‘All Multinationals That Conduct Strategic Planning Go Through a Three-Step Process: Formulation, Implementation and Control’

Pearce, J. A. & Robinson, R. B. (2013). Strategic Management: Planning for Domestic and Global Competition (13th ed). New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

In his article, “The Fall and Rise of Strategic Planning,” Henry Mintzberg (1994) provides his views on the process of strategic planning. He offers that most companies and organizations start a strategic planning process with little understanding of the definition or actual purpose of planning. He tends to admonish much of the conventional understanding concerning strategic planning and proposes his interpretations. He states that “the most successful strategies are visions, not plans” (Mintzberg, 1994, p. 107).

Introduction: Building an up to date and proper strategic planing is essential for the context of any company. it is the most important part that can make or break any business. Proper decision making and its effective implementation is quite significant in the success of a business. Let it be a multinational company like Kellogg, the same importance is apparent. For that understanding and analysing the environment of the business will be very helpful in making a proper business decisin making for the betterment of the same.

Based on the Porter’s Generic Value Chain, the procedure from inbound logistics to operations, then to outbound logistics, and then marketing and sales, and services at last are coordinating functioning in company’s daily operation and management.

As a company of this size, corporate planning is a vital function to deal with external and internal factors, in which, the company's goals or objectives are achieved. In addition, a well-defined strategic planning implemented will be the guidelines in dealing with each factor, such as, globalization, innovation, and

Strategic Planning is one of the most fundamental factors in the success of an organization. This research project will discuss the importance of strategic planning as well as the different components of strategic planning. Many organizations fail to accomplish their goals and tasks due to the lacking of strategic planning. In order for their businesses to be successful, organizations need to be well informed about how the strategic planning process works.

Outbound logistics refers to physical distribution activities such as collecting, storing, and distributing products to buyers and involves (finished goods) warehousing, materials handling, network planning and management, order processing, and

Strategic management has become an integral mechanism for firms operating in the global economy, which is characterised by its high level of integration and cross-national operation. Strategic management issues relate to all aspects of an organisation, including its relationship with the environment and its internal processes. Accordingly, a vast amount of research has been conducted and published in the academic field

Outbound Logistics includes the activities that store and distribute products to buyers (e.g. warehousing, delivery vehicle operations, order processing, etc.).

“A formalized procedure to produce an articulated result, in the form of an integrated system of decisions.” (1994, Mintzberg) Strategic planning is a core that leads to every successful business. It gives the direction of the business by creating the elements such as vision, mission, internal and external analyses. The goal is to define “where” that the business is heading to. In order to reach our aim of outstanding strategic planning, outside-of-box thinking, a solid construction of external, internal analysis and strategic management tools with supports from various professional views are compulsory.

The idea of the value chain has been proposed by Michael Porter in his book "Competitive Advantage" to identify the sources of competitive advantage through analysis of certain types of activity of the company. In foreign economic literature makes a clear distinction between the chains, initiated by producers and buyers. Value chain "divides the company 's operations in the strategically important activities to examine the costs and existing and possible means of differentiation." The competitive

Strategic plan of a company cannot be prepared by any individual; it is a cumulative work of different-different managers from the different-different departments. Effective dialogue plays a crucial role when a company conceptualize their strategic planning activities as being constituted through the iterative and recursive relationship of talk and text (A. Paul Spee, Aston Business School, 2006). While constructing a road map for the company, managers should have to communicate with their super ordinates and sub ordinates in order to prepare a crystal clear idea about what the whole plan is and how to execute that plan. Managers cannot make strategies with half knowledge because it is not going to work out in the future for the company. Company has to be transparent with their employees and other stakeholders to execute with their future plans in order to have faith in the company.

Mention strategic planning and people envision multinational corporate boardrooms discussing planned strategies, organizational actions, and integrated implementation schedules to spearhead billion-dollar endeavors across the globe. And on the whole, that mental depiction validates plenty of scenarios as part of a larger strategic planning process. Essentially, the plan represents one critical component of a comprehensive [strategic planning] process seeking to attain acknowledged goals through a structured procedure of clearly defined steps. Those goals or objectives begin as wide-ranging, high-level targets with long time horizons. Another aspect finds strategic planning efforts in the private sector similarly aligned with an associated industry or operating market segment. Industries with dynamic environments, such as information technology, provide comparable illustrations with notably compressed planning windows and fierce competition for rolling out products to the market accordingly. Notwithstanding strategic planning’s common usage in private organizations, universities, and governments to achieve some stated vision, there also remains legitimate application for individuals albeit on a far smaller scale.

In this essay the author will be showing that top management does indeed play an important and vital role in the strategic planning process but that many other factors such as middle management and unplanned or emergent strategies also play a large and very important role in the process.

Strategic planning is central to management study. It defines the long term direction for the company and all other business functions orbit around their established strategies. This article studies how a company formulates business-level strategies, optimize their competitive positioning and obtain a competitive advantage over their rivals.