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What is Planning
Planning is one of key managerial functions and therefore applies to all fields and aspects of an organization: economics and finance, Informatics, quality management, human resources, logistics and transportation, organizational management, marketing, services, production.

Planning“The supreme task of business management is to identify specific business goals through which an ultimate goal, long-term profit maximization is to be achieved, as well as the formulation of business policy, i.e. “a marching route” which the enterprise has to adhere to in order to achieve these goalsas efficiently as possible.”

Günther Wöhe

Planning is one of the key managerial functions and therefore applies to all fields and aspects of an organization: Economy and Finance, Informatics, Quality, Human Resources, Logistics and Transportation, Organizational management, Marketing, Services, Production.

According to the period in which the planning takes place, one can distinguish between Strategic planning, Tactical planning and Operational planning. Forecasting deals with the prediction of a company´s long-term development.

Strategic planning is crucial for the long-term direction of an organization (business), for marketing, investment decision making, human resources development and research and development.

Tactical and operational planning plays a key role in organizational fields which are characterised by frequent fluxes of resources, namely financial resources and material in production process (purchase and sale).

Different types of business plans

  • Financial plan (integrates all plans with the help of a financial statement)
  • Sales plan
  • Project plan
  • Production plan
  • Human resources development plan
  • Personal Development Plan
  • Investment plan
  • Maintenance and repair plan

Partial plans must be interdependent.

The essence of planning is the determination of goals or target values and, possibly, ways how to achieve them. Planning has to taken all relevant internal and external factors affecting the achievement of goals or target values into account.

The fundamental plan of an organization is its global strategy.

Planning methods:

  • Bidirectional Planning (Top-Down/Bottom-Up)
  • Progressive Planning (Bottom-Up)
  • Retrograde Planning (Top-Down)
  • Strategic Alternatives
  • Strategic Management

Methods and integrated planning systems in production and logistics and resource planning:

  • APS (Advanced Planning & Scheduling)
  • ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning)
  • MRP (Material Requirements Planning)
  • MRP II (Manufacturing Resource Planning)
  • JIT (Just-in-time)
  • KANBAN
  • DBR (Drum Buffer Rope)
  • SCM (Supply Chain Management)

Financial planning includes:

Which analytical techniques are used in planning?

Related terms and methods:

Related management field:

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Last update: 08.01.2017

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