Editorial Review:
In today's complex world of business, strategic planning is indispensable to effective management. Ever since the mid-1950's, when American companies began to develop formal long-range planning systems, wise managers have understood the importance of knowing where their firm was headed and how it intended to get there. To function effectively in a modern, planned operation, every manager must have a practical understanding of how the planning process works. That's exactly what this book offers: a step-by-step guide to strategic planning. George A. Steiner, a well-known expert in the field of management, provides a concise, jargon-free handbook that avoids abstract theory and takes you straight to the "how-to" of planning. Whether you're designing and implementing a new plan or working with a plan that's already in operation, Strategic Planning puts the information you need at your fingertips. It takes you through every stage of the process, from idea to execution to evaluation. (And explains "Fifty Common Pitfalls" you'll need to know about.) You can plug your own data into the lucid charts, tables, and checklists for a valuable start on getting organized and evaluating your planning needs. And there's plenty of penetrating discussion about the questions and quandaries you're likely to meet along the way. For example: * How do you identify, evaluate, and implement strategies?
* How do you design a planning system to fit the unique characteristics of you and your company?
* Can an intuitive manager do formal strategic planning?
* What are some ways to develop clear objectives?
* What human behavior factors can endanger planning and how can managers overcome them?
* How, and when, should a situation audit be made?
* What do you need to know about computer models?
* How can business planning lessons be applied to not-for-profit organizations?
* How can managers apply lessons of planning experience to the planning of their own careers? You don't have to get an advanced degree to make strategic planning a part of your management style. All you need is the expert advice in this idea-packed handbook. (As a bonus the book includes a glossary of the terms, tools, and techniques of strategic planning.)
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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Rating: 
Basic Strategic Planning 2005-12-31
George A. Steiner produced a good basic book on Strategic Planning which describes in clear and simple language the ideas, facts, processes and concepts about strategic planning. Every manager needs to have some basic understanding of strategic planning and this book provides the essential ingredients to assist managers to formulate and/or refine their strategic plans.
The authors could not cover all the critical aspects of this wide and complex subject. Among the essential areas missing are strategic considerations for multinational firms in a global environment. This is a major omission in the current environment as readers would generally wish to be guided so that they can understand the complexity of the global environment, control problems of the global firm, competitive strategies for firms in foreign markets, global strategic planning, entry strategies for firms in global markets, factors that complicate environmental analysis at global level, among other things.
Another critical omission is on how the power of the information, communication technology can be harnessed for the benefit of firms.
Apart from these important omissions, arising largely because of the age of the book (written in the 1970s), the author did a commendable job particularly in his discussion of key considerations in doing planning.
I recommend the book as an important introductory textbook for those new to the subject and as a reference textbook, although the reader would need to also acquire other books to get a more comprehensive picture of the subject. In particular, I would recommend Michael Porter's books "Competitive Advantage and The Competitive Advantage of Nations", Leonard Goodstein et al's book "Applied Strategic Planning", Clayton M Christensen's book "The Innovator's Solution", Mintzberg et al's book "The Strategy Process", Kenichi Ohmae `s book "The Mind of the Strategist", among others.
Good, but also...  2003-06-29
This is a good introductory book. After reading this, you should read "Strategic Organizational Change" by Michael Beitler.
A Good Basic Review 2000-01-26
For those without any Strategic Management background (or those who have been out of it for a while), this book provides a good foundation to build your knowledge upon. Although it lacks the substance on application to Government stategic planning (or at least as much as I wanted to read about), the information provided helps see and extrapolate potential applicability to non-for-profit organizations. In addition, the time when the book is written (1970's) does not allow the author to explore the latest computer applications on the area of planning and to comment and analyze the latest fast growing/short turnaround technology companies. In addition to reading this book, I recommend expanding your reading further with a more recent book that may address newer companies and government agencies.
Very Basic  1999-09-30
The book was a very introductory level guide to strategic planning that would be good for someone who has little knowledge of the process. The book was published in 1979 and shows its age in recommending a full year strategic planning cycle. Most views today suggest this process should be condensed to a short period, yet still be made effective and be integrated with the budgeting process. Overall, as an experienced manager, I was disappointed as it brought very little to light that I didn't already know.
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