Principles and methods of planning

Planning methods can be considered in terms of technology, methodology, and the management subsystem.

What is it?

The methodology includes the basic methods, principles, as well as the logic of the development of plans. From the point of view of the technological process, planning is the development of a whole complex of measures, with the help of which the sequence of achieving certain goals is determined, taking into account the possibilities of the most efficient use of resources.

If we consider planning methods as a process, then they include the rationale:

• Company missions.
• Principles of work.
• Goals and objectives of medium and long-term development.
• Planned performance and company performance.
• Options for achieving the objectives and given parameters.
• Company development strategies and various indicators that characterize it.
• Means of implementing the plan, which includes information support and resource support.

Planning methods as a control subsystem form an interconnection, as well as optimization of the characteristics of the future development of the planning object, including methods for achieving the methods and substantiation of their expediency, ensuring the adoption of the most effective management decisions.

What is a plan?

The result of the planning is a plan, which is a specific document in which, through various economic characteristics, the desired level of development of the company, its financial and material potential, as well as the effectiveness of economic activity are clearly fixed.

The plan is a model of future development, as well as the state of the company, which is expressed in the form of qualitative and quantitative parameters of its activities, as well as ways to achieve such parameters. An object in relation to which various planning methods are used is a certain company, enterprises or their associations, as well as government agencies, industries and all kinds of intersectoral entities.

The subject of planning is a certain structural unit or any legal entities and individuals who are involved in the development and justification of plans.

Thus, planning methods include various systems of actions for substantiating plans, as well as managerial relations that ensure their implementation at certain times with the achievement of the maximum possible effect.

Why is this needed?

Essence of planning - This is the scientific rationale for the various upcoming economic development goals, as well as the forms of economic activity of the company. Also, various types and methods of planning are used to determine the most effective ways to achieve these goals, based on the maximum possible identification of various volumes, terms and types of products that are currently in demand by the market. Among other things, planning includes the execution of work, the provision of services and the subsequent determination of such indicators of their production and implementation that, with the maximum possible use of limited resources, can guarantee the achievement of truly high quantitative and qualitative results in the future.

Such a complex process to justify the possible development of the enterprise allows us to solve a huge number of problems. In particular, the following can be attributed to the tasks that take on various types and methods of planning:

• The formation of the various problems that the company may encounter in the course of its work, as well as determine the system of possible dangers and options for further development of the company.
• Justification of the objectives, goals and strategies for the further development of the enterprise, including also designing the optimal state of its work in the future.
• Planning of resources, as well as options for their use in order to achieve the goal of enterprise development, substantiate measures taken to expand the resource base, the structure of the procurement of the necessary resources and the possible timing of their receipt.
• Designing the future implementation of plans, as well as ensuring close monitoring of their proper implementation.

Various principles and planning methods are based on predictive calculations. The latter are a well-reasoned assumption regarding the further development of the planning object, which is expressed in various qualitative and quantitative forms.

Forecasts

Depending on what tasks the company sets itself, the forecasts made may also change. Thus, there are two main types of forecasts, which include the basic principles and planning methods.

Search

This type of forecast demonstrates the possible development of the economy of a country, region or an individual company while maintaining certain trends that have developed in the past or present. In particular, such forecasts provide a justification of the conditions for increasing the efficiency of applying the available resource potential and, based on this, the growth of sales and production volumes. This forecast option provides for the complete absence of any significant changes in the object under consideration, not only in terms of quality, but also in quantity.

Target

Target forecasts, based on the long-term goals of the further development of the company, determine the ideal indicators of its state in the future, as well as various ways of how to achieve these parameters. The forms and methods of planning, including such forecast variants, qualitative characteristics are more preferable in comparison with quantitative ones, and various alternative ways to achieve them are based on future resource potential, formed on an innovative basis.

The development of forecasts is carried out in several versions, and their analysis is a rather important prerequisite for the validity of the provided planned calculations. Moreover, if the plan, for the preparation of which the selected systems of planning methods were used, is mandatory, then in this case, based on the forecasts, it will be possible to determine what will happen if the company starts moving along a certain development path.

In order to ensure the most sustainable progressive economic development of the company, it is necessary to ensure that the planning system can cover absolutely all levels of the management system, starting from the state itself and ending with structural units. The most important role in this case is given to the state, from one point of view, as a subject of the current market, planning economic relations between regional and federal bodies, as well as enterprises and the state budget system, and on the other hand, as a subject of various planning state unitary companies. There is also another point of view in which the analytical planning method considers the state as a power structure that determines the conditions, as well as the technology for regulating the economic relations of market entities, regardless of ownership.

Refusal from planned housekeeping and its consequences

Due to the fact that in the 90s of the last century it was decided to completely abandon the planned management of the economy, when Russia switched to a market economy, a deep economic crisis arose in each separate area of ​​the country's life, as well as various enterprises and regions.

But at the same time, it should be noted that the planning system used at that time, as well as the assessment of planning methods was far from the most perfect from a methodological point of view, because it was primarily intended to reproduce the prevailing economic proportions that hinder various innovative processes at a certain stage, as well as forming conditions for the profitability of a particular production for the sake of production, which is absolutely inefficient from an economic point of view, not only for society and the state Twa as a whole but also for individual businesses. It is also worth noting the fact that the increase in production of those goods that were absolutely not in demand by consumers was actively encouraged, and the planning technology and motivation from the final percentage of growth not only did not provide incentives for modernization of production and various consumer properties products, but also significantly limited the growth of efficiency in the whole national economic complex.

It is for this reason that the need arose to improve, first and foremost, planning methods and planning analysis methods as a decisive stage in making informed management decisions. The transition to market relations at the initial stages led to the decision to abandon planning, and this decision was erroneous because the market would not be able to ensure the development of the economy as a whole, as well as of each individual enterprise, without purposeful planned actions, using which it would achieve at least a minimally noticeable result.

Key Points

Based on the foregoing, we can distinguish several main points:

• The plan and the market are complementary elements with the help of which the regulation of the current economic system is carried out, carrying out a targeted control effect on various subjects of economic or other types of activity.
• In the planning process, the laws of the market are fully taken into account as objectively acting conditions, as well as prerequisites for the self-development of a market entity.
• The development of planning methods involves considering the market as a system of economic relations between various market entities regarding the sale of various services and goods, while the plan describes such relations in the form of qualitative and quantitative parameters, taking into account their optimization.
• Market laws are objective, while the plan is a subjective, probabilistic description of upcoming achievements and events, based on the wishes and resource capabilities of a particular organization, company or various government agencies.

Economic planning

In a market economy, tasks and planning methods are required for each individual field of activity, as well as market entities for a variety of reasons, the most important of which are:

• Too high a level of uncertainty in the development of companies in a fairly rapidly changing market environment, which should be provided for in management actions. Also, various consequences of decisions of the management team should be calculated and conditions should be formed for a truly stable and reliable progressive development of the enterprise through planning, as well as the further implementation of the plans.
• The system of planning methods allows you to purposefully create the competitive advantages of a particular company, based on the consideration of the market situation and the current laws of the market, optimization of the use of workers, as well as costs and results.
• The use of innovative solutions in various fields of economic activity provides for their search, evaluation, investment and further inclusion in economic turnover, which is most effectively and optimally implemented through a particular planning system.
• Formation of conditions for the investment attractiveness of the company in order to obtain borrowed funds with minimal costs for providing their services, which is possible only on the basis of developing optimal strategies, business plans, as well as enterprise development tactics.
• Streamlining management actions in order to achieve promising or current planned indicators, using rational motivation for structural transformations, as well as a number of other management decisions.
• The ratio of long-term goals, as well as desires, with the possibilities of achieving them, the choice of the most realistic and effective development option, based on a combination of current and strategic plans.

Such prerequisites, as well as the objective need for planning, put forward completely new requirements for technologies, the process of substantiating plans, and also the organization of their further implementation. In accordance with this, the planning process and methods in the current market economy provide for the search for the most appropriate principles, technologies and methods for developing planned indicators.

Basic principles

• Planning should in any case be of a systemic nature, that is, when developing various types of planning, it is necessary to take into account the full range of internal and external factors that may affect the work of the company.
• It should be of a scientific nature, that is, the latest achievements of practice and theory should be used as a basis.
• Planning should be carried out as accurately and objectively as possible, that is, first of all, it is based solely on reliable information, while organizational and managerial decisions should be necessarily confirmed by a number of analytical calculations of their economic feasibility.
• Planning should be based on a state approach, that is, any economic activity of a particular company should correspond not only to the interests of this company, but also to the whole society.
• It should be carried out as efficiently as possible, that is, the costs that are allocated to this procedure should subsequently return with a multiple effect.

Among other things, you should take into account that the fundamentals of the planning method provide for its target, that is, the company engages in its economic and production activities in accordance with clearly defined goals, and if it ultimately achieves these goals, then we can consider its activities to be effectively and efficiently planned .