STRATEGIC PLANNING IN LARGE COMPANIES

By

EGBOGU, CHINELO SALOME

Presented To

Department of Accountancy

ABSTRACT

Planning has evolved an indispensable weapon to address the increasing competition for telecommunication services, nationally and internationally. While competition has always existed among telecommunication industries is because of the fungibility of their product and the homogeneity of their services.

The various issues involved in the effective planning of the telecommunication industries in Nigeria are the main focus of this research. Planning in the telecommunication industries has below the restore confidence, creates convenience and has also made communication easier for customers or subscribers.

Telecommunication industries in Nigeria are facing some problems, which Linder sound planning in the industry. These problems are both internal and external. While those internal problems can be manipulated the external problems posed by the external environment cannot probably be controlled.

The research on strategic planning in large companies highlighted the reasons for poor planning in most companies prominent among which include:

The inability of the management of the company to see planning as embedded in all areas of the achievement of the objectives set for the company. Also the inability of the management to make every staff of the industry planning oriented among every other factors.

To achieve the goal of this study, therefore, questionnaires were printed and distributed and the feedback received. Interviews were also conducted and personal observation was equal made. The results were encouraging as both senior and junior staff responded positively, except for issues that some of the staff felt would amount to disclosure of their company's affairs. Data, both primary and secondary were utilized for paper analysis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title page i

Approval page ii

Dedication iii

Acknowledgment iv

Table of content v

Abstract vi

CHAPTER ONE

10 General introduction

10 Background information

12 Statement of the problem

13 Objective of the study

14 Significant of the study

15 Research questions

16 Scope of work

17 Limitations

CHAPTER TWO

20 Literature review

21 Introduction

22 The conception of strategy planning

23 Strategic planning process

24 Models of strategic planning process

25 Models of strategic management

26 How to strategically plan

27 Duties performed by the deputy general manager (personnel, training and man-power development)

28 Telecommunications services rendered to customers

29 Factors responsible for insufficiency in strategic planning the NITEL Zonal headquarters Enugu

291 Historical factors

292 Organizational factors

293 Managerial economic factors

294 Summary of related literature review

Chapter three

31 Design of the study

32 Areas of the study

33 population of the study

34 Sampling procedure

35 Instruments for data collection

36 Method of data analysis

Chapter four

41 Presentation of data

42 Analysis of data

43 Interpretation of data

Chapter five

50 General summary

51 Summary of findings

52 Discussions

53 Recommendation

54 Conclusion

Bibliography

References

Appendixes

CHAPTER ONE

1 0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

The chapter gives background information to the subject matter of the study - strategic planning in large companies and also gives clear items in the statement of the problems, objectives of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, methodology, limitation of the study and scheme of the chapter

11 BACKGROUND INFORMATION

For a plan to be out of date after one week of initiating it, is very easy as a result of the changing nature of business But the process which initiated the plan, don't go out of data easily, when carefully convinced and controlled Planning consists essentially of deceiving in advance, what you want to do and how you are going to do it It involves making deliberate preparation in the present based on empirical and analyze data of the and present state of affairs to ensure that within available resources and those can be made available goals are pursed and realized through clearly mapped out actions

Furthermore, Osuagwu (1998) stressed that planning is an inescapable part of all human activity and can be defined as the establishment of objectives, and the formulation, evaluation and selection of the policies, strategic, tactics, and action required to achieve these objectives

Ezegbe (1991) believes that planning is a continuity administrative and managerial activity He sees planning as a service to decision making in that provides support and analysis in the process of selecting objectives and policies, which allowing for rational consideration of administrations action in implanting policies

David (1986) asserts that manager perform five basic activities planning, organizing, motivating, staffing, and controlling Although planning is commonly the most neglected task of a manager's job The only certain thing about future of an organization is change, and planning is the essential bridge between the present and the future Planning is the cerner stone of effective strategy for formulation It is also essential for successful strategy implementation and strategy evaluation, because organizing motivating, staffing and controlling activities are dependent upon good planning

Just as planning, many definitions have been given to strategy Oxford dictionary defined strategy as skill in managing any affair Titles (1963) defined strategy as the set of goals and major policies of an organization While Onwuchekwa (1993:55) quoted chandler (1962) defining "strategy as the determination the basic long-term goals and objectives in an enterprises and the adoption of the action and the allocation of resources necessary for carrying out the goals A strategy creates unique directions for the organization in terms of its many objectives and it guides the development of the resources used to move the organization towards those objectives

In fact, strategy planning as taylor and Hawkins (1972 380) defined is the determination and implementation of cooperate business strategy In the views of stoner (1982) strategic planning is the process of selecting an organizations goals determining the policies and strategic programmes necessary to achieve specific objectives emirates to the goals; and establishing the method necessary to assure that the policies and strategic programmes are implemented Strategic planning is of great importance to a business organization because it hopes to define its aims, which gives it the direction to go and purpose Due to this, an organization improves it functioning and becomes more responsive to the dynamic changes in the business environment

The strategic planning process can be thought of as a narrowing process The process beings with identification and recognition of the philosophy and mission of organizations Jackson and Mathis (1991):49) believe that the first step addresses the most fundamental questions about an organization

v Why does the organization exist?

v What unique contribution does it make?

v What are the underlying values and motivation key managers and owners?

Therefore, strategic decisions involve the determination of board direction and the development of comprehension plans to attain those objectives The formulation of strategy and goals is often, considered the exclusive role of top management

At this point, it is important that we look into the strategic planning positions of the Nigerian telecommunications (NITEL) headquarters, Enugu NITEL as everybody knows operates mainly in the area of communication The exchange of information between one person to another or form one place to another This is done a short or long distance by the use of cables cum telephones, which are either stationary or mobile called cellular phone These telephone normally have digital numbers or line according to their locations

12 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS

That telecommunication industries in Nigeria do not seem to be living up to their excepted fundamental responsibilities of being effective machinery for the mobilization of domestic resources for national development is a matter that bothers everybody in the country

For this reasons, they do not put in an extra effort towards improving the services of their numerous establishments

Also, planning of communication services is a complex area, which requires not only full range of planning skill and experience but ability to apply these to a complex range of product in a very unusual cultural environment which whilst undergoing rapid changes, can still on occasions by very hostile both to the planning ethics and to the practitioners The statement of problems of this research, constitutes of the following:

1 Many communication industries have failed and many others are at the point of folding because they have failed to examine ways and measures by which planning of their services can be improved in order to turn their dwindling profitability

2 There is every indication that most of our communication services are not rendered efficiently and this is a matter of serious concern

3 The rate of innovations of communication industries in Nigeria as a result of planning is very law, this is partly attributable to poor research to identity the customers needs

4 Many communication industries have not responded adequately to the challenges brought about by new technologies as they have failed to recognize the relevant planning strategic that will help them achieve their goals

13 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main aim of this study is to know the planning pattern of NITEL as it concerns it's strategic position in the business circle

In Nigeria neither large companies or small enterprises can boast of the non-existence of problems associated with it as to the effectiveness of carrying out their functions Despite the fact that the Nigeria telecommunication (NITEL) has been doing its best to meet the needs and wants of the masses in communication services, thee are still some lapses in the performance of job satisfaction on the part of its employee The situation would have improved if close attention has been given to the causes of these set - back

Base on this, it is necessary to make a proper study of inefficiency in large companies to help alleviate the economic down turn in the organization As a result of this, this research aims at achieving the under listed objectives:

i To stress the need and means of planning (aggressive planning philosophy) in the telecommunication industries

ii To highlight areas of weakness in the planning of communication services and also identify major factors responsible for these weakness

iii To highlight some of the retail service provided by the Nigerian telecommunication Ltd

iv Suggest ways of improving planning as to decision making in the telecommunication

14 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The magnitude of disappointments in the nation's communication industry has reached an unprecedented level thereby making it an issue of concern not only to the government but more to the telecommunication staff themselves

The era has cone, is now clear, when customer's decides on what services they want the bank to render them, the price they will wish to pay for the service, and possibly were to buy the service In other words, this is the era when the communication industry have the guarantee the customer's as satisfaction

The companies now have to accept that their customers are the kings As a result, should first understand the need of the people they are serving or hope to serve, and how to render such services to their customers' satisfaction

The study is centered on the analysis and evaluation of strategic planning in large companies with particular reference to NITEL Headquarters, Enugu zone; for improved and better services

15 RESEARCH QUESTION

This research project is aimed at guiding the level of inefficiency in the planning pattern of large companies like Nigeria telecommunications LTD Zone Headquarter Enugu

a Is the pattern of planning strategy of NITEL satisfactory or dissatisfactory?

b Who are those responsible for the short comings of the organization due to ineffective planning?

c What are the physical or otherwise manifestation of this inefficiency

d Can large companies such as NITEL overcome these inefficiencies?

e Is there any hope of ameliorating the standard of planning position of such large companies as in NITEL

These questions will be properly dealt with as we go further in our subsequent sub topics

16 SCOPE OF WORK

This study does not intend to cover the entire nature of Nigeria telecommunication industry, nor will it draw a comparative analysis between other telecommunication industries in the country Again, planning is a broad discipline The study therefore will not exhaust all the aspect but focus on planning strategy of the organization

As a matter of fact, large companies here could be public or private sectors But the writer tried to limits scope to the public sector only

17 LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

In as much as the researcher would want to make this study as comprehensive as possible, but there are certain limiting factors that attended the researcher and they are

Time which was not in the researcher's favor There was no sufficient time, together as much data as needed, analyze the data adequately and of course do other necessary things that would have improved the quality of the research

Financial constraint was another major factor that constituted some hindrances - making a thorough and painstaking research analysis almost impossible

The researcher's value judgment constituted another limitation as another researcher may view strategic planning in large companies from another perspective which may be a better approach

Simply and straightforward statistical tools were used in data analysis as such their inadequacies in providing indebt analysis should be borne in mind while reading through this work

More so getting the respondents to complete the questionnaire posed another problem since a good number of them complain of lack of time due to the pressure of work