Model answer & approach
- The present model of strategic planning has roots in indicative planning. Comment. (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Indicative planning steered an economy by targets, incentives and consultation rather than binding orders — the French model of the post-war decades, and the character Indian planning took on after liberalisation. Strategic planning inherits part of that method.
Body
Where the roots show
1. Direction without command: Both set broad priorities and move actors by signals and incentives, not compulsory allocation.
2. Consultative formulation: Indicative planning worked through commissions of officials, industry and labour; strategic planning builds goals with stakeholders.
3. Rolling revision: Targets in both are reviewed against performance and revised, not fixed for a plan period.
Where the roots do not reach
4. Different unit: Indicative planning was national and macro-economic; strategic planning is an organisational tool — mission, environmental scanning, SWOT.
5. Different parentage: Its vocabulary comes from corporate strategy, from Ansoff, Drucker and Bryson, not from planning economists.
Conclusion
The claim holds in part. Strategic planning shares indicative planning's preference for guidance over command, but its unit, purpose and intellectual descent are separate.
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