Formal Approaches to Strategic Planning

Abstract

The distinction between planning for repetitive, routine tasks, and planning for nonroutine, creative tasks has been emphasized by many writers. By far, the most successful application of formalized planning has been for routine activities. For example, some of the most effective and well-developed systems are those used in planning and control of inventories. But far less help is available when the question is setting a corporate objective, or devel oping an overall business strategy. In other words, formalized planning systems have contributed much more to operational planning than to strategic planning. This should not be particularly surprising. It is only the natural result of working on the most visible, easily formulated problems first.