Oil-Company Planners

Abstract

In the research and writing on corporate strategic planning, little mention is made of who the planners should be. When the topic is mentioned, the key question is whether line managers should or should not be part of the corporate planning team. Some writers suggest that line managers should be included in the process because they are the ones who have to implement the plans, and if they are not included, plans will be difficult to implement.¹ Others conclude that planning should be done by the CEO and his top advisors.² Line managers, so the argument goes, have vested interests in promoting their own projects and should only be charged, therefore, with planning for their own divisions. There is agreement, however, that whether line or staff, (i) the planning team should be made up of senior executives who have broad knowledge of the company’s activities and (ii) team-members should be powerful within the organization. As we shall see in this chapter, companies under review here conform to both points.