Business Assignment

People should be in control of their own plans and the planning process is a key way of ensuring that they are at the centre of any support provided.” (Nolan, 156)

It also forms part of good business ethics and is good practice to keep people up to date at all times when things change or need to be changed. Failing to do so can result in other peoples work plans being out of sync.

Non- electronic communication involves the distribution of a message usually in the form of: Reports, Letters, Flow Charts, Invoices and even Verbal Communication amongst employees. This form of communicating is not as popular as it once was, but it provides businesses with other avenues to communicate instead of electronic communication. Furthermore, different types of communication suit contrasting businesses in addition to, the preference of people involved within a business.

Strategic planning can dictate the success of any organization if properly planned as well as the failure of an organization if not implemented as planned. Strategic planning is all about making choices. It is a process designed to support leaders in being intentional about their goals and methods. Simply stated, strategic planning is a management tool, and like any management tool, it is used for one purpose only—to help an organization do a better job. This portion of the strategic plan will explain why an

1. (TCO 7) At Lakeside Manufacturing, budgets are the responsibility of everyone. Each department collaborates in determining its expected needs, and sales personnel determine the likely sales volume. Al Talbott, one of the production managers, believes in building plenty of slack into everything, including his estimates of ending inventory of work in process.  As the accounting manager, write a memo to Mr. Talbott, explaining why the ending inventory figure should be extremely accurate, with as little slack as possible. (Points : 20)

Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy (Armstrong, 1986). In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a particular course of action. Generally, strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

Organisations must organise a structure so that their objectives can be achieved. A company will have different departments and procedures with each one having a special function. All of these organised departments and procedures are linked so the company can run efficiently. For many organisation this can be very complex has they will have offices in international countries around the world.

Glaister, K, W and Falshaw, J, R, 1999, ‘Strategic planning still going strong’, Long Range Planning,

36). Today, the increased attention for strategic planning is a response to rapid and extensive changes in society such as the introduction of market economies and privatization, increasing environmental awareness, more attention for sustainable development, decentralisation issues and structural adjustments in public spending (Davidson, 1996).

What are the factors of production? How can economies grow when one or more of the factors is weak?

Strategic planning involves making decisions about the organization’s long-term goals and strategies and how the organization decides to implement their goals (Bateman, Snell, Konopaske, pg. 113). Strategies help organizations to have a clear perspective on how to go about accomplishing the goals they have in place. All organizations have a clear vision of what their mission and purpose as a company is, they know how to fulfill the mission, vision, and purpose and they know how to ensure that they accomplish all their goals. However, the route the organization takes to define these things determines how effective they will be.

Planning is a process of establishing a mission with clear goals as a means to achieve them. Good planning requires special skills and perspectives allowing decision-makers to understand the challenges they are facing and apply the most effective solution to a problem. In order to achieve success, one must plan accordingly. Planning can be short term or long term. Short term plans are done on daily basis and are easier to achieve than long term plans. Long term plans are also known as strategic plans and are used to achieve a long range vision or mission of a company. In both methods of planning, short term and long term, is necessary to achieve top notch results. Like in any other process, there are both benefits and pitfalls to a

Top managers develop long-range plans, called strategic plans that define the company's overall mission and goals. Strategic planning focuses more on issues that affect the company's future survival and growth. To develop strategic plan, top managers also need information from outside the company, such as economic forecasts, technology trends, competitive threats, governmental issues and shareholder concerns.

2. Organising – A manager needs to organise her/his team and materials according to her/his plan. Assigning work and granting authority are two important elements of organising. A manager is responsible for organising staff, resources, tool and work schedules to achieve the organisations set goals and objectives.

Planning provides a guideline for the members of an organisation to carry out their tasks according to the set objectives. The absence of planning can create ambiguity within the organisation.