Strategic Planning And The Annual Budgeting Cycle

Strategic planning within a company is a tool used in companies that help mature areas in total quality management. This type of planning creates a cohesive management system for lower level employees to better adapt in. “Strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more and how it 's going to get there. Typically, the process is organization-wide, or focused on a major function such as a division, department or other major function”(McNamara, 2008). In order to plan effectively one must first make a clear assessment of the plan and have an analysis on the corporations mission statement and objective.

Careful planning is required to guide all parts of the organization towards its strategic long-term and short-term objectives. Anthony & Govindarajan (2000) saw strategic planning as being focused on several years, contrasted to budgeting that focuses on a single year and so a budget is a one-year slice of the organization’s strategic plan. The budget prepared for planning purposes, as part of the strategic planning process, is the quantitative plan of management’s belief of what the business’s costs and revenues will be over a specific future period (Davies & Boczko, 2005). According to Atrill & McLaney (2002), a budget’s role is

In today’s highly competitive business environment, budget planning or forecast based planning methods are insufficient for business to survive. The firm must engage at strategic planning to clearly define objectives and built a strong internal structure in order to assess both the internal and external situation to formulate planning, implement the strategy, evaluate the progress, and make adjustment as necessary to stay on track. Strategic planning has a bad reputation. People think of it as a laborious process to produce a document that will just languish on a shelf. Many business managers consider strategic planning to be a waste of time. But these perceptions aren 't really accurate. A company needs a strategic plan for the same

Strategic planning is the management activity of an organization to achieve the organization’s goals through setting priorities, focusing activities and resources, working of employees and stakeholders, agreement establishment, and evaluation of the organization’s direction (Balanced Scorecard Institute, 2015).

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

Strategic Planning is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organizations goals and capabilities as well as emerging market conditions and opportunities. This process begins with a clear company mission statement. However, this is only a small piece of a dynamic and perpetual process. Other activities involved with strategic planning also include setting supporting organizational objectives, designing a sound product mix as well as coordinating functional strategies. Strategic planning works to set the groundwork for the rest of the subsidiary planning functions in the company.

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.

4) Identify and explain the main activities that occur during the ‘Legislative Approval’ stage of the budget cycle.

Strategic planning is "a disciplined effort to produce fundamental decision and actions that shape and guide what an organization (or other entity) is, what it does, and why it does it" (Herman, The Jossey-Bass Handbook of Nonprofit Leadership and Management, 155)

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

Budgeting is the main goal for profit planning. All businesses should prepare budgets; all large business does (Mowen and Heitger, 370). Budgets are financial plans for the future and are the key component of planning (Mowen and Heitger, 370). Planning and control correspond to each other in an important and dynamic way. Planning is looking ahead to see what actions must occur to realize specific goals. In addition to planning, control is looking backward to determine what happened and compare it with previous planned outcomes. Before a company set a budget, they must create a strategic plan. A strategic plan identifies a future business activity that usually covers in at least five years. There are advantages of budgeting which, are provides information that is used to improve decision making, provides standard performing evaluation, improves communication and organization.

In the business world, strategic planning is an essential process for successful businesses, which helps to shape their future path. Unlike other planning methods, strategic planning is a long term planning process which can include a tree to five year look-ahead. Strategic planning is used to give all employees, including management, focus and direction, as well as the ability to keep an end goal in sight. This task, normally conducted on an annual basis, is given to senior management and can take several days to complete.

Strategic planning is the process of gathering information from stakeholders, market players, professional entity, and government agency. The purpose of gathering information is formulating a realistic and a workable framework that any organization can implement and work with. Evaluation of information is a key aspect in determine the kind of plans that the organization wish to a chive over certain a period. Strategic planning ensures the implementation is, crafted well, and parties involved be acquitted with it. Developing a good Strategic plan helps a company to implement its missions and visions effectively, and helps the company to evaluate

Strategic Planning set the stage for the rest of the planning in the firm. It involves defining a clear company mission, setting supporting company objectives, designing a sound business portfolio and coordinating functional strategies. At corporate level the company first defines its overall purpose and mission.

to ensure that an organization will have the necessary financial resources to function throughout the year, budgets must be created. In the budgeting process money is allocated to various departments of the organization for a specified time period. In most cases budgets are created on an annual basis, typically just before a new fiscal year begins. To create a budget management must look at past business performance, prior-year sales, revenues, expenses, and other overhead operating costs. These costs are typically carried forward in order to predict the future of the business. Ultimately all of the information and planning results in a budget. In most cases different departments within an organization will have different budgets based upon their needs but they will all be incorporated into an overall corporate budget.