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Managerial planning
Thus it might be assumed that result in higher or lower bii local commerce and industry dhkrent rates of employment
the local age structure would rates and that the nature of would be likely to result in growth (or decline).
The fifth paper analyses the planning systems of seven integrated firms in the ,petroleum industry which industry appears to be more sophisticated in the practice than most, and one of the early starters in its adoption.
In this brief document the planners of the Central Lancashire New Town set out and comment upon national data on population, economic activity, education, health, housing, free time, transport and communications. One can learn from the clearly presented summary tables, for example, that the U.K. population is likely to rise to 62.9 millions by the year 2001, that manufacturing jobs are likely to decline drastically but that ‘service’ jobs are likely to be half as many again as in 1969 and that the number of people entering higher education will rise steeply. In our current gloom, the forecasts of private consumption and government expenditure seem like echoes from a vanished past even though most of the sources are dated between 1970 and 1973. Other sections show the continuing shit in housing tenure towards owner-occupation and local authority renting and rapid decline of private renting.
The second of the two issues of Managerial Planning contains a scholarly comparison of the American and the European types of entrepreneur in business. It is by R. W. Knoepfel who, in his experiences with the Solvay organimtion on each side of the Atlantic, has had the unique opportunity to observe di8erences and similarities. In any case it is a very clear expose of what entrepreneurial activities are really a5 about.
One wonders why the Central Lancashire Planners published this booklet. Almost all the material is available ekewhere in a rather fuller but just as accessible form, notably in the government’s annual ‘Social Trends’, their long range population forecasts and the small number of other consultancy or academic studies on which this work draws. And surely a much more useful exercise would have been to relate the corporation’s own more locahxed forecasts to this background and to discuss why CLNT was likely to grow quicker or slower (or at about the same pace) as the country as a whole, or the North West Region. As a result, this well presented and attractively booklet is ‘neither summat nor newt’. J. BRL+NMcLouom Centre for Environmental London
The fmaI paper deals with the Financial Planning and Analysis Function in presenting a job specification and guide lines for its contribution to the overall corporate plan. H. JONES
Studies
Of the six papers in tbe first of these issues, five are of particularly direct interest to long range planners. The first by A. L. Jones of Standard Oil is important because it deals with Planning for Ecology and Survival from a more optimistic point of view than do most of the doomsday prophets. The attitude of confidence is supported by a scientific review of statistical and other facts concerning such topics as the depletion of oxygen and the build-up of lead and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, the value of such insecticides as DDT, energy etc. Problems are seen in the growth of population and in the lack of control of the pollution of natural waters mainly by sewage. W. K. Hall discusses The Uncertainty of Uncertainty in Business Planning and suggests positive action steps to meet the problem; the separation of facts from opinions in the making of planning assumptions, conservatism in strategy formulation, flexibility in implementation, the development of planning systems for quick responses to change and a willingness to accept higher failure rates. The third paper is by G. A. Steiner, one of the doyens of corporate long range planning, who deals systematically with ten often evident shortcomings in planning systems. Most of his recommendation are a re-emphasis of the tenets of basic planning. A paper by S. C. Jain describes the use of the Delphi technique for the prediction of the impact of changes in the environment on business, taking the theme of the impact of economic-socio-political changes on the department store industry.
1975
The fourth paper in the November/December issue provides statistical data on the increasing numbers of U.S. companies operating annual planning systems. The chief interest here is the greater, but recent growth in the number of small firms that have started to practice LRP (a fivefold increase between 1965 and 1973) compared to larger firms (double in the same period). However, the smaller firms started from a later and a relatively lower adoption rate of deployment of planning.
written
Manag&d PlannIag, a bi-monthly publication of the Planning Executives Institute, Ohio, September/October and November/December 1974,40 pp. each (softbacks).
JUNE,
A second paper deals more generally with productivity, while the thiid on the topic of Budgetary Disclosures becomes close to the concept of U.K. Planning Agreements and the disclosure of corporate planning data for both workers and investors.
How to Aeqaire a Chpany, by M. WEBB, Gower Press, Epping (1974), 181 pp. 85.50 (hardback). Michael Webb has produced in a most comprehensive and readabk form a stepby-steu guide dealina with all aspects of company acqui&ion. S&p&ate chaptersdeal with every stage of the process from finding the right acquisition, through the evaluation of its worth, to the approach negotiation and purchase, and lastly the aftercare necemary to ensure that most is made of the opportunities the acquisition affords. On the way Mr. Webb takes in sophisticated methods of financial assessment, the use of computer models for acquisition evaluation, and the use of statistics for estimating growth trends. The author displays a healthy cynicism warning of the dangers of the ‘golf course acquisition’ where the merger is conceived by the chief executive on the first tee, as well as highlighting the dangers of the right acquisition for the wrong reasons, and the wrong acquisition for the right reasons. No managing director reading this book could fail to be impressed by the importance of a systematic approach to the whole business or by the infinite dangers of getting it wrong. If one has any criticism it is perhaps in the book’s very comprehensiveness. To some extent in emphasizing his point about the importance of prior analysis and subsequent investigation, he goes beyond the bounds of the practicable and does not adequately recognize the relatively weak negotiating position implicit in an approach by the purchaser to the potential vendor. It is in any case as dangerous to overanalyse a situation as to under-investigate it and in reality the approach is often inevitably more empirical than Mr. Webb would ideally have. He also underestimates the importance of judgment in acquisition matters, that intangible quality which so often distinguishes the successful aquirors from the rest; and he does not adequately emphasize the element of ‘gritting the teeth and jumping in’ implicit in any acquisition.
a7
the local age structure would rates and that the nature of would be likely to result in growth (or decline).
The fifth paper analyses the planning systems of seven integrated firms in the ,petroleum industry which industry appears to be more sophisticated in the practice than most, and one of the early starters in its adoption.
In this brief document the planners of the Central Lancashire New Town set out and comment upon national data on population, economic activity, education, health, housing, free time, transport and communications. One can learn from the clearly presented summary tables, for example, that the U.K. population is likely to rise to 62.9 millions by the year 2001, that manufacturing jobs are likely to decline drastically but that ‘service’ jobs are likely to be half as many again as in 1969 and that the number of people entering higher education will rise steeply. In our current gloom, the forecasts of private consumption and government expenditure seem like echoes from a vanished past even though most of the sources are dated between 1970 and 1973. Other sections show the continuing shit in housing tenure towards owner-occupation and local authority renting and rapid decline of private renting.
The second of the two issues of Managerial Planning contains a scholarly comparison of the American and the European types of entrepreneur in business. It is by R. W. Knoepfel who, in his experiences with the Solvay organimtion on each side of the Atlantic, has had the unique opportunity to observe di8erences and similarities. In any case it is a very clear expose of what entrepreneurial activities are really a5 about.
One wonders why the Central Lancashire Planners published this booklet. Almost all the material is available ekewhere in a rather fuller but just as accessible form, notably in the government’s annual ‘Social Trends’, their long range population forecasts and the small number of other consultancy or academic studies on which this work draws. And surely a much more useful exercise would have been to relate the corporation’s own more locahxed forecasts to this background and to discuss why CLNT was likely to grow quicker or slower (or at about the same pace) as the country as a whole, or the North West Region. As a result, this well presented and attractively booklet is ‘neither summat nor newt’. J. BRL+NMcLouom Centre for Environmental London
The fmaI paper deals with the Financial Planning and Analysis Function in presenting a job specification and guide lines for its contribution to the overall corporate plan. H. JONES
Studies
Of the six papers in tbe first of these issues, five are of particularly direct interest to long range planners. The first by A. L. Jones of Standard Oil is important because it deals with Planning for Ecology and Survival from a more optimistic point of view than do most of the doomsday prophets. The attitude of confidence is supported by a scientific review of statistical and other facts concerning such topics as the depletion of oxygen and the build-up of lead and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, the value of such insecticides as DDT, energy etc. Problems are seen in the growth of population and in the lack of control of the pollution of natural waters mainly by sewage. W. K. Hall discusses The Uncertainty of Uncertainty in Business Planning and suggests positive action steps to meet the problem; the separation of facts from opinions in the making of planning assumptions, conservatism in strategy formulation, flexibility in implementation, the development of planning systems for quick responses to change and a willingness to accept higher failure rates. The third paper is by G. A. Steiner, one of the doyens of corporate long range planning, who deals systematically with ten often evident shortcomings in planning systems. Most of his recommendation are a re-emphasis of the tenets of basic planning. A paper by S. C. Jain describes the use of the Delphi technique for the prediction of the impact of changes in the environment on business, taking the theme of the impact of economic-socio-political changes on the department store industry.
1975
The fourth paper in the November/December issue provides statistical data on the increasing numbers of U.S. companies operating annual planning systems. The chief interest here is the greater, but recent growth in the number of small firms that have started to practice LRP (a fivefold increase between 1965 and 1973) compared to larger firms (double in the same period). However, the smaller firms started from a later and a relatively lower adoption rate of deployment of planning.
written
Manag&d PlannIag, a bi-monthly publication of the Planning Executives Institute, Ohio, September/October and November/December 1974,40 pp. each (softbacks).
JUNE,
A second paper deals more generally with productivity, while the thiid on the topic of Budgetary Disclosures becomes close to the concept of U.K. Planning Agreements and the disclosure of corporate planning data for both workers and investors.
How to Aeqaire a Chpany, by M. WEBB, Gower Press, Epping (1974), 181 pp. 85.50 (hardback). Michael Webb has produced in a most comprehensive and readabk form a stepby-steu guide dealina with all aspects of company acqui&ion. S&p&ate chaptersdeal with every stage of the process from finding the right acquisition, through the evaluation of its worth, to the approach negotiation and purchase, and lastly the aftercare necemary to ensure that most is made of the opportunities the acquisition affords. On the way Mr. Webb takes in sophisticated methods of financial assessment, the use of computer models for acquisition evaluation, and the use of statistics for estimating growth trends. The author displays a healthy cynicism warning of the dangers of the ‘golf course acquisition’ where the merger is conceived by the chief executive on the first tee, as well as highlighting the dangers of the right acquisition for the wrong reasons, and the wrong acquisition for the right reasons. No managing director reading this book could fail to be impressed by the importance of a systematic approach to the whole business or by the infinite dangers of getting it wrong. If one has any criticism it is perhaps in the book’s very comprehensiveness. To some extent in emphasizing his point about the importance of prior analysis and subsequent investigation, he goes beyond the bounds of the practicable and does not adequately recognize the relatively weak negotiating position implicit in an approach by the purchaser to the potential vendor. It is in any case as dangerous to overanalyse a situation as to under-investigate it and in reality the approach is often inevitably more empirical than Mr. Webb would ideally have. He also underestimates the importance of judgment in acquisition matters, that intangible quality which so often distinguishes the successful aquirors from the rest; and he does not adequately emphasize the element of ‘gritting the teeth and jumping in’ implicit in any acquisition.
a7