Why Do Strategic Planning?

Organizations of every size and type increasingly have to make such major decisions to reflect the changes taking place all around them. As the world speeds up they have to be made more often – meanwhile, the growing complexity of the modern business landscape makes such decisions even more difficult.

Doing strategic planning is not an easy task. Even executives in very senior positions often have to concentrate on too many short-term emergencies to the exclusion of a long term focus.

The System

Argenti System is designed to show you how to introduce strategic planning into an organization:

•	What to do step-by-step.
•	How to do it. Who should do it? When to do it.
•	Provides a detailed case study for each stage of the process. Spells out what not to do!
•	Provides a process framework that can be repeated for every future planning cycle.
•	Defines what your strategic plans should look like and the effect they should have.

Up to the early 1980’s Corporate Planning or Long Range Planning was a task only undertaken by large companies that employed specialists (economists, statisticians, analysts.). Often tucked away somewhere on the executive floor they worked in secret hatching ‘their plans’ which were passed on to the Board of Directors. The ‘planners’ were generally regarded with some skepticism and disdain by the operational management team because they were considered to be out of touch with the real world, yet had the power and influence to make significant changes to the organization.

Smaller companies did not ‘do’ Corporate Planning in a structured way, but typically a General Manager did carry out some of the tasks performed by the full time ‘Planner.” Over time Corporate Planning and Long Range Planning became known as Strategic Planning and once again the myth was perpetuated that it was only of interest to the large national or multi national business.

The history of The Argenti System of Strategic Planning is essentially the story of John Argenti’s later working life.

Some years before any book on the subject was published, he prepared his first strategic plan. That was in 1963. The lessons he has learned then – some very painful – led him to write a book, ‘Corporate Planning: A Practical Guide’, published in 1968. Calls for his advice came in from companies all over the world. He set up on his own as a consultant.

Following experiences in several dozen companies of every size and type he published another book. More clients. Then more books (eventually 7 of them), articles, lectures all over the world. By 1980 he became sufficiently confident in the universal validity of his method of introducing strategic planning into organizations that he wrote a set of manuals called The Argenti System of Corporate Planning and formed a company (Argenti Systems, Ltd.) to handle the sales. Over a period of twenty years almost two thousand sets of the manuals were sold worldwide. The target audience was organizations that did not have a formal system in place or their existing system failed to deliver.

In 2000, John launched The Argenti System of Strategic Planning a new, completely re-written, on-line version of these manuals. He also formed a new company Argenti Associates Ltd, a strategic planning consultancy, which is responsible for marketing the product through independent professional service organizations such as ChicagoAnalytics™.