Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Part one

Strategic business planning entails setting policies and procedures (and budgeting for them) to accomplish goals and objectives relevant to the mission and vision of a business, government agency, or nonprofit organization. Regardless of the type of organization, planning is needed to set the course of the organization and then decide the means by which that course will be accomplished. In that regard, public relations planningshould be a valued part of the strategic business planning process. Senior practitioners should be engaged in public relations planning to support the strategic business planning of their organization.

In analyzing the development of strategic thought in the business context, George S. Day and Robin Wensley identified a chronological sequence in the development of strategy approaches encompassing three broad eras: the Long-Range Planning Era (corresponding roughly with the 1960s), the Strategic Planning Era (1970s), and the Strategic Management Era (1980s).

In examining the different types of planning systems adopted by organizations, Frederick Gluck, Steven Kaufman, and A. Steven Walleck suggested that relatively few organizations other than large, multinational, diversified manufacturing companies have developed full-fledged strategic management systems despite their obvious advantages. They suggested that, in reality, most organizations do not go much beyond long-range planning systems.

Although strategy has been conceptualized from a number of different perspectives, undoubtedly the most commonly adopted perspective is the linearplanning perspective of strategy. From this perspective, strategy formulation has normally equated with the process of strategic planning, which has generally been depicted as a logical rational process directed toward achieving prestated organizational goals, and using prescribed tools and techniques to achieve these goals. This model strategy formulation is typified by the work of Kenneth R. Andrews, who defined strategy as

the pattern of decisions in a company that determines and reveals its objectives, purposes, or goals, produces the principal policies and plans for achieving those goals, and defines the range of business the company is to pursue, the kind of economic and human organisation it intends to be, and the nature of the economic and non economic contribution it intends to make to its shareholder, employees, customers and communities. (1987, p. 51)

Andrews separated the task of strategic decision making (the formulation of strategy) from its implementation. For Andrews, the implementation of strategy is seen primarily as an administrative function: Once the purpose of the company has been determined, the company's resources can be mobilized to accomplish it.

Similarly, Thomas L. Wheelen and J. David Hunger suggested a four-step process of strategic management that comprises the following elements:

Environmental scanning: Both internal and external to the organization.

Strategy formulation: Comprising the development of long-term plans for the management of environmental opportunities and threats, in the light of organizational strengths and weaknesses. This incorporates the definition of the corporate mission, the specification of objectives and the development of strategies and policy guidelines.

Strategy implementation: Comprising the process by which strategies and policies are put into action through the development of programs, budgets, and procedures.

Evaluation and control: Performance is measured and evaluated against target in order to take any necessary corrective action and resolve problems.

This view of the separation of strategy formulation from implementation has been challenged by other strategy scholars such as Henry Mintzberg and Andrew Pettigrew, who argued in ...