ABSTRACT
Formal long-range planning covers many areas of strategic decisions, so the analysis of the planning process shows the formal behaviour pattern of the organization. The long-range planning system has evolved as the environment changed, and as the centre of corporate strategy changed. There are two important objectives for long-range planning: to promote innovation, to integrate the innovative strategies. The planning process in Japanese organizations may be classified into bottom-up, top-down and interactive. Long-range planning is a formal system used to improve strategic decisions. As with Hitachi, planning was suspended after the oil crisis; recently, however, it was revived as a quantitative financial estimate and later it was changed to strategic planning. There is a hierarchy of goals of the long-range plan, that is, basic goals, goals for product market strategy, goals for structure or resources, goals for productivity. The planning process of the specialized company is centralized and that of the diversified company is decentralized.
