Thus, everyone in the organization is part of, and accountable for, fulfilling the requirements of both a strategic and a business plan. These myths are often used by naive managers as excuses not to plan, or not to plan well. The only purpose of planning at the corporate level is to provide input for planning at lower levels of the organizations where all results are obtained. Plans are developed at each level in the organization until all objectives in the master plan have been restated into action or implementation plans with assignments, schedules, budgets, performance criteria and measurements. Yes, planning must be performed at the highest levels in the organization, but for those plans to be meaningful, they must drive planning at all levels of the organization.
All managers have a planning responsibility.
Planning requires a clear vision of the desired future state with respect to its impact on the organization's ability to overcome potential obstacles, fulfil its mission, and serve its customers. Only line managers have the perspective and sensitivity to plan for their own organizational unit. Planned economies have failed worldwide and highly centralized private sector companies have failed or fallen far behind their competition. The role of a planning department is to support line mangers by providing data on or about external factors of importance to the planning unit, assessing possible future conditions or scenarios, and supplying planning tools and techniques. In other words, the customers of the planning department are the line managers.