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The Nature of Business Policy Business policy — or general management — is concerned with the following six major functions:

Abstract: Corporate planning is total in outlook, covering the whole company and its dynamic relationship with the environment in which it operates. As a total company operation, it must include the physical distribution function. This monograph describes the corporate planning process and the strategic ways of development open to the company. It discusses the interaction of corporate planning with, and the direct influence of environmental factors on, the physical distribution function, and concludes with a job description for the corporate planner.

This article has been withdrawn as it was published elsewhere and accidentally duplicated. The original article can be seen here: 10.1108/eb014294. When citing the article, please cite: D. E. HUSSEY, (1973), “Corporate Planning for Physical Distribution”, International Journal of Physical Distribution, Vol. 3 Iss: 6, pp. 376 - 396.

“Corporate planning” is the term which, perhaps more than any other, epitomises the adoption of business management techniques by the public sector. In Britain, with massive local government reorganisation in 1974, many librarians were forced to come to terms with such techniques whether they liked it or not. Of course, in its purest sense corporate planning applies to the combined operation of an entire organisation be it local authority, university, government department or industrial firm. However, in this paper I do not intend discussing “the grand design” whereby the library is merely a component part of a greater body. Rather, it is my intention to view the library as the corporate body. It is a perfectly possible and very useful exercise to apply the principles of corporate planning, and the management techniques involved, to the running of a library or group of libraries. Indeed, many librarians have already done this either independently or as their part in the corporate plan of their parent organisation.

Every company reaches stages in its affairs when it has to organise itself differently. We at Wander have reached this point in many areas, particularly over the last three years, but none of these is more important than physical distribution. We re‐organised this function under the total physical distribution concept only a few months ago. We cannot claim to have made great cost savings, or to have improved efficiency because of this change, nor do we think we were particularly inefficient before the re‐organisation, what I have to present is, therefore, not so much a story of success as a case history of a decision and the things that lead up to it.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.

Investigates the understanding of marketing strategy and the differentiation and clarification of concepts used in conjunction with it. Carries out a search of the literature revealing a wide variation in the understanding of marketing strategy. Develops a process for defining marketing strategy using three key levels: the overall strategic planning of the company; a framework developed from this from which marketing strategy should be developed; and the actual marketing strategy. Concludes that a firm needs to establish the strategic planning framework in defining its marketing strategy and its component parts. Suggests that failure to do so leads to ineffective definition, implementation and effectiveness of strategies.

Qualitative information‐gathering techniques are focused on to determine whether they can be adapted or adopted to support strategic goal‐setting. Much of the literature suggests that if planning is based on information gathered and presented in a manner which managers can understand they are more likely to act on it, and, for this reason, qualitative rather than quantitative techniques are stressed here. Factors which are not amenable to numerate analysis but which are useful to the strategic planner, such as experience, judgement and intuition, are also isolated and analysed. An attempt is made to facilitate the use of qualitative data‐gathering methods and suggestions are made as to where particular techniques may prove beneficial, together with their limitations. Research, from a small (n = 20), in‐depth survey of small business owners/ managers in Canada, is included which shows that they do not use quantitative planning processes but that judgemental techniques were most widely used; in general, the less sophisticated the planning process the higher it would be ranked among the survey participants. The research from other surveys also shows that scientific mathematically based models often do not fit with small business organisational reality and that methodologies should be developed that integrate research into the decision‐making process.

It is very easy to obtain agreement that corporate planning is a “good thing”, for the idea of planning has a powerful appeal to logic and reason which few would dare to refute. The need for planning is not, unfortunately, the same as the ability to plan well and it is in the performance that corporate planning can so easily come to grief Because it is never possible to turn the clock back, the success or failure of corporate planning is often hidden from view, and planners share the distinction with economists of always being able to “prove” they were right— simply because no one can prove they were wrong!

The application of the strategic management concept to research organisations operating in the public sector is reviewed. The unique characteristics of such organisations are discussed in terms of strategic management and the need to tailor this process to suit the organisations′ particular requirements.