Importance Of Operational Planning

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Within an organization, different types of planning are necessary to help establish the visions and goals a company has. Strategic and operational planning is essential for the success of a business. For example, Sports Authority has recently filed for bankruptcy, which is likely due to a lack of planning skills. With the addition of strategic and operational planning, the risk of going bankrupt could be significantly reduced. The many planning steps and strategies involved in these types of planning are what eventually produce the most success.
Strategic Planning
Long term planning is essential in a successful organization. This long term planning is known as strategic planning. “During the strategic planning process, organizations usually …show more content…

Operational planning is what drives strategic planning goals to a success. On a day to day basis, operational plans are being communicated and decisions are being made. Operational planning is important because it leads to the goals and visions of the organization and by doing that, operational plans must be made daily to keep the organization competitive in the market. Friend & Zehle (2004) discuss operational plans central to the allocation of resources, it uses inputs to scale operations in order to deliver information about all stages of the primary value chain activies and the support of those activities. Without operational plans, an organization would have no way to reach its goals that were set. The market is changing constantly and operational plans help keep organizations making effective …show more content…

Operational plans can be established once a strategic plan has been set because the operations plans feed into the strategic plans. When operational plans are being established, several factors and pieces of information come into play in various decisions. For example, if Starbucks is making an operational plan it will take into consideration the competition, the price for which they get their ingredients, and the price for which they will sell their product. If the competition’s beverage is not as good, and Starbucks is getting their ingredients cheaper than the competition, the price Starbucks puts their product at can become an operation plan. Granted organizations might not be doing this daily, but more quarterly. An operational plan is, “specific plans for low level and day-to-day activities” (Mullane, 2015). Operational plans are the plans that keep the organization moving in the direction it wants to

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