Question

developing a new product like frozen pizza, describe four types of plans and develop each one for your products

Answer 1

Those who fail to plan, plan to fail is a well-known quotation by Benjamin Franklin. Its validity and relevance are felt greatly by Businesses.

Four types of Planning are essential for the success of any organization for both products and services as described below:

1) Strategic Planning: done by Top Level managers such as CEO, Presidents who design and execute organizational goals and set the strategic and long term vision of the company. Strategic Planning may be done for a period of 3,5 or 10 years down the line It serves as a framework for other types of planning. A Strategic Plan for developing a new product Frozen Pizza would include strategies for growth, profitability, boosting productivity, improving quality, increasing sales of the frozen pizza, corporate social responsibility or giving back to the community like distributing free pizzas to a kids charity organization.

2) Tactical Planning: done by Mid-level Managers or Functional or Departmental/Divisional Managers who perform detail-level planning and ensure execution through Front Line Managers. A Tactical Plan for the frozen pizza would include detailed planning of production line, the supply of ingredients, the process for making the frozen pizza, training the chefs/cooks, the time taken for production and distribution to the counter, budgeting, etc. These plans would be short term like a year or so and would require improvements/changes from time to time.

3) Operational Planning: done by Front Line Managers who detail out the Standard Operating Procedures for each and every task performed on a regular/daily basis. An Operational Plan for Frozen Pizza would include Scheduling employee tasks, leave records, motivating, training, monitor budgets, cash spent, records, etc.

4) Contingency Planning: This is back up planning done for unexpected events, disasters, identifying alternative courses of action. This is a fall back plan actuated at the time of need. Anticipating change helps in identifying problems and solutions beforehand. In the case of Frozen Pizza, this would include planning for a shortage of ingredients and emergency suppliers list, etc.