ABSTRACT
The first thing a chief executive should do, having decided to undertake a corporate planning exercise, is not to call on a specialist to do it for him but to form a planning team. Corporate planning is not business planning; nor is it forecasting, manpower planning, merger planning, financial planning or co-ordinating. It is unique in that it is designed to look at the forest, not the trees. Groups In groups of companies, that is where the company is divided into autonomous profit centres, and in federations, the same principle applies – the team should be formed from those who hold the reins. The planning assistant is, of course, a temporary appointment and usually part-time. His job lasts no longer than it takes to form the plan although his services will be required again, very part-time, in the monitoring stage.
