Letter to the Editor

• Published date: 01 October 1995
• Date: 01 October 1995
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8683.1995.tb00123.x

LETTER TO THE EDlTOR

243

Letter to the Editor

Dear

Sir,

ay

I

refer you to the review of Henry

M

Mintzberg's book 'The Rise and Fall of

Strategic Planning'.

While

I

do appreciate much of Henry's

work in this area,

I

and increasingly others in

the

UK

do disagree with him about the future

demise of strategic planning. Briefly our

reasons are:

(4

The picture he conveys of what strategic

planning

is,

what forms strategic plan-

ning processes take and what corporate

planners do, seems to be based on look-

ing at the poorest rather than the best

somewhere between the two. Those who

have learnt from their earlier mistakes

now tune what they do to the level of

uncertainty. The greater the uncertainty

the more 'chunky' should be the process

and any decisions from it.

Far from decline, the use of strategic

planning in the

UK

has increased fairly

rapidly over the last

10

years. Some are

now doing it very well. Some, even large

companies, have spent a lot of time on it

but are not learning as they should do.

Others are recent starters many

of

whom

are making the same mistakes as others

who started

20

years ago.

practice. Yours sincerely,

If one has perfect information a perfect

plan is possible, with no knowledge Professor Brian Houlden

planning is a waste of time but reality is Warwick,

UK

@

Blackwell

Publishers Ltd.

1995.108

Cowley Rd, Oxford

OX4

1JF

and

'238

Main

St,

Cambridge, MA

02142,

USA.

Volume

3

Number

4

October

1995