CHAPTER ONE

1.0     INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Strategic planning which is process chart involves analyzing the opportunities and threats in the market place, while building the strengths and correcting the weaknesses within the firm, also involves setting goals for specific product marker and for the firm (Bernett and Wilsted (1988) and since it is perceived as a mediating force between the organisation and its environment it has become highly imperative for business organisation to adopt it so as to enhance productivity. 

This is sequel to that fact chart business enterprises under the prevailing economic environment of today, have to be up and doing so as to be efficient to survive.  High price due to increasing production costs coupled with severe liquidity squeeze necessitated by the dwindling external value of our national currency, have had a serious dampening effect on consumer demand having been faced, therefore, with a high costs of production, diminishing markets and environmental uncertainties, business organization have had to compete move aggressively with one another to attain acceptable volumes of production, sales and a good marker share2.   Suffice it to say, therefore, that the complexity of today’s business, coupled with the turbulence in the economic waters of the nation, makes it very turbulence in the economic waters of the nation, makes it very doubtful if any modern business organisation of reasonable size can survive this competitive environment without adequate strategic planning.  No wonder, therefore, that strategic planning has become increasing important to managers in recent years.  And since it defines fundamental goals and objective in specific terms, and determines the means to achieve them as well as provides a basic, long-range framework into which other forms of planning can fit, it can, therefore, be said to have a very strong influence on the survival and growth of an organizational most especially in a volatile environment.

Consequent upon that, business organizations needs plans to be able to predict unforeseen contingencies, minimize production costs, as well as wastage and then be able to grapple with competitions in a programmed manner – which is the essence of strategic planning.  All business organizations need to plan ahead whatever the kind of market, competitive, oligopolistic or monopolistic in which they operate an organization operating in a competitive marker needs to plan and design strategies such as will ensure first, its survival and when its continued profitability.  A firm operating in an oligopolistic market has move critical reason for planning because of the fierceness of the competition in such marker and even the monpolist organization has to continually develop new strategies to maintain its position or else it will soon be faced with competition.  A wrong investment decision in today’s business would is likely to entail a huge financial -loss.  A fundamental and pertinent question arises as to why some organizations are outstandingly successful while others achieve marginal or moderate successes and others fail alarmingly.  It is also asked as to what it is about organizations that tend to make some ability of their managers to pull critical levers at important points in the evolutionary development of their companies.

For these managers, the trick is knowing which levers to pull, and when to pull these levers to pull, and when to pull these levers to produce the desire and significant results in term of increased productivity which leads to high profitability of their organizations.  We may identify these critical levers as organizational strategies.  Strategy and strategic planning in the context of business organizations, refer the major action programmes that are used by organizations to achieve their mission and goals.  The focus of all business organisation is viability and profitability.  The first requirement of the spirit of organisation is high performance standards for the group as well as for individuals in the organisation.  A successful organisation is most often in efficient enterprise one of the major focuses of management by objectives is to have managers set high performance standards for themselves.  A manager performs his functions by allocation and integration of human and economic resources through the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling, for the purpose of producing outputs (goods and services) desired by its customers, so that the organization’s objectives are achieved.  A manager works with and through people and other resources to realize these organisation objectives, Akpala Agwu (1990).

As modern business activities widen, environmental scanning and planning become difficult and more relevant today’s business conditions have continuous to change so fast to emphasize a growing need for continuous business intelligence activities and strategic planning as the only option to anticipate failure problems and opportunities.  Strategic planning provides all employees with clear goals and directions to the future of the organization.  It also provides a standard against which future performance can be compared.  And all this makes it complicated in many highly technical firms that are subject to the “law of acceleration” which suggests an increasing rate of change.  Since strategic planning arms at finding how a company competes successful within it environment, it is therefore said to be based on the principles of comparative competitive advantage necessary for survival and growth under competitive conditions.  A firm cannot survive or grow unless it maintains one or more comparative competitive advantages, which provide the basic rationale by which customers will prefer that firm to others.

Unfortunately, though Nigeria presents a strong picture of a turbulent and unpredictable environment for organizations to thrift – particularly the manufacturing sector.  This is due mainly to constant changes in the political and economic conditions in the country.  The effect of this on the manufacturing sector is quite stupendous.  This is especially so when once considers the fact that majority of our manufacturing industries today provide below capacity.  Specifically speaking, for manufacturing industries operating in today’s volatile business environment, the need for the strategic planning seems too obvious and imperative to require mentioning.  The fortunes of our economy and the manufacturing sector appear inextricably interwoven, and so development within the overall economy will inevitably have direct impacts on the environment.  Similarly, the operational efficiency of this sector or otherwise in bringing to fruition the social and economic yearnings of the nation has direct impact on the economy it is against this background that this study intends to assess the effect of strategic planning on the productivity of the Nigerian Bottling Company.  It is hoped that this study will in the long run afford the rare opportunity of understanding and appreciating the significance of strategic planning in today’s organizational restructuring, planning and improvement.

1.2  THE STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

After the euphoria of national independent that task of national development dawn on Nigerians to pave the way for individual growth.  Nigerian policy-makers then placed the thrust on industrialization on the shoulders of the manufacturing sector.  However, the progress today in this direction leaves more to be desired.  The present stale of the manufacturing sector has been perennially bedeviled by unsteady and less result oriented production activities.

It is a commonplace tap now to hear out so-called industrialists and economic watchers alleging that low productivity, operating below installed capacity utilization, unfavourable socio-political and economic environments and continued depreciation of national currency against the dollar, are responsible for this ugly situation.  But must fundamental to this study is the factor, productivity.  Productivity is the output per unit of a factor of production.  It is dependent on the availability of the productive resources in requisite proportions and how much output each unit of resources can be made to yield.  The problem with Nigerian manufacturing sector is how to combine these two factors.  However, quite a number of management ideas and philosophies have been applied, but to our disappointment, they have not achieved their attendant ends.  Many critics have blamed it on the peculiarity of the Nigerian socio-political and economic environment, while others on the haphazard application of these management ideas and philosophies.

We shall take the view of the letter as the almost of this study.  Planning is one of their most fundamental management processes which seeks to set in advance purposes and objectives an entity may seek to achieve through planning, the when, the who, and the how is clearly defined within a time horizon for the achievement of a specified goal or goals thus emphasizing a special relationship with productivity.  From the strategic management paradigm, output per unit of a factor of production should be planned in such a way that it identifies the opportunities and threats in the organization’s environment, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the organization, designing structures, defining roles, luring appropriate people, and developing appropriate reward to make contribution.  Against this background, what is the effect of strategic planning on productivity in the Nigeria Bottling Company Plc.

1.3  OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of this study is to ascertain the impact of strategic planning has on

the level of productivity of manufacturing industries with particular references

to the Nigeria Bottling Company Plc. Eastern region specifically, the study is

intended to achieve the following objectives:

(a)               To assess the impact of environment factors on the strategic planning of this company and

(b)              To evaluate the relationship between strategic planning and corporate performance of this company.

1.4  HYPOTHESIS

Following the research purpose and objectives, as well as the core problem being investigated by the study, the following hypotheses will be tested.

HO   Hi:   The internal and external environment factors surrounding this company significantly effect its strategic planning.

Hi    H2:  There is positive relationship between strategic planning and the corporate performance of the company.

1.5  SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

In the first place, this study should be of immense assistance to business students, business practitioners, systems designers and indeed all persons who are concerned about the proper informational input into management planning processes.  By bringing into focus the state of the art in the literature, it is also going to be of assistance to lectures.

The manufacturing sector, as earlier indicated are very important to the company of this country, therefore, since this is assumed to be a thorough study of strategic planning in this sector, it will reveal its level of managerial efficiency and effectiveness.  And this knowledge will be vital to both the government and owners of industries.  Furthermore, it will provide a model for an efficient and effective strategy planning, which will, assists managers in this sector.

A practical significance will be the identification of the factors responsible for the high failure rate of industries particularly in a competitive industry like soft drink – producing companies of which the Nigeria Bottling Company Plc is one.

The knowledge will help determine the structure of the business environment available to them and be able to forecast future conditions.  Good business is the ability to make profit and sustain the life of the company.  This can only be achieved through a proper knowledge of strategic planning.

Finally, researcher will find this as a base for continued assessment and further research on the subject.  The value of the investigation to professionals, practitioners and persons or corporate bodies cannot be over emphasized since they are involved in the operations of these establishments.

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