Question

Anupam joins as a sales manger of a company dealing with garment manufacturing. Being professional in his approach,he knew that without good planning he will not be able to organise or perform any other managerial function affectively or efficiently. Only on the baside he will have to prepare sales plan regularly on weekly, monthly, quarterly and half yearly basis. While preparing the sales forecast, he undertakes intellectual thinking, involving foresight visualisation rather than guess work and he has to make sure that all these, planning activities coincide with the purpose for which business is being carried out.
In the context of the above case identify the various features of planning highlighted in the above para by quoting lines from it.

Answer 1

The various features of planning highlighted here are
(i) Planning is a primary function It lays down the base for all other functions of management. All othermanagerial Functions are performed within the framework of the plans drawn. Thus, it can be said that planning precedes other functions. This is also called the primacy of planning
(ii) Planning is futuristic it is essentially looking ahead, as it is based on forecasting and is prepared for the future. The purpose of planning is to meet future events effectively to the best advantage of an organisation. It implies peeping into the future analysing it and predicting it Thus, it is a futuristic process
(iii) Planning is continuous Plans are made for a specific time period. At the end of such time period, new plans have to be drawn. When plans are objective based and goals are achieved, new plans are drawn with new objectives. On the other hand, if goals are not achieved plans are revised to achieve success in future
(iv) Planning is a mental exercise it is a mental exercise as it requires creativity, imagination and higher thinking skills with sound judgement It is an intellectual activity of thinking rather than doing It requires logical and systematic thinking rather than guess work or wishful thinking.