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The key reasons for doing a market planning are:
Adapting to change: Planning provides an opportunity for travel and tours firms to examine how changes in the business environment have/will affect the organization thus enabling the management to focus on strategic issues as opposed to day-to-day operational problems.
Resource allocation: It allows deployment of resources to effectively meet opportunities and threats required to meet strategic windows of opportunity which are defined as changes that have a major impact in the market place. Strategic windows factors include:
New technology
New market segments
New channels of distributions
Market redefinition i.e. where the demand changes
Legislative changes
Environmental changes.
Consistency: By providing a common base to work from the travel firm the overall decision-making process can be enhanced and common methods and formats are used helping to improve internal communication.
Integration: As a strategic process, planning should facilitate the integration and co-ordination of the marketing mix. Planning communicates strategic intent to employees and other stakeholders. Motivation is also achieved when the objectives are clear and easily understood.
Control: All control activities are based on some predetermined plan.. The planning process should set meaningful targets, thus defining the criteria by which success is measured.
However for a successful market planning process to take place it faces challenges which are often to do with the human aspects like culture, politics and power, resource issues and skills.
They include:
Culture: The prevailing culture may not be conformable to marketing plans. If the fundamental principles of marketing are not accepted by the organization, any move towards being market led and customer orientated could be dismissed as ‘not the way we do it’. Often we see considerable resistance to change and gradual regression back to old work practices.
Power and politics: All organizations are subject to internal politics. The development of strategic planning becomes a battlefield where vested interests fight each other’s proposals and squabble over status and resources. This process absorbs much management time and can result in ill-advised compromise and unnecessary delay
.
Analysis not action: Much time and energy can be wasted by the process of analyzing data and developing rationales for action, as opposed to simply acting. While a rigorous process is commendable, it should not displace action. This ‘paralysis-by-analysis’ barrier tends to substitute information gathering and processing for decision making. Perhaps surprisingly, many planning systems do not promote action and are more concerned with reviewing progress and controlling activity, rather than tackling strategic issues.
Resource issues: In any planning situation, the potential exists to negotiate over resources. Indeed, a major aspect of the process is to match resources to strategic aims. Managers must take a realistic view of the resource position and endeavor to ensure resources are not overcommitted or needlessly withheld.
Skills: In some instances, managers do not have the skills (e.g. project management, forecasting, etc.) required to make the best use of the planning process. Here, planning takes on a ritual nature – a meaningless but ‘must-do’ annual task. Often, planning is reduced to incremental increases/decreases in annual budget and fails to examine opportunities for business development.
Mukamimuriuki answered the question on November 18, 2018 at 11:18
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