CHAPTER 5

The environment: assumptions in planning

Strategy often has to be decided on the basis of assumptions about the future. The importance of clarifying assumptions and making them explicit is the basis of this chapter, which also demonstrates the need for decisions in different parts of the organisation to have a common base of assumptions, and shows their importance in considering risk.

The importance of the business environment to the company was stressed in some detail in the previous chapter. Strategic planning is about coping with change and uncertainty. As Scott1 states:

Planning is a process of groping forward. The future is enveloped in fog which grows denser the further we try to peer. Prediction of future events and circumstances ...

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