Advantages and Disadvantages of the Strategic Management - Essay Example

Introduction

Strategic planning connotes a guide that manages organizational activities by stating the paths to be followed by both employers and employees in order to achieve a set of goals (Dix and Mathews, n.d.). It also assesses the internal and external environments surrounding a business and ensures that the vision and mission of the organization are brought to life. Additionally, it shows the obstacles likely to be encountered in the realization of the set goals. As much as strategic planning has its advantages, the process has come to be termed as a waste of time. This essay will explicate how strategic planning is not a waste of time in today’s unpredictable business environment. This will be done carrying out an analysis of the pros and cons of strategic planning.

Strategic planning offers some advantages to businesses. First, the process involves envisioning a successful future for the organization. It gives the business a road map with which it can focus its operations on reaching a desired destination. All parts of the organization steer their activities towards that given direction. The thought of such a future can be both stimulating and energizing to the members of the organization. This can prove to be motivational to them and consequently increase their performance. Furthermore, strategic planning ensures the allocation of resources efficiently to the programs and activities that would maximize profitability to the business. In addition to this, strategic planning allows a business to identify risks and also provides counteractive measures to confront the problems likely to be encountered (Bradutan and Sarbu, 2012). It helps the business to assess the changing business environment and provide the steps needed to adapt to the change. Strategic planning gives high priority to the most crucial of strategic tasks such as inadequate profitability, absence of direction and growth and organizational effectiveness which are normally talked about by members but are usually ignored.

Strategic planning espouses an objective assessment. The senior management team in an organization subscribes to a discipline which allows them to take a break from the daily business routine and reflect on the future of the organization. Minus this discipline, the organization might find itself being wholly occupied in solving the next problem or issue inconsiderate of the long-term trends which are associated with the functional and environmental alignment. It is unrealistic that senior managers know about all the functional choices that the staff make in their daily work activities (Robinson, n.d.). The accumulation of those choices can impact an organization greatly. Strategic planning ensures that a framework within which decision making is done, is provided to the organization. In this way, the staff is able to solely focus on the choices that maximize profits. The strategic framework offered also has an alignment to the achievement of the goals set by the organization (Robinson, n.d.).

Strategic planning facilitates communication between managers. Achieving synergy from different parts of the business is one of the main goals of strategic managers. In an organization, you might find finance, operation and human resource managers competing in lieu of working together to realize maximum profitability of the organization. Strategic planning ensures that managers work together to achieve the set goals. Moreover, the planning helps in identifying strategic goals. This comes in handy when CEOs, who are the ones who usually formulate goals and envision the future, are absent or busy with many other activities and might not have adequate time to formulate the best strategic plan. Additionally, it ensures that roles and responsibilities are defined accordingly (Strategic Planning, n.d.). This ensures the capability of the company in problem solving. Leaders such as managers are given a hand in monitoring and planning responsibilities by members who understand the need for strategic planning. This ensures that if an error occurs a follow up can be made to the person responsible hence problem solving becomes an easy task. Furthermore, a proper strategic plan is used in marketing the organization. A good strategic plan helps the organization to gain donations and support in achieving its goals (Strategic Planning, n.d.). In addition to this, strategic planning allows organizations to set targets which can be used in management controls. Moreover, it creates consistency in the short, medium and long-term goals of the business without which, it can make a short-term goal which might seem acting in their favour at the present but later prove to be harmful to the business.

On the flip side, the Future Doesn’t Turn Out as Expected. Strategic planning has majorly been criticised because it requires a business to predict the future environment in order to fulfil its goals (Robinson, n.d.). This however is a challenging task since predicting the future is no child’s play. It is believed that if the future does not turn out as expected, the strategy set in place is invalidated. For instance, a business may have planned on targeting a certain portion of the population in the future as a strategic plan, on the basis of demographic statistics but some factors such as migration cause the trend not to turn out as expected. This will definitely have adverse effects on the profitability of the company Additionally, this is a disadvantage in the sense that as much as the business may have precise accuracy in the goal setting, the future environment may change only to render those goals useless. Strategic planning favors long-term goals. Strategic planning is mainly meant to provide long-term benefits to the business. However, if the strategic management process is used in solving an immediate problem in an organization the chances of it really working are slim (Robinson, n.d.). For example, if a company requires to have made sales worth 100 million dollars in the next 10 years, a strategic plan will be formulated to achieve this particular goal. The same plan cannot successfully be applied if the same organization needs to make the same amount of sales within a year. This shows that strategic planning is ineffective in achieving immediate results.

Sometimes the language, terminology and concepts required in strategic planning are made too complex and become less useful to the organization (Strategic Planning, n.d.). Additionally, the expertise required to prepare and write the strategic plan may lack hence contributing to some of the members in the organization not understanding it. At times, the strategic plan might be written at a high level in the organization such that implementation of the plans below the corporate level, by the employees or other staff in their daily activities becomes a challenge. This again is also affected by the changing business environment in the sense that it might take the members time to understand the concepts laid down based on present statistics which will later change as the environment surrounding the business changes. Additionally, some organizations, due to the changing business environment, may not be ready to embrace strategic planning (Strategic Planning, n.d.). An emerging organization will prefer concentrating on the establishment of efficient and effective systems, improving staff skills, promoting the organizational image and gathering the required resources to achieve current goals as opposed to future ones. Strategic management may be affected by cynicism, that is, a negative attitude that shows distrust in the motives and integrity of people. Cynicism may find its way into a strategic plan and hence affecting it (Maloney, n.d.). This is can happen when a cynic participates in the making of the plan such that cynical ideas are brought forth by him or her and some even implemented. The cynic might keep reminding the members of what to do and what not to do based on his/her past experiences. This may in turn make the organization blind to the wise choices it is supposed to make in order to realize maximum profitability.

Any organization which has a particular set of goals will most likely need strategic planning to act as a guide to achieve those goals. It will indicate the direction to be taken by the organization in order to hit those targets. Additionally, the organization, through a strategic plan, is informed about any hindrance likely to be encountered in the process of achieving those objectives. Strategic planning is debated to be ineffective in the current changing business environment. The strategy bears its advantages and disadvantages and through the analysis of the former and the latter, it is debatable that the incorporation of strategic planning in organizations might be a waste of time. Analysing the advantages, strategic planning helps a business to envision its future and also offers guidelines on how to get there. This acts as a motivational factor to members of the organization which increases their performance. Moreover, it also helps a company to identify risks and obstacles likely to be encountered in the process of achieving those goals and how to counter them. In addition to this, the plan helps to assess the changing business environment and how to adapt to it. Furthermore, crucial strategic plans rarely discussed about such as profitability are given a high priority. Additionally, it reduces monotony and allows the senior management to reflect on the future of the business. It also provides a framework of decision making which is inclined to maximizing profits. Strategic planning enhances communication between members of an organization and it motivates them to work together harmoniously to achieve different targets. It provides the formulation of the best strategic plans even in the absence of the business’ leaders. In addition to this, it provides a platform for marketing the organization to acquire support and donations which help it to grow. Strategic planning promotes problem solving and ensures that there is consistency in the short, medium and long-term goals of the organization. On the flip side, strategic planning relies on the future, something that is unpredictable and unreliable which might make the plan ineffective. Furthermore, it focuses mainly on long-term goals which may not be helpful in achieving desired immediate results. Additionally, some members of the organization may not be willing to accept strategic planning. At times the plan might be written in a language that becomes a challenge in implementation by members below the corporate level. Finally, a strategic plan can be affected by cynicism which will in turn affect its effectiveness. As discussed, it is evident that the advantages of strategic planning surpass its disadvantages, hence it is not a waste of time.