The range of activities associated with the buying of goods and services to support business operations is called procurement. When talking about procurement, planning is the first and most important step in the whole process. Planning involves selecting missions and objectives and the actions to achieve them; it requires managers to choose among alternative future courses of action. Plans thus provide a rational approach to preselected objectives.
Planning bridges the gap from where we are to where we want to go. It makes it possible for things to occur which would not otherwise happen. Although we can never be sure what will happen in the future, and factors beyond our control may interfere with even the best-laid plans, if we dont plan we are leaving events to chance. And that is quite risky when talking about business operations. One wrong step and your business is history.
Today, most business enterprises engage in strategic planning, although the degree of sophistication and formality vary considerably. Conceptually, strategic planning is deceptively simple: analyze the current and expected future situation, determine the direction of the firm, and develop...