Planning is one of the key managerial functions which must be administered my management in order for all organisational objectives to be met. Goodstein, Pfeiffer and Noland (Harrison, E F. 1995 ) suggest "...planning is the process by which an organisation envisions its future and develops the necessary procedures and operations to achieve that future...It requires the clear setting of goals and objectives [which] provide the organisation with its core priorities and a set of guidelines for virtually all day-to-day managerial decisions"
Planning is also known as decision-making as much planning revolves around decisions, for example which activity to chose or which to forgo, which is agreed upon by Steiner (Harrison, E F. 1995) "planning deals with the futurity of current decisions. It also looks at the alternative courses of action that are open in the future: and when choices are made among the alternatives they become the basic for making current decisions."
Planning is important to an organisation as it sets out the direction the company will be going with clear and precise objectives and it also assists the employees in knowing of their own direction are what is expected of them.
If management does not take its planning seriously, it is