NATURE AND CONCEPT OF

PLANNING
 Objective:

Discuss the nature of

planning.
WHAT IS PLANNING ?
Planning is the process of thinking about and
organizing the activities required to achieve a
desired goal.
• Planning is basic or primary function of
management.

• Planning is the process of setting goal

and selecting best course of action to
reach the goal. It is looking ahead.

• Planning is deciding in advance, what to

do, who is to do, how to do and when to
do.
• Planning bridge the gap between where
we are and where we want to go.

• Planning provides target, they allocate

resources in a coordinate manner.
WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF
PLANNING
1. Intellectual process
• Planning is mental exercise and
intellectual process.
2. Future oriented
• Planning is always future
oriented.
3. Goal focused
• Planning aims to achieve goal in
future.
4. Pervasiveness of plan
• Planning is needed at all level of
management.
• Pervasiveness of plan
Planning is needed at all level of
management.

• Increase efficiency
Planning increase efficiency. Planning
aims to achieve goals at low cost.

• Decision making
planning and decision making are
interrelated. Planning is selecting right course of
action to reach the goal.
5. Increase efficiency
• Planning increase efficiency.
Planning aims to achieve goals at
low cost.
6. Decision making
• planning and decision making
are interrelated. Planning is
selecting right course of action
to reach the goal.
7. Planning is the primary function
of management / Primacy of
Planning.
8. Planning is a Continuous
Process.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT BARRIERS
TO EFFECTIVE PLANNING ?
• Planning is an expensive and time consuming
process :-
It involves significant amount of
money, energy also risk, with out any assurance
of the fulfillment of the organization's
objectives.

• Planning restricts the organization to the most

rational and risk free opportunities:-
It curbs the initiative of the manager
and forces him to operate with in the limits set
by it.
• The scope of planning is said to be limited in
the case of organization with rapidly
changing situations:-

For example, it is claimed that for

industries producing fashionable articles or
for industries engage in the publication of
text books, working on a day to day basis is
more economical than plan basis.
• Flexibility of planning cannot be maintained
when there are unforeseen changes in the
environment:-

Such as business recession, change

in the government policy, crop failure etc.
when such events take place, the original
plan loses its value and there is a need to
draw up a fresh plan.
• Another limiting factor in planning is the
difficulty of formulating accurate premises:-

Since these premises are the

background against which a set of plan is
made, they necessarily deal with the future.
Since the future cannot be known with
accuracy, premising must be subject to a
margin of error.
• Planning may sometimes face people’s
resistance to it:-

In old, established organization,

manager are often frustrated in instituting a
new plan simply by the unwilling or inability
of people to accept it.