Due to political instability in the country, particularly during the last two decades, the culture of ad-hocism has crept in all spheres of national life, especially in decision-making at top levels. It is an irony of fate that it all happened despite the innumerable reforms and development plans relating to economic and social sectors announced from time to time by all the past governments.
These plans either remained on papers or were implemented half-heartedly resorting to short cuts. Consequently, set goals were never achieved. It rather impacted negatively by giving a stagnant economy, growing poverty, heavy accumulation of internal and external debts, low literacy rate and extreme gender disparity as permanent features.
The ruling circles, finding their positions insecure for faults of their own or weakness of their political set-up on the one hand and for fulfilment of their petty ambitions and aspirations, resorted to short-cuts and ad-hocism in handling the affairs. Resultantly, an impoverished social sector and a fragile economy continue to persist.
Now a new democratic set-up is taking shape with all hopes pinned on it for political stability, acceleration in economic growth rate and a sustainable social sector. It is imperative for the ruling circles and the top managements in all spheres to start with strategic planning so as to continue with the reforms already introduced in political, economic and social set-up by outgoing military-led government. All development plans in this context need to be undertaken systematically. In this regard, both the government and the individual organizational entities in public and private sector need to operate with a mission to achieve accomplishment of all developmental plans in accordance with the specified results and within planned time-frame, despite change in internal and external environments.
Until now it has been a common practice that incoming ruling authority would scrap or undo all development works undertaken by their predecessors and would start afresh. As such at all times the country is found entangled in a quagmire of problems. Thus, it is imperative for the incoming government to uphold the national interest, despite their altogether different ideology. They must continue with all the on-going development plans giving response to all impeding internal and external factors through strategic corrective steps in order to achieve the set objectives of the project within the specified period.
Majority of business organizations, particularly of the public sector, are also under the influence of culture of ad-hocism and short-cuts, inherited from the establishment. They need to operate with strategic planning to achieve organizational goals. Had there been good governance and strategic planning approach, these public sector entities would not have run into losses and then facing the dictates of funding agencies for downsizing and retrenchment of work force, thus aggravating the problem of unemployment in the country.
In order to achieve the desired rate of growth of economy, it is incumbent upon the top management of all public sector organizations to get rid of ad hoc arrangements regarding business expansion, human resources management and marketing strategy etc., just to achieve a temporary superior cost-performance ratio. To glorify the era of their short stay in an organization at the cost of real growth of organization and welfare of its employees.
Before a management embarks upon the strategic programme for the overall growth of an organization, the top management must make it sure that the vision of the entity is widely shared as it is always a source of commitment and gives sense of direction throughout the organization.
Dr Jagdesh Shehth, an expert on ‘marketing, and strategic planning’ provides the following framework for strategic management of the business:
a) Formulation of organizational future mission in the light of changing external factors such as the regulations, the competitors, the technology and customers.
b) Development of competitive strategy to achieve the mission.
c) Creation of an organizational structure which will deploy resources to successfully carry-out its competitive strategy.’
The rapid advancement in technology in all fields demands strategic approach to meet the challenges arising out of the fast changing behaviour of the customers, demanding sophistication in products/services on the one hand and at the same time developing innovative and quality products to eliminate competitors.
In order to achieve all-time optimum operational efficiency, the business organizations and financial institutions in particular, should proceed by identifying their strengths and weaknesses along with the environmental threats and opportunities. In this regard as a first step, the SWOT analysis need to be carried out in relation to present market-share and potentials of its growth. This is to be done keeping in view the company’s capability to mobilize resources, including the financial resources to improve upon the existing products/services and introduce new products blended with the latest technology to enhance its market share. In context to the financial resources risk analysis with regard to the deployment of funds along with cost/benefit need to be undertaken. The financial institutions and banks in Pakistan, in order to survive effectively in national and international markets, have entered into the realm of electronic banking.
Accordingly, they may be required to make fundamental changes in the products/services by bringing in substitute products and also shifting the channels,keeping in view the effectiveness of strategy undertaken in terms of time, accuracy, cost and its impact on human resources in the organization. It is also to be seen, whether quality and duly motivated manpower is available to meet the challenges of changed business environments. For the success of an organization, it is desirable that the entire process is managed with the people-oriented approach, as human resources are no longer means to an end but an end itself. In order to get very best of efforts of the employees, their overall welfare including their career progression should be taken care of.
A well knitted management information system (MIS) along with organizational structure suited to the nature of business is the utmost requirement of today’s complexities in businesses of all nature. It is an area needing due diligence by the management on continuous basis in order to ensure effective control on internal and external environmental factors. It is the assessment of environmental opportunities and threats and the current internal strength and weaknesses of an organization, which identifies planning gaps existing between what the organization wants to achieve and what are its current resources and capabilities. Hence this analytical study becomes the guiding principle for deciding new courses of action to achieve the set objectives. The new course of action can be restructuring of the organization for more effective use of the resources or it can be merger of various units of the same entrepreneurial group or acquisition of new units in order to extend the market. All decisions in this regard must be based on this cardinal point — “how best to provide balanced range of services/products at the least cost with the surety of maximum earnings to the organization, and the total satisfaction to customers and all stakeholders”.
However, the quest for maximum earnings for the organization must not be at the cost of ethics of business, social values and national interest. Further, it is to be taken care of that sound strategic planning is possible only when:
* The chief executive and the senior management is committed to making strategy-adopted work.
* The planning method adopted is in accordance with the size of the organization. If it is a wide-based entity, the strategic decision should be based on experience and judgment of the wide section of managerial staff in the field.
* A cover against the unexpected happenings is provided while developing a plan.
* The plan developed is realistic, assuming that the economic prospects would not change significantly.
However, if in the course of time economic environments improve drastically, then the realistic scenario will automatically be transformed into optimistic assumptions.
In order to ascertain whether strategy is working or not, it must be tested against the following criteria on continuous basis:
a) Whether plan is consistent with the organization’s competence and resources, and is fully exploiting the environmental opportunities.
b) Whether the risks associated with the plan can be comfortably managed.
c) Whether the policy is acceptable to those who have to implement it with total devotion.
d) Whether the results obtained are matching set targets over the period.
It is imperative on the part of the top management to ensure that at no stage, during the process of implementation of a plan, a short cut is taken to achieve timely benefits for the satisfaction of personal ego and aspirations, at the cost of disturbing the planned growth process of the organization.