Abstract

Corporate planning is rapidly being recognized as the frontier problem in effective competition. The Institute of Management Sciences and Stanford Research Institute have special groups of people carrying out research on the planning process itself. At a recent symposium on planning, approximately one hundred corporate planners from all over the country attended-evidence of the importance of the problem of planning. Planning can be one of the weakest links in the U. S. corporation in fact, 2,900 out of the 3,600 U. S. manufacturers with sales over $10 million have no formalized system for doing so. Corporate policies are specific and enduring guidelines of action designed to achieve corporate objectives. Corporate principles are enduring modes of behavior or ethical guides to action which characterize the corporation. It is, of course, a primary part of the planning process to develop a complete and consistent set of policies and principles. The mold for all planning. Corporate level long range planning molds the shape of all other planning. At the top level, planning is concerned with the viability of the company over the greatest length of time for which at least some major factors are projectable. A broad view is taken of the present products of the company in order to determine their generic nature.