Planning-its meaning, importance and Limitations

Planning refers to a thinking process that determined in advance what to do. It is the primary function of every organization because without groundwork objectives cannot be fulfilled. It involves the forward-looking and we can say that planning is futuristic in nature.

Meaning of Planning:

It means to decide the way to do the actual work. It helps to achieve the organization’s goals very effectively. It provides the right path for executing the activities in the right direction.

Definitions:

“Planning bridges the gap from where we want to go. It makes possible for things to occur while would not otherwise happen.”

– Koontz and o’ Donnell

“The plan of action is, at one and the same time the result envisaged the line of action to be followed the stages to go through, and the methods to use.”

– Henri Fayol

“Planning is deciding in advance what is to be done. When a manager plans, he projects a course of action for the future, attempting to achieve a consistent, coordinated structure of operations aimed at the desired results.”

– Theo Haimann

Importance of Planning:

This is an intellectual task and has great significance to organizations. So let’s discuss some points:

1. Right direction:

Planning provides accurate direction to move ahead. Every manager work upon some arrangements regarding the activities of the organization, and good determination before execution gives better results. This leads to unity of direction.

2. Reduction of uncertainty:

Organizations also face some uncertainties and planning helps to reduce the risks. It provides a solution to the problems because the manager sets some assumptions regarding the future at that time when he makes a plan. So at the time of uncertainty, those assumptions help to reduce the risk.

3. Reduction in wasteful activities:

Plans confirm clarity of thoughts and actions, by these all people of the organization do their activities very smoothly. It results in less wastage and we can say that managers and employees can achieve their objectives with better utilization of resources at minimum cost because of doing things according to the plans made by them.

4. Planning enhancing innovative ideas:

The process of making plan forces managers to think differently so that uncertainties can be overlapped easily. There is a great scope for the managers to determining and making a blueprint for future activities.

5. Planning facilitates fast decision making:

It helps the management to take the right decision in the right way. In every organization, managers are setting future goals in advance, by these goals they can take decisions according to the requirement of the working conditions.

Limitations:

We cannot say that thinking in advance gives guarantee success there are some limitations which are as under:

1. Rigidity:

Once the manager makes a plan then every employee has to follow and execute it into activities. So determination in advance cannot permit a new way of doing things. This is hard to change.

2. Not work in changing environment:

Sometimes planning is not work effectively due to change in economic policy, change in fashion, change in the legal environment, etc. because these are the external factors and not directly controlled by the business units. So we can say that the manager cannot foresee these changes accurately and the plan may fail.

3. Time-consuming:

The process of making a plan takes a long time because the manager has to evaluate the alternatives and select the best one. This process takes a lot of time and actions get delayed. And whenever there’s a need to take a quick decision then he has to avoid the planning.

4. Does not give a guaranteed success:

Sometimes forecasting may give false results. It does not mean that planning in advance always provides a good solution and execution, it may lead to failure because the business unit is having its external environment which may affect the business in the opposite direction.

5. Huge cost:

Thinking is an intellectual process and companies have to hire experts to do this process. These experts spend a lot of time and companies pay them for their efforts. So we can say that is a cost-consuming process.

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