Strategic Planning Unveiled: Navigating Organizational Success with John Ogolo - Article Review

Introduction

Planning as a Management Function in Business Organizations is a scholarly reviewed article written by John Ogolo. The article provides insight into the importance of planning in an organization. Planning is a continuous management process that forecasts and anticipates the future of an organization. It helps formulate the long-term and current goals that an organization should achieve, and this is essential as it helps the workers align and work towards the aspired goals. The planning process enables management to select effective strategies that work towards achieving organizational goals. The importance of planning in an organization can never be overlooked as it determines the future of the business environment. The management teams integrate the planning function to adapt to the plans to help the organization achieve long-term and short-term goals (Steiner, 2010). This article highlights the important points provided by John Ogolo about planning as a management function in his article Planning as a Management Function in Business Organizations.

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The author provides an understanding of planning as a management function before he provides his main argument on the importance of the process in the organization's success. Planning is related to an organization's functions. It is the management's initial function and highlights the required actions that can take care of future organizational changes both in the short term and long term. According to the author, planning is an early cause of action that an organization adopts in its current situation to provide the organization with guidance on future implementations that can help it achieve the outlined goals. According to the author's sentiments, the planning process is an essential part of integrating new policies, strategies, and objectives essential for the company's future success. The author provides the meaning of planning concerning an essential process that helps the organization decide what objectives will be necessary to pursue in the long term to help integrate new organizational changes successfully.

The Role of Planning

The author intended to bring out the essential role that planning has in the success of an organization. The author has effectively outlined how planning enhances a positive outcome in the future of an organization. According to the article, planning is the only way that the organization can adapt if it aspires to avoid failure. It helps the leaders be familiar with the company's future environment and the constantly changing nature of the work environment. Becoming aware of such possible changes through the planning process enhances new opportunities for the organization to venture into. It also highlights the possible risks that can become a threat to the organization. Gaining early information on the company's future provides the leaders with adequate time to mitigate the possible initiatives that can prevent future disasters in the organization. According to the author, an organization can change threats into opportunities if it detects the possible threats at an early stage in planning.

The author highlighted the essential aspects of planning as a management function as it determines an organization's success or failure. Certain unpredictable changes that could hinder the organization's normal functioning could be detected at the planning stage. The most adverse changes that a company should prepare to embrace are technological changes due to the rapid growth of technology globally. According to the article, future organizational changes must affect a company's functioning, and organizational planning provides room for the employees to be informed and prepared about such changes to become well-prepared and not caught off-guard. The author highlights the importance of early planning that allows the organization to change the entire work process and adjust to the new skills related to future environmental changes. Apart from technological changes, economic changes can become a future hindrance to an organization's smooth operation. The planning process can help leaders come up with new ways of handling future economic challenges. According to the author, early planning helps the organization effectively plan its finances and purchase the inputs required in the future so that they are readily available to avoid future inconveniences such as inflation over the required materials. It is essential to anticipate the possible future economic changes, which can only be predicted through the planning process (Ogolo, 2019).

Parts of the Planning Process

The article clearly explains the essential parts of the entire planning process. The author highlights the essence of the different stages in planning as they contribute to a better decision-making process that allows an organization to determine the future opportunities and threats to exploit the current opportunities to combat the threat that may arise from change. The planning process comprises activities that are interrelated and interdependent. They get integrated to achieve the planning goals. The author adopts diagrams to explain the different steps involved in the planning process and how they depend on each other for successful outcomes.

The article provides an intense explanation of the five stages involved in the process of planning. The author highlights the initial step in planning as Developing awareness of the present state. He further highlights that the initial stage in management planning requires the managers to create a foundation that would help them create a foundation for developing plans. The initial stage in planning specifies certain aspects of the organization in its current position that pinpoints its commitment to commitment and outlines its strengths and weaknesses. The author identifies the initial step in planning as an essential step because it determines its future success or failure (Ogolo, 2019).

The article provided a further understanding of the planning process by highlighting the second step, which involves establishing goals. The stage involves the management team, which sets specific goals for the different levels of the organization's hierarchy. The third stage in the management function of planning is Premising, where the article explains the managerial roles essential in the stage. The author notes that the stage requires managers to make assumptions about future events that are most likely to occur. The assumptions would enable the managers to develop an action plan for the next stage of planning. The fourth step in planning, as per the article, is determining a course of action. The stage entails the managers deciding on how to move forward in achieving organizational goals. They come up with specific roles and define how such roles will be taken care of. The last step in planning, as highlighted in the article, includes the formulation of supportive plans. The stage requires managers to develop supportive plans.

Types of Planning

Another essential aspect of the article is that it provides insight into the different types of plans involved in the managerial planning function. The plans are divided into five groups, which involve Hierarchical plans, Frequency of use plans, Time frame plans, organization scope plans, and contingency plans. The author highlights the basic considerations to be made in planning. The planning process must evaluate the present conditions. According to the author, the entire planning process's essential task is the management's ability to determine the current inadequacies to determine the required change. Another consideration highlighted in the article is the time factor, whereby the time covered in planning must be considered essential because it determines the organization's possible future occurrences. The author mentions forecasting as another consideration in planning, which involves predicting the organization's possible future occurrences. Data collection and analysis are essential in planning as the entire procedure in planning depends on the quantity of the available data. Individuals who take part in planning must establish reliable data sources and acquire such information on time (Ogolo, 2019).

The coordination of planning is an essential part of the entire planning process that the article highlights. The author highlights that organizational plans range from short-term to long-term plans. The article highlights the short-term plans as those oriented towards the daily operational problems encountered by the management. According to the author, there are various problems associated with planning, including human and administrative problems. The author also highlights that controlling is an essential part of planning. The control process requires the management to establish certain standards, measure performance, compare the performance with the required standards, and correct the outlined standards' unfavorable deviations.

Conclusion

Generally, the article provides essential information on how planning is an important part of management functions. It protects the organization from unseen circumstances resulting from changes in the workplace environment. It provides detailed information about the different parts of the planning process and how it can successfully integrate the entire process.

References

Ogolo, J. (2019). (PDF) Planning as a management function in business organisations. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337893323_PLANNING_AS_A_MANAGEMENT_FUNCTION_IN_BUSINESS_ORGANISATIONS

Steiner, G. A. (2010). Strategic planning. Simon and Schuster.