Strategic Planning And The Achievement Of Organizational Goals

Strategy Planning Process by Stoner (1982) as edited by Onwuchekwa C.I. These    are    the    following    steps    in    strategic    planning    process according to Stonner 1982 .
I.    Goal Formation
This process involves determining what the long term goals of the organization will eventually be. The long-term goals of an organization will include the purpose, mission and objectives. The objectives of an organization is an important element of goal formulation. However a good goal must provide an organization with a sense of direction and self containment. This is why it is expected that  objectives must be quantitative in term s of naira value.
Example if Finotel hotel must survive the next two yeas, it must sell a minimum of N20,000,000 Naira annually. So it is assumed that before Finotel decided on a minimum gross sales of 20million, she has included all form of expenses and projected net profit/entrepreneurship benefits for being in business. Any action taken to accomplish the above 20 million sales defines the strategy of Finotel. Two major factors influence goal formulation. These are the social responsibilities of business and managerial values. These two factors involve ethnical and discretionary issues so they have to differ from organization to organization.
II.    Identific ation of Current Objectives and Strategy  
In strategic planning, it is important for the analyst to investigate and know the current objectives and strategies of a focal organization. The action is reasonable first of all, it helps us to understand the cur rent actions of management of the organization. We are in a position to know whether current objectives and strategies are realistic. Whether current objectives are consistent with current mission and whether current strategies are consistent with objectives. Is there logical consistency in the common thread of the current strategy of the organization. What is the extent of change required in the current strategy and the newly formulated strategy. Finally knowledge gained by investigating current objectives will determine the extent of change actions needed in the new strategy formulation.
III.    Environmental Analysis 
This is very important in Strategy Formul ation Environment is the source of constraints and contingencies encountered by an organization. Th is is because the environment of a business is the location of all resources that are requ ired by a business organization to successfully carry out its productive activities. The purpose of environmental analysis is to locate the elements of the environment (that is task environment) who possess these resources which an organization requires for survival.
In doing this, an organization will like to know whether the location of these resources are concentrated, dispersed or domesticated (Thompson 1967). The organization concerned will also like to know if the demand of its output is dispersed, concentrated or domesticated . Knowledge of the product market scope relationship, that is the extent of domain cons ensus will determine the strategy/policies for mana ging environmental interdependence. The knowledge of environmental interdependence will provide information on the degree of self containment response of the organization. According to March and Simon (1958) , an organization will prefer self containment to process specialization. The concept of self containment means that an organization will like to know all the relevant factors, elements and changes in the business environment and then react to all of them (that is law of limited variety).
Total organizational response to issues and changes in the business environment is more important than piece meal process specialization. So environmental analysis will provide information for assessing organizational responses to varieties of environmental issues and to extent managerial achievement of self -containment in business environmental management.
IV     Resource Analysis
According to Stoner (1982) , the organization ’s goal and existing strategy also provide framework for analyzing its resources. This analysis is necessary to identify the organization’s competitive advantages and disadvantages.
Competitive advantages and disadvantages are the strengths and weaknesses of the organization relative to its present and like ly future competitors. The question is not “what do we do well or poorly?” but rather “what are we doing better or worse than any one else?”.
Hefer and schendel offer four steps for analyzing resources (Stoner 1982)
1.    Develop a profile of the organization ’s principal resources and skills in three br oad areas financial physical, organizational and human and technological.
2.    Determine the key success requirement of the product/market segments in which the organization competes or might compete.
3.    Compare the resource profile to the key success requirement to determine the major strengths on which an effective strategy can be based and the major weakness which must be overcome.
4.    Compare the organization ’s strengths and weakness with those of it’s major competitors to identify which of it ’s resources and skill s are sufficient to yield meaningful competitive advantages in the market places .
V.    Identification   of Strategic Opportunities and Threats 
Having investigated present objectives and strategies, analysis of business environment and resources analysis, one is now able to identify strategic opportunities and threats. However, an organization cannot go after all these opportunities but what will determine the actions that will be taken will depend on the gap between the present potentials in these strategic op portunities and the newly formulated long -term goal of the organization. So the advantage in identifying strategic opportunities is that they help us