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Strategic planning becomes a daunting nightmare in challenging economic times. Anticipating change and creating framework for future growth needs in depth understanding of trends which can indicate future changes with fair degree of certainty. Mckinsey article has few tips on planning during these transitioning times. Be realistic about scenario planning In a highly uncertain environment, the advantages of scenario planning are clear: since no one base case can be regarded as probable, it’s necessary to develop plans on the assumption that several different futures are possible and to focus attention on the underlying drivers of uncertainty. Senior executives outside the strategic-planning group—even those accustomed to developing scenarios—may find the diversity and complexity of this year’s scenarios bewildering. It’s critical to bring such executives into the process early: for example, by kicking off the planning process with a scenario-development exercise involving the full sen...

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Veritude came out with a survey titled “ Working together, Working apart ”which looked at business and HR leaders working relationship and common understanding of each other issues. Overall, the research reveals that in many companies, HR must improve their business leaders' perceptions of theirs skills and abilities and business leaders must learn to turn to HR for support in addressing workforce issues. There is ample room for optimism that both business and HR leaders in this study recognize these trends are working toward effective plans. 1.Strategic Business Challenges: Both business and HR leaders agree that talent acquisition and recruitment top the list of strategic business issues, but one in five business and HR leaders see HR as only involved in "implementing " strategy, not participating in plan development. What's more, a common perception is that HR is lacking adequate financial aptitude and therefore is not asked to contribute to strategy development be...

So what could be the likely challenges for the Business leaders in 2008? HBR’s conversation invited some interesting observations. "With changing attitudes and values, it becomes increasingly necessary for organisations to undergo culture change in order to attract and retain high quality young staff." — Mark Greenshields "The biggest challenge for managers in 2008 will be giving employees 'permission to play', making work more meaningful and keep it real." — Kathryn Aiken "Assuming 'management' is a people-oriented activity, I would presume the biggest challenge will be to openly deal with the wants of employees while still making a profit." — David Malouf IBM global human capital study says that developing the right skill for future business will be the biggest challenge in the coming years. Today's business executives face a host of pressures, including volatile markets, global competition, and the emergence of new business models. ...

So what the future of management going to be? Is it your organizational structure or scorecard that you follow? There's a reason boards of directors can pluck so many CEOs out of one company and plop them into another: When it comes to management ideas and tools, many companies are surprisingly similar. They have the same hierarchies and budgeting processes. They have "balanced scorecards" that measure performance. They benchmark their peers, adopt "best practices," and seemingly all house an army of Six Sigma black belts standing ready to defend quality control. Garry Hamel thinks that that new ways of managing people or organizing companies can lead to the most durable, "difficult to duplicate" competitive advantages. Such an approach differs from process improvement, which can be copied, or an emphasis on new products, which can be commoditized. People are source of competitive advantage but how organizations organize and engage them to compete with...

As organizations spread across globe and set operations in different parts of the world, organizational culture is acquiring a whole new meaning. Growing decentralization and growth in no of various units and function means each unit is given the scope to define its scope of operation within the broad organizational framework.Structural changes have been made to allow flexibility of approach and decision making has been decentralized to enable organization scale the challenge of growth and diverse business requirement. All this means organization culture becomes the critical enabler in facilitating a cohesive and well knit unit. Bain & Company’s recently released the Results of Bain & Company’s Management Tools & Trends 2007 study also suggests that Culture continues to be the most important strategy for business success. The top 5 management trends as described in the report are: 91% agreedCulture is as important as strategy for business success 87% agreed that Informati...