A plan can play a vital role in helping to avoid mistakes or recognize hidden opportunities. Preparing a satisfactory plan of the organization is essential. The planning know the business and that they have thought through its development in terms of products, management, finances, and most importantly, markets and competition. Planning helps in forecasting the future, makes the future visible to some extent. It bridges between where we are and where we want to go. Planning is looking ahead.

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now¡¨ Alan Lakein. Provide sufficient time and money for planning process. Induce evaluation procedure in the plan and reward effective implementation. Always focus on the results as it is the starting point of whole management functions ¡V like organizing, directing, controlling, co-ordinating, staffing are related to planning. Planning facilitates decision-making. Planning draws on a wide range of knowledge from many different business disciplines like finance, human resource management, intellectual property management, supply chain management, operation management, marketing and production management.

"Planning is not guesswork; it is a conscious determination based on objectives, facts, forecasts and involves choosing among alternatives. It is an ongoing process that prevents small problems from becoming big. In daily life spend 10-15 minutes at the beginning of each day planning for the day or next day; it will help you to schedule your priority task, organise yourself well, it ensures unity in decision making, change management, stability, measures performance standards, achievement of purpose and provides solution to problems which helps in survival, growth and progress, keep some spare time each, as expected situations may arise.

A Plan is a trap laid to capture the future"Allen. Planning is the process by which you determine whether you should attempt the task, workout the most effective way of reaching your target and prepare to overcome unexpected difficulties with adequate resources as it helps to achieve the maximum effects from a given efforts.

It bridges the gap from where the organisation is to, where it wants to be. It provides a framework within which a business must operate. It is a proactive process that is intended to help individuals; group and organisation's performance objective. But people avoid Planning because of Organizational Problems (poor effort and reward structures, fire-fighting, the get-stuck in culture, no monetary/ non monetary motivation) or Individual Problems (laziness, lack of commitment, resistance to change, fear of failure, no experience).
Importance of the planning process:-
Improve business environment
achieve the business goal
Raw material information
Imporve transpotation cost
Better quality goods
Thanks

Operating a business without a plan is like going to a grocery store without a list and trying to remember all the items that are needed. One comes out of the store having forgotten something critical - and having purchased a number of items that are totally frivolous and may never be used. It is the same for a business operating without a plan. Critical issues do not get addressed - and some tasks get done that have no relationship to the direction the business needs to go. For a business, however, the consequences of these unaddressed issues can range from inconvenience to bankruptcy.

Part of this reluctance is due to how complicated the process is viewed. Yet a complicated plan is almost as useless as none. The real question is how to make something simple that fits your business' needs. Can a good grocery list system be devised that isn't unnecessarily burdensome for all involved? Of course. Let's take a look as what planning really entails.

The word "plan" originated from then Medieval Latin word planus which meant a level or flat surface. This evolved in French into being a map or a drawing of any object made by projection upon a flat surface. In English this has become a more general sense of a scheme of action, design or method. Planning in its current usage in business implies a consciousness of what is happening in the business. It does not preclude creativity or instinct, but it does add a layer of awareness that spells the difference between survival and extinction in a changing environment. Planning does involve:

* an understanding of the business' history
* an examination of the business' environment
* an assessment of the business' mission
* goals
* a process for reaching those goals
* a process for gathering information
* a realization that planning is a continuing process that is constantly evolving

Planning does not necessarily mean trying to project the future, but being aware of a range of likely futures and being prepared for them as occur.