How corporate planning adapts and survives

Abstract

Over the years various academics have wrongly forecast the demise of corporate planners or of strategic planning. This article looks at the current state of the art. It is based on a recent survey and comparison is made with the results of a similar study carried out in 1985. Over this period the number of organizations employing corporate planning units has roughly doubled and now totals about 320. Some units have been eliminated since 1985 either because of poor performance or because the organization was too small to continue to warrant employing a corporate planner on a full-time basis. In those organizations where corporate planning has progressed well it is line driven, top management have improved their strategic capability, strategic planning processes have been adapted and improved over time and the role and composition of the corporate planning units have changed. Once the medium to long term strategic direction of the organization has been chosen, there is less emphasis on the annual planning round and more emphasis on looking at particular issues. Major reviews of the overall plan tend to occur at intervals of some three to five years. Typically a successful corporate planning unit expands with its early success, reaches a peak, and then settles down at a slightly lower number of staff but of higher quality, once top management has become more strategically capable. Much of such a unit's work is on projects studying different strategic issues; the unit needs to be managed efficiently as an internal strategy consultancy. Visits to a sample of leading companies in Japan and Australia indicate that corporate strategic planning in both countries is at a stage of development similar to that in the UK.