its long-term planning horizon , the uncertainty of the planning data , consideration of only global variables and the responsibility of the company management .
Main tasks of strategic planning
The focus of strategic planning is on the strategic business areas of a company as a planning object. Business areas at Lufthansa are, for example, “Passage” ( passenger air traffic ), “Cargo” ( cargo air traffic ) and “Technology” ( maintenance ). Which of these business areas is to be expanded ( growth strategy ), maintained ( stabilization strategy ) or abandoned (shrinkage strategy , disinvestment ) is decided by the company management as the planning subject .
Strategic planning also has to answer the question of which market behavior a company should choose compared to its competitors. If it acts as a quantity adjustor / quantity fixer , price fixer / option fixer, then it decides on different variants of market price or sales volume . In addition, the competitive strategy ( cost leadership , price leadership , quality leadership or niche strategy ) is part of strategic planning. The long-term development of the core business with its cash cows and the question of diversification or the opposing monostructure also occupy the strategic planning. Also, financial planning , production plan ( production program ) or investment plan include strategic planning aspects.
Business aspects
Reasons for the necessity of strategic planning include the growing environmental dynamics , increasing pressure to innovate , increasing complexity of problems , company growth or increasing competitive pressure . It thus covers planning objects that affect the global development of a company. The strategic planning previously mostly used in large companies is increasingly reaching medium-sized companies. Empirical studies since 1988 have established a connection between strategic planning and success .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Aloys Gälweiler, strategic business planning , 1990, p 84
- ↑ Günter Wöhe , Introduction to General Business Administration , 2013, p. 63
- ↑ Jürgen Bloech / Uwe Götze / Burkhard Huch / Wolfgang Lücke / Friedhelm Rudolph (eds.), Strategic Planning: Instruments, Procedures and Information Systems , 1994, p. 3
- ↑ Alexander Huber, Practical Guide Strategic Planning , 2008, p. 32
- ^ Markus Hoch, Strategic Planning in Medium-Sized Enterprises , 1989, pp. 45 ff.
- ^ Charles R Schwenk / Charles B Shrader, Effects of formal Strategic Planning: Theory and Practice , 1993, p. 53 ff.