Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail
A beautiful quote by Benjamin Franklin, states if you don’t plan for your future than you will fail. To do Planning, you need to be innovative and creative because planning is deciding in advance what to do and how to do it. Planning requires business predictions to achieve targets. So, in this post, I will be discussing business studies topic planning, its importance, and why ‘’Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail” holds that is the limitations of planning. Let’s learn.
What is Planning?
Planning involves setting Objectives for a given Time period and to Formulate various courses of Action to achieve those objectives by Selecting the best possible Options (or alternatives) from the various activities available. Did you notice something?
Tip to learn: The Meaning of Planning
Use the acronym “ OF AS TO” where
O- OBJECTIVES
F-FORMULATE
A-ACTIONS
S-SELECT
T-TIME
O-OPTION
These words should be included in defining planning.
Planning is concerned with both ends these are: what is to be done and how it is to be done. It bridges the gap between where we are and where we want to be. It is a rational approach, wherein, all the members of the organization need to work to achieve organizational goals. In fact, everyone should plan, try keeping a journal for achieving your daily goals. I do that often, and it helps a lot.
Importance of Planning
Planning is considered to be important because:
- It provides Direction
- Planning Reduces the Risk of Uncertainty
- It reduces Overlapping and Wasteful activities
- Planning promotes Innovative ideas
- It facilitates Decision making
- Planning establishes Standards for Controlling
Tip to memorize the importance of planning:
Use the acronym “C U DID ROWS” where
C- Controlling
U- Uncertainty
D- Direction
I- Innovation
D- Decision making
R- Reduce Risk
O- Overlapping
W- Wasteful activities
S- Standards
Having an idea on what to write, will help to frame sentences.
Now, let me explain each one of them as a part of the importance of planning:
Planning provides direction
- Planning ensures that the goals or objectives are clearly stated so that they act as a guide for deciding what actions need to be taken and in which direction.
- If goals are well defined, employees become motivated and aware of what the organization has to do and what they must do to achieve these goals.
- With the proper planning in hand, different departments and individuals in the organization can work in coordination.
Planning reduces the risks of uncertainty
- Planning helps us to look ahead and anticipate changes by deciding in advance the tasks to be performed.
- It shows the way to deal with the changes and uncertain (Unexpected) events.
- Changes or events cannot be eliminated (removed), but they can be anticipated (predicted), and managerial responses to them can be developed beforehand.
Planning reduces overlapping and wasteful activities
- Planning is required to coordinate the efforts of different divisions, departments, and individuals.
- It ensures clarity in thought and action and helps in working smoothly without interruptions.
- Planning also helps in avoiding confusion, misunderstanding, and minimizing useless activities.
- It makes it easier to detect inefficiencies and minimize work pressure.
Planning promotes innovative ideas
- While planning, many new ideas arise and result in a creative, innovative, and foresighted attitude among the managers.
- It guides all future actions leading to the growth of the business.
Planning facilitates decision making
- Planning helps in taking rational decisions by setting targets and predicting future conditions.
- It helps the manager to look into the future and make a choice from various alternative courses of action.
- The manager decides and evaluates every alternative course of action.
It establishes standards for controlling
- Controlling involves a comparison of actual performance with pre-determined standards.
- In case of any deviation, the management can take remedies to improve results.
- In the absence of planning, a manager will have no standards for controlling the actual performance.
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail or Limitations of Planning
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail is a true statement because companies fear to set up plans. They think planning acts as a limitation. Let’s see why?
Planning leads to Rigidity
Once the plans are made to decide the future course of action, the manager may not be in the position to change them as it is not an easy task to make changes in the pre-decided plan. So, this may lead to negative results for the organization.
Planning may not work in a dynamic environment
It is not an easy task to make changes in pre-decided plans. It is very difficult to forecast the future changes because our business environment is very dynamic and there are frequent changes in it.
Planning involves huge cost
Planning involves huge costs as it is an independent process, and companies need to hire professional experts to carry on this process.
Time-consuming process
There is a lot of time required to collect accurate facts and figures as per the need and to evaluate the alternatives and select the best one. So, this may lead to a delay in action.
No Guarantee of success
There is no guarantee of success of any plan because it is not true that if a plan has resulted in great success, it will bring the same success in the future also.
Lack of accuracy
Planning is done based on assumptions only, as we plan for the future, and the future is uncertain (especially now, due to the spread of Covid-19, many plans are on hold). Thus, there is a low level of accuracy in it as the plan may work or may not. If the assumptions do not hold in the present situation or future condition changes, then whole planning gets ruined.
Thank you so much for reading!
Have a look at 7 things you must know about economics.