Planning Management in Business Management

Is the first and most essential function in the business administration-management process of any organization.

Planning Management in Business Management begins with setting goals and priorities and finding answers for the most important questions in business management, which are:

Planning management is the process of setting goals, making decisions, anticipating potential developments and changes, and following up the operations and activities that will achieve the goals of the organization.

Characteristics of Planning Function

Planning has characteristics that make it a pillar of management functions:

1. The basic function
It is the basic function of other managerial functions, and the activities and operations of other functions are in fact the implementation based on the plans set at the planning stage
2. Directly Oriented
It is directly oriented towards the goals, and focuses on defining basic and alternative paths of works and allocating a plan for each implementation stage
3. Continuous and renewable process
since every plan has a timetable, planning sets new plans that complement the paths of the previous ones at the end of each period
4. Logical process
planning uses the mind to think about current and future projects and anticipate the working paths and potential risks, and suggest logical solutions and alternatives
5. Future process
planning represents the organization vision, and it has a key role in predicting its future, providing it opportunities to control its works and operations
6. Decision-making stage
determining the main work paths, activities and procedures needed to achieve the organization's goals is carried out at the planning stage

Importance of Planning

Planning helps managers enhance the performance and increase success rates through the clear identification of the goals
It controls the potential risks and possibilities of errors because it works through the mechanism of future predicting
it is a process of coordinating, classifying and distributing activities and tasks over the sections of the organization
Planning is the major guide for all working paths
Planning sets standards for controlling performance and comparing the planned with the actual performance

Planning Top Stages

Planning involves all the stages that follow, as it organizes them in a flexible way,

starting with the analysis of suggested projects and setting their goals,
identifying and evaluating opportunities and alternatives,
moving to practical implementation,
then controlling the activities
and reaching the performance evaluation and discuss its outcomes…

Thus, any organization at the planning stage can clearly discover the future phase. The secret of effective planning lies in the simplicity and smoothness of the plan at all working stages, and this will ensure work progress continuity despite the possible changes…