Strategic planning - Assignment Example

Strategic planning is an instrument incorporated by management to ensure that all of its components are working towards realizing an organization’s goals. It has long been used to transform, and revitalise organizations in many areas of the world. Businesses, whether profit or non-profit, are incorporating these strategies in order to better their situation in the global market. The political and economic standing in many countries, today, has caused the change in many organization’s plans (Grant, 2005).

This is in order for them to have a piece of the market pie while capitalizing on the same. This paper will review strategic planning as a tool, and how it helps organizations grow and develop. Scenario planning is a process of tactical planning that involves the creation of long-term goals/objectives. It helps combat uncertainty in an organization through the short period that it is incorporated. The need to create such a tool is to help an organization find the perfect environment in which their products, goods, or services can sell and make a profit.

Those who practice with the use of such a tool enjoy the benefits it accrues. The need to prepare for the future ensures that analysts and strategists create scenario development in an organization (Grant, 2005). This is to prevent any drawbacks that may try and affect the organization after a certain period. During the implementation of such a tool, driving forces in the economic market are identified. This makes analysts aware of the environment in which the organization is dealing with, and how to penetrate such a market (Grant, 2005).

This provides them with adequate time and response to what they need to do in order to make the organization rake in profits. An example of an organization that incorporates the use of scenario development is the Shell Oil Company. They are involved with the purchase and sale of oil in many parts of the world. They have admitted to using strategic analysis to help them in long range decision making processes (Grant, 2005). It is through this admittance that traditional methods of planning are found to be highly ineffective.

This is as some other companies confess. The company has praised this tool of planning by saying that; the market identification process is much easier than it was before its inception. Managers of the company claim that the strategy allows them to view future environmental uncertainties; hence enabling them to be more effective than they were before employing such strategies. The utilization of such a technique is seen above with the forecasting of future environmental changes. Managers ascertain that the environment is mostly unpredictable (Grant, 2005).

Utilizing such a technique will ensure that the company holds an upper hand over other companies. These are the companies that still incorporate traditional forms of environmental, future forecasting. How does the military deal with barriers to effective decision making In order to have uniformity in a unit, it is imperative that the military commanding officers have jurisdiction over a vast area. However, there are areas in which the decisions made by a commanding officer may present a problem to many in the same base.

Some of the barriers to effective decision making include; responsibility bestowed on individuals (Porter, 1998). This is a frighteningly hard problem that many people are exposed to in the military. They are often assigned tasks that many may think are above them. However, once this barrier is broken, since it is a psychological one, everything seems to fall into place for all those involved. Another problem that affects effective decision making for many officers in charge of an army base is the problem of overconfidence.

This can be a problem to those around individuals given certain tasks. This is because their overconfidence when it relates to their job can be overly harmful to others. The negative factors that affect