Corporate Strategy

Few things have been better documented over the past decade than the decline of formal—read big and heavily‐staffed—strategic planning departments. Recently, however, there seems to be a planning renaissance of sorts with smaller, stream‐lined departments cropping up in U.S. companies (see “The New Lean Planning Machine” Business Strategy, July/August 1994). Now there are some new data that are guaranteed to warm the down‐sized, down‐trodden hearts of corporate planners everywhere—especially those looking to keep those seedling departments alive. The results of some recent research (by the authors of this piece) suggest that a key aspect of strategic planning—getting senior executives to agree on, and put into writing, a definition of the purpose and scope of the company—can actually translate into profits.