International business planning [4,190] words
A business plan is an ordered scheme to get a share of a defined market by a future date. A strategic business plan relates to more than a year; a tactical, or operational, plan is for a short-term campaign usually of less than a year.

Planning and control go hand in hand. If we have an objective of achieving a certain level of activity during a specified period, our plan is how we intend to use our resources to accomplish it. Without a plan we are likely to be 'designing on the shop floor', confidently but aimlessly moving from crisis to crisis. Planning and control of the plan must be considered together and not as separate entities.

With the exponential increase of technology, rapid expansion of communications and faster transportation between all points on the globe, the world has never been in a more bewildering state of flux. Planning for terms of five and ten years is rare; one and two years are the norms. The exceptions are for long-term projects such as nuclear power stations and major construction projects. Despite this dynamic state, this hostile environment in which governments are toppled overnight, companies disappear never to be heard of again, everyone wants to construct more stable, more concrete plans.

Essence of a plan
At its most basic, a business plan is deciding what products or services are to be offered to what markets, by what means and at what prices. More practical, it provides a guide for an organisation to answer the following two questions:
Where do we want to be in, say, one, two or more years' time?
What do we have to do to get there?

Perhaps open to too many interpretations but a start; the answers would be too general to be adopted into an organisation's operations. The main reasons why an organisation should be concerned with international business planning:
Distance from the home market is often great.
More than one currency is usually involved.
Lifestyles are different from home country.
Governments are not universally benign and have varying views about 'foreigners'.
Rapid technological change.
Customers' future needs are difficult to assess.
Long lead times are required for new ventures.
High costs of research and development, production, marketing, and finance are needed for new undertakings.

A set of decisions has to be agreed about the future operational mix of an organisation and the allocation of resources to achieve that mix. A decision

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