Strategy—The key to planning in the public corporation

The distinctive features and constraints of planning in the nationalized industries as compared with large firms in the private sector deserve more attention than they have received. The development of corporate planning in these industries has tended to take a different route, starting from the need for long term physical planning. Planning in nationalized industries with complex production systems has a good deal in common with planning in large integrated firms (as opposed to conglomerates). But the difficulties arising from present methods of government control might be eased by placing greater emphasis on the need for stable agreement with the government on the industries' broad strategies.     

Planning in a state of turbulence

This paper is concerned with an exploration of the role of the long range planner, whether in the private or public sector of the economy, and the impact made upon the processes of his work by government's increasing propensity to manipulate the economy. The authors' researches over the last 2 years into the comparative nature of planning processes in the U.K. economy have made it abundantly clear to them that planners are increasingly concerned at the dangerous potential of such impact upon their forecasting procedures. The emphasis here will rest upon the planner in private enterprises, although the authors' work in both local government and the nationalized enterprises suggest that the problem is of equal importance in these sectors.The authors consider first the past nature of the search processes in long range planning and the context of such attempts to narrow down the range of variables that form the enterprise's perception of its future. Secondly, they examine the emerging discontinuity and the changing role of government, with particular reference to indicative planning concepts. Then they introduce some of the findings of a recent survey of attitudes towards long range planning in the construction industry of the U.K., a sector vitally influenced by turbulence in the economy and with particular interest in government's ideas of macro-planning. Finally Edwards and Harris examine the implications to government and to planners of their findings.     

Corporate planning and operations research: Do they go together?

Corporate planners in 59 U.S. commercial banks responded to a questionnaire on the use of operations research methods in the planning activities of their bank. Based on the questionnaire responses, 39 of the banks were identified as users of operations research techniques in corporate planning. The 39 banks provided background information on their operations research activities in corporate planning with respect to techniques used, number of persons employed, general organization and overall results. In order to learn more about the performance of operations research planners, comparisons were made between the financial performance of the group of users and the group of non-users in the sample. The results suggest that U.S. banks using operations research methods in corporate planning are larger, but not necessarily more profitable, than other banks in the industry.     

Strategic planning in an age of uncertainty

Strategic planning and decision making in the face of uncertainty have always presented a serious challenge to top management, but the present scale of uncertainty is unprecedented. Decision makers used to be able to rely on the past to predict the trends of the future. Now they are increasingly being forced to make important decisions that depend upon highly uncertain external factors for which the past offers little guidance. In all areas of business and government, there is a vital need to understand and implement procedures that enable decision makers to deal more effectively with uncertainty for planning and allocating their organizations' resources.Because of differences in their social, political and economic environments, European and Japanese managers are today affected by many acute areas of uncertainty— such as industrial democracy, floating exchange rates, changing social and political values, growing environmental awareness, government regulation, technological change, pollution control regulation, energy cost, and raw material availability—earlier than their counterparts in the U.S.A. These uncertainties affect not only private sector manufacturing industries, but also financial and service industries as well as nationalized industries and government organizations.This article shows how ineffective methods of dealing with uncertainty can lead to serious mistakes with costly consequences. The cost of overconfidence and people's natural but futile tendency to ignore or to try to eliminate uncertainty is illustrated by the crises seen recently in the world steel and shipbuilding industries. The article then demonstrates how decision analysis procedures that focus directly on the major decision points in the strategic plan enable executives not only to include uncertainty directly in their strategic planning, but also to increase their understanding of the decision process and their ability to communicate the results to others.     

Town planning in Sweden: National officials versus local politicians

With strong central government traditions, Sweden has developed goal-oriented normative planning. At urban level, such planning raises many problems. This article discusses some of these problems from the three principal aspects of planning, namely the ideological, methodological and organizational aspect. The study is based on an extensive questionnaire and oral interviews among municipal planners in leadership positions in three middle-sized municipalities, namely Borås, Umeå and Västerås. The ideological aspect is discussed with reference to restrictions on urban planning arising as a result of decisions made by private enterprises and due to the interaction between the central and municipal government. The article goes on to describe the methods planners have developed to plan for land-use, resource allocation, housing and other sectoral activities and major defects in the planning system. Finally, the article discusses various problems faced by the municipal government whose departmental organization facilitates the administration of community services but cannot adequately deal with the increasing number of planning functions which are often interdepartmental in nature.     

What kind of corporate planner do you need?

The planning literature ignores distinctions among types of plans and types of planners. Consequently, a systematic pairing of planners and a company's level of planning need is not well understood or implemented in practice. This paper provides two missing links in order to bridge this shortfall between theory and practice. One is a planning matrix which establishes six possible planning modes for a company based on its stage of development and management style. The second is a distinction between three types of planners who would be appropriate to each planning mode. The matrix plus the three categories of planners provides a new tool for management in its responsibility for planning the job of the corporate planner. In doing so, it also surfaces some underlying causes of organizational strain and stress associated with the corporate planner's position.     

Government economic planning in the United Kingdom

The present system has its origins in the 1961. Plowden Report, which spawned both the Public Expenditure Survey and the Medium Term Assessment. The ramifications and requirements of the former provide the hard backbone of U.K. planning; formal indicative planning has not been attempted since the National Plan of 1965. Instead, the Medium Term Assessment provides a feasible range of scenarios for the next 5 years, circulated only within the Treasury but used as background for the main public expenditure and other economic policy decisions, for advice given to nationalized industries, and for information given to NEDO. However, the emphasis in Government relations with the private sector has shifted firmly away from indicative planning to the ‘bottom-up’ approach of the Industrial Strategy. This general framework appears likely to endure.     

Computer models for corporate planning

This paper presents results of a survey of corporate modelling in 65 U.K. companies. It shows that corporate models were already used in a wide range of industries by 1973 and analyses the characteristics of these models, the uses to which they were put, the background of the model builders, approaches to development of models that were adopted, costs of development, and indications of success or failure. It is, for instance, shown that many corporate models are relatively small and simple, and have been built by accountants, planners and other ultimate users, using special facilities for corporate modelling offered by computer bureaux and consultants.     

Corporate planning in local government—a case study

The authors set out their view of the peculiar problems facing corporate planners in local government as compared with the private sector and their view of the nature of corporate planning in this special environment. By way of illustration as to how one local authority has attempted to introduce corporate planning, the article includes a case study of the City of Bradford Metropolitan Council.     

Planning and economics

It is an ironic fact that British industrialists, who regularly complained so bitterly about the amount of planning (or interference) by the last government, should have been so ready to embrace Corporate Planning. Yet this welcome has been very real, as can be judged by the number of advertisements appearing in the quality papers for corporate planners and the large numbers who enrol for any course which incorporates corporate planning in its title. The irony lies in the fact that formal definitions of corporate planning could be applied as much to the state as the firm. However, whilst the one is ‘good’ business the other is alleged to sap initiative, ruin morale, and interfere with the natural workings of the market place.     

Bringing planning systems to the manager

This article reports the results of a corporate planning survey involving 15 U.K. companies and an experimental pilot planning system developed as a research tool to investigate aspects of interactive planning. The preliminary findings indicate that such systems can be of considerable benefit to managers, planners, and the organization, and that the design of the system from the users point of view will determine whether or not it will be accepted as a decision making aid. Some of the essential features are then described.     

Survival of the corporate planner

Like most businesses, corporate planning units come and go. Based on a survey of 105 coporate planning units in the U.K., this article presents those factors, both external and internal to such units, which appear to have most influence on the creation, survival and success of corporate planning units.     

Corporate planning for a town—a case history

Corporate planning is relatively new in U.K. local government. This article suggests the reasons behind this late development, and outlines the particular problems in local government and the approach adopted in one authority. The author's philosophy is that there is no blueprint for introducing corporate planning and that any approach must be evolutionary, reflecting local circumstances. The article covers the period from 1971 outlining the four main stages of development and includes the effects of local government reorganization in 1974. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the borough.     

Managerial attitudes towards computer models for planning and control

The wealth of publications, seminars and conferences on the topic of computer models for planning and control has included only a relatively small proportion of material which critically evaluates their contribution and, in particular, focuses attention on the attitudes of managers towards such innovation. There are some outstanding exceptions to this general picture, such as the excellent survey by P.H. Grinyer and J. Wooler¹ on corporate models in the U.K., and the critique by R.H. Hayes and R.L. Nolan², who argue that corporate models have fallen into disuse or disrepute in many U.S. organizations and recommend the development of simple models to aid the planning process rather than overall corporate models.

In this article the authors attempt to bring together some of the more important findings in the literature.     

Making quality a fundamental part of strategy

All that is known about strategy and strategic planning indicates that quality is a major factor in gaining competitive advantage. It is cost effective, profitable, promotes corporate longevity and builds an important company value system. The authors argue that is too important a factor to be left solely to quality control personnel or planners and is a fundamental part of the chief executive's responsibility for the development of strategy.     

Introducing corporate planning— A case history

This article is a summary of the stages through which a U.K. public company passed in producing its first corporate plan, the problems, and the lessons learnt.To introduce planning from scratch requires experience, drive and political skill. This is already known. How these skills were found and developed is analysed in the history of one company's attempts to formalise its planning.     

Strategic planning for public relations

Public relations is a key activity for most chairmen of public companies and nationalized industries. It is somewhat suprising therefore how few large companies consider developing an explicit public relations strategy as part of their overall business plan. The reason for this may be partly due to the relatively low regard which senior line managers have for public relations managers and partly because there is a lack of understanding of the nature and use of public relations as a tool of strategic management. The purpose of this article is to discuss why and how business planners should pay more attention to developing explicit public relations strategies for their organizations.     

Strategies for planning

In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion amongst planning specialists and academics about the gap which exists between the theory of planning as set out in journals and textbooks, and the practice of planning in private and public organizations. Planners are continually complaining about the resistance to planning by top management and operating managers in divisions and departments.In this article the author aims to produce a reconciliation between theory and practice and to discuss what alternative strategies are open to planners in devising planning systems for their organizations.He suggests that the problem has its origin in the fact that corporate planning theory was first developed by management scientists as a total systems approach. Corporate planners have failed to sell an integrated planning system either as programme budgeting or as corporate planning. Research suggests that a management team can only adopt and implement a comprehensive planning system in very special circumstances, e.g. when the organization's survival is threatened, a new management team has been appointed and the staff of the organization are ready to accept radical change.In normal circumstances the planner is wrong to advocate a ‘root and branch’ solution. He must diagnose the planning needs of the organization and his objective must be not merely to establish a particular planning procedure but rather to discover how he can best improve the quality of management decisions.Recent studies on strategy formation indicate that the introduction of a formal planning procedure is only a partial answer to the problem of improving the quality of management decisions.The paper reviews various approaches to planning and considers how they relate to organizations with different strategic problems, with differing organization structures and various management styles.     

Corporate planning in small companies— a survey

The current state of research on corporate planning is directed at investigations of actual practices within specific industries. It is believed that by so doing, a more generally applicable theory of corporate planning will ultimately be developed. Within this broad framework, the study reported upon in this article was undertaken so that a determination could be made of the current level of actual planning by small businesses. More specifically, it focuses upon the corporate planning process within small and medium sized companies located in New England, U.S.A.     

Effect of economic planning on business decisions

The fact that the United States has not faced an economic perplexity of current dimensions since the depression days hardly needs any emphasis. The current economic slowdown is significant because no recovery measures which may be applied to cure the economy are in sight. Since the Great Depression, especially after World War II, Keynes' economic theories have successfully been applied in the U.S., as also in other countries of the Free World, to put the economy back on path to recovery. Unfortunately, Keynesian measures do not seem to cope with the current economic woes. Apparently, new ways need to be sought and employed to get the economy back on track. Among many new ideas that have been advanced to restore economic growth, one is national economic planning by which the Government would play an active role in setting goals for the economy and devising means to reach them.The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a study that the author undertook to probe the opinions of chief executive officers of the largest U.S. corporations on the whole idea of national economic planning in the United States. This study is based on interviews with 23 chief executives officers (CEOs) in different industries. Table 1 shows the background of these CEOs. Specifically, the author refers to such questions as: What positive and negative attitudes do the chief executive officers maintain toward national economic planning; what difficulties do they think will have to be surmounted to accomplish national economic planning in the U.S.; what influence may national economic planning have on various business decisions; and how may national economic planning affect corporate strategy?