Planning

Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and
maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to
create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior.
This thought process is essential to the creation and refinement of a plan, or integration of it with
other plans, that is, it combines forecasting of developments with the preparation of scenarios of
how to react to them. An important, albeit often ignored aspect of planning, is the relationship it
holds with forecasting. Forecasting can be described as predicting what the future will look like,
whereas planning predicts what the future should look like.[1]

What should a plan be?

A plan should be a realistic view of the expectations. Depending upon the activities, a plan can
be long range, intermediate range or short range. It is the framework within which it must
operate. For management seeking external support, the plan is the most important document and
key to growth. Preparation of a comprehensive plan will not guarantee success, but lack of a
sound plan will almost certainly ensure failure. Planning can be summarized in 3 easy steps: 1.
choosing a destination, 2. evaluating alternative routes, and 3. deciding the specific course of
your plan. [2]

Purpose of a plan

Just as no two organizations are alike, so also their plans. It is therefore important to prepare a
plan keeping in view the necessities of the enterprise. A plan is an important aspect of business.
It serves the following three critical functions:

 Helps management to clarify, focus, and research their business's or project's development and
prospects.
 Provides a considered and logical framework within which a business can develop and pursue
business strategies over the next three to five years.
 Offers a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured and reviewed.

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Importance of Planning

The importance of the planning function should have be clear to you. We can outline the
importance of planning function as follows:

Provides Direction: Planning provides a clear sense of direction to the activities of the
organization and to the job behavior of managers and others. It strengthens their confidence in
understanding where the organization is heading and what for, how best to make the
organization move along the chosen path, and when should they take what measures to achieve
the goals of the organization.

Provides opportunity to analyze alternative courses of action: Another source of importance

of planning is that it permits managers to examine and analyze alternative course of action with a
better understanding of their likely consequences. If managers have an enhanced awareness of
the possible future effects of alternative courses of action, for making a decision or for taking
any action, they will be able to exercise judgment and proceed cautiously to choose the most
feasible and favorable course of action.

Reduces uncertainties: Planning forces managers to shake off their inertia and insular outlook;
it induces them to look beyond those noses, beyond today and tomorrow, and beyond immediate
concerns. It encourages them to probe and cut through complexities and uncertainties of the
environment and to gain control over the elements of change.

Minimizes impulsive and arbitrary decisions: Planning tends to minimize the incidence of
impulsive and arbitrary decisions and ad hoc actions; it obviates exclusive dependence on the
mercies of luck and chance elements; it reduces the probability of major errors and failures in
managerial actions. It injects a measure of discipline in managerial thinking and organizational
action. It improves the capability of the organization to assume calculated risks. It increases the
freedom and flexibility of managers withing well-defined limits.

King-pin function: As stated earlier, planning is a prime managerial function which provides
the basis for the other managerial functions. The organizational structure of task and authority
roles is built around organizational plans. The functions of motivation, supervision, leadership
and communication are addressed to implementation of plans and achievement of organizational
objectives. Managerial control is meaningless without managerial planning. Thus, planning is
the king-pin function around which other functions are designed.

Resource Allocation: Planning is means of judicious allocation of strategic and scarce resources
of the organization in the best possible manner for achieving strategic goals of the organization.
The strategic resources include funds, highly competent executives, technological talent, good
contacts with government, exclusive dealer network and so on. If the organization enjoys a
distinct advantage in possession of such resources, a careful planning is essential to allocate them
into those lines which would strengthen the overall competitive position of the organization.

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Resource use efficiency: For an ongoing organization, planning contributes towards a more
efficient functioning of the various work units. There is better utilization of the organization's
existing assets, resources and capabilities. It prompts managers to close gaps, to plug loopholes,
to rectify deficiencies, to reduce wastage and leakages of funds, materials, human efforts and
skills so as to bring about an overall improvement in resource use efficiency.

Adaptive responses: Planning tends to improve the ability of the organization to effectively
adapt and adjust its activities and directions in response to the changes taking place in the
external environment. An adaptive behavior on the part of the organization is essential for its
survival as an independent entity. For a business organization, for example, adaptive behavior is
critical in technology, markets, products and so on.

Anticipative action: While adaptation is a behavior in reaction and response to some changes in
the outside world, it is not enough in some situations. In recognition of this fact, planning
stimulates management to act, to take hold initiatives, to anticipate crises and threats and to ward
them off, to perceive and seize opportunities ahead of other competitions, and to gain a
competitive lead over others. For the purpose, some enterprises establish environmental
scanning mechanism as part of their planning systems. Thereby such enterprises are able to
direct and control change, instead of being directed and controlled by the pervasive external
forces of change.

Integration: Planning is an important process to bring about effective integration of the diverse
decisions and activities of the managers not only at a point of time but also over a period of
time. It is by reference to the framework provided by planning that managers make major
decisions on organizational activities, in an internally consistent manner.

Strategic planning
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making
decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people.
Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis
(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ), PEST analysis (Political, Economic,
Social, and Technological), STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic,
Ecological, and Regulatory factors), and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social,
Technological, Economic and Legal).

Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization's future course. All strategic
planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

1. "What do we do?"
2. "For whom do we do it?"
3. "How do we excel?"

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Simply put, strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or
more and how it's going to get there. Typically, the process is organization-wide, or focused on a
major function such as a division, department or other major function. (The descriptions on this
page assume that strategic planning is focused on the organization.)

Operational planning
An operational planning is a subset of strategic work plan. It describes short-term ways of
achieving milestones and explains how, or what portion of, a strategic plan will be put into
operation during a given operational period, in the case of commercial application, a fiscal year
or another given budgetary term. An operational plan is the basis for, and justification of an
annual operating budget request. Therefore, a five-year strategic plan would need five
operational plans funded by five operating budgets.

Operational plans should establish the activities and budgets for each part of the organisation for
the next 1 – 3 years. They link the strategic plan with the activities the organization will deliver
and the resources required to deliver them.

An operational plan draws directly from agency and program strategic plans to describe agency
and program missions and goals, program objectives, and program activities. Like a strategic
plan, an operational plan addresses four questions:

 Where are we now?

 Where do we want to be?
 How do we get there?
 How do we measure our progress?

Operational plans should be prepared by the people who will be involved in implementation.
There is often a need for significant cross-departmental dialogue as plans created by one part of
the organisation inevitably have implications for other parts.

Operational plans should contain:

 clear objectives
 activities to be delivered
 quality standards
 desired outcomes
 staffing and resource requirements
 implementation timetables
 a process for monitoring progress.

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Corporate level plan

Corporate planning is defined as the process of drawing up detailed action plans in order to
achieve the aims and objectives of an organization. It takes into account organizational resources
and the environment within which a company operates.

From a company's perspective, corporate planning involves formulating long term business goals
so that the strategic planning of an enterprise may be developed and acted upon. The corporate
planning term that was popular in the 1960s has since been referred to as strategic management.

Corporate planning is the responsibility of senior management, and there should be a structured
approach to achieving objectives and implementing corporate strategy. Good corporate planning
and budgeting should reduce the cost of the overall budgeting process and the time taken to
complete the budgeting cycle, as well as improve both data integrity and security. Corporate
planning should also take into account corporate or enterprise objectives, structures, and
functions.

Business Unit Planning: The Product/Market

Matrix
Planning at the level of a Strategic Business Unit (SBU) requires an answer to the question,
“Where do we choose to compete?” Put another way, the question becomes, “Where shall we
focus limited resources in order to compete most effectively?” The most systematic way to
answer those questions is through the development and evaluation of a Product/Market Matrix.

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The purpose and process of planning at the business unit level is one of the most misunderstood
and under-utilized functions in many business organizations. It is at this level that the lines
between Corporate Planning and Product/Market Planning typically become blurred. Business
unit managers are often challenged by corporate managers to address the corporate growth
question, but most want to get directly into competitive planning without first identifying
strategic priorities. As a result, competitive planning is often unfocused, and scarce resources are
often wasted on products and markets that are relatively unimportant.

MVS recommends a full-day, on-site workshop with senior management to (a) identify and select
relevant business units, and (b) develop and evaluate Product/Market Matrices for each. This
should occur before any time or resources are invested in Customer Value Measurement or in
Product/Market Planning in order to maximize the return on investments in those activities.
Models of Customer Value will be different from one product/market to another, because
different markets define value differently for different product lines. “Averaging” value models
across products and markets will result in internal perspectives on value that are managerially
useless. Moreover, the nature of competition changes from one product/market to another, which
means that your organization’s competitive value proposition will also differ from one
product/market to another. Effective competitive marketing plans are dependent upon the
precision that can only be provided by a focus on key product/markets.

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What is functional level strategy?
Functional-level strategy according to the text - Organizational Theory, Design, and Change by
Gareth R. Jones, is a plan of action to strengthen an organization's functional and organizational
resources, as well as its coordination abilities, in order to create core competencies.

Hierarchical Levels of Strategy

Corporate Level Strategy

Corporate level strategy fundamentally is concerned with the selection of businesses in

which the company should compete and with the development and coordination of that
portfolio of businesses.

Corporate level strategy is concerned with:

 Reach - defining the issues that are corporate responsibilities; these might
include identifying the overall goals of the corporation, the types of businesses in
which the corporation should be involved, and the way in which businesses will
be integrated and managed.
 Competitive Contact - defining where in the corporation competition is to be
localized. Take the case of insurance: In the mid-1990's, Aetna as a corporation
was clearly identified with its commercial and property casualty insurance
products. The conglomerate Textron was not. For Textron, competition in the
insurance markets took place specifically at the business unit level, through its
subsidiary, Paul Revere. (Textron divested itself of The Paul Revere Corporation
in 1997.)
 Managing Activities and Business Interrelationships - Corporate strategy seeks
to develop synergies by sharing and coordinating staff and other resources
across business units, investing financial resources across business units, and
using business units to complement other corporate business activities. Igor
Ansoff introduced the concept of synergy to corporate strategy.
 Management Practices - Corporations decide how business units are to be
governed: through direct corporate intervention (centralization) or through more
or less autonomous government (decentralization) that relies on persuasion and
rewards.

Corporations are responsible for creating value through their businesses. They do so by
managing their portfolio of businesses, ensuring that the businesses are successful
over the long-term, developing business units, and sometimes ensuring that each
business is compatible with others in the portfolio.

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Business Unit Level Strategy

A strategic business unit may be a division, product line, or other profit center that can
be planned independently from the other business units of the firm.

At the business unit level, the strategic issues are less about the coordination of
operating units and more about developing and sustaining a competitive advantage for
the goods and services that are produced. At the business level, the strategy
formulation phase deals with:

 positioning the business against rivals

 anticipating changes in demand and technologies and adjusting the strategy to
accommodate them
 influencing the nature of competition through strategic actions such as vertical
integration and through political actions such as lobbying.

Michael Porter identified three generic strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, and
focus) that can be implemented at the business unit level to create a competitive
advantage and defend against the adverse effects of the five forces.

Functional Level Strategy

The functional level of the organization is the level of the operating divisions and
departments. The strategic issues at the functional level are related to business
processes and the value chain. Functional level strategies in marketing, finance,
operations, human resources, and R&D involve the development and coordination of
resources through which business unit level strategies can be executed efficiently and
effectively.

Functional units of an organization are involved in higher level strategies by providing

input into the business unit level and corporate level strategy, such as providing
information on resources and capabilities on which the higher level strategies can be
based. Once the higher-level strategy is developed, the functional units translate it into
discrete action-plans that each department or division must accomplish for the strategy
to succeed.

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CONTROLLING

Definitions

According to Henri Fayol,

Control of an undertaking consists of seeing that everything is being carried out in accordance
with the plan which has been adopted, the orders which have been given, and the principles
which have been laid down. Its object is to point out mistakes in order that they may be rectified
and prevented from recurring.

According to EFL Breach,

Control is checking current performance against pre-determined standards contained in the

plans, with a view to ensure adequate progress and satisfactory performance.

According to Harold Koontz,

Controlling is the measurement and correction of performance in order to make sure that
enterprise objectives and the plans devised to attain them are accomplished.

According to Stafford Beer,

Management is the profession of control.

In 1916, Henri Fayol formulated one of the first definitions of control as it pertains to
management:

Control consists of verifying whether everything occurs in conformity with the plan adopted, the
instructions issued, and principles established. It ['s] object [is] to point out weaknesses and
errors in order to rectify [them] and prevent recurrence.

Robert J. Mockler presented a more comprehensive definition of managerial control:

Management control can be defined as a systematic effort by business management to compare

performance to predetermined standards, plans, or objectives in order to determine whether
performance is in line with these standards and presumably in order to take any remedial action
required to see that human and other corporate resources are being used in the most effective
and efficient way possible in achieving corporate objectives.

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The Control Process
Four Steps for Ensuring Control

The four steps in the control process are establishing performance standards, measuring actual
performance, comparing measured performance against established standards, and taking
corrective action.

Setting Objectives

Establishing performance standards are when objectives are set during the planning process. Its
standard is a guideline established as the basis for measurement. It is a precise, explicit statement
of expected results from a product, service, machine, individual, or organizational unit. It is
usually expressed numerically and is set for quality, quantity, and time (Plunkett, et al.). There
are several sub-controls in this step: time controls, material controls, equipment controls, cost
controls, and budget controls, financial controls, and operations controls (like total quality
management).

Observing and Measuring Performance

During step two, measuring actual performance, supervisors collect data to measure actual
performance to determine variation from the standard. Personal observation, statistical reports, or
oral reports can be used to measure performance. Observation of employees working provides
hands on information, extensive coverage, and the ability to read between the lines. While
providing insight, this method of management by walking around might be misinterpreted by
employees as mistrust.

Comparing Results

The third step of comparing measured performance against an established standard is comparing
the results with the standards to discover variations. Some variation can be expected in all
activities and the range of variation has to be established. Management usually lets operations
continue as long as they are within the defined control limits. Deviations that exceed this range
alerts the manager to a problem and leads to the last step.

Corrective Action

The last step, taking corrective action, is when a supervisor finds the cause of the deviation. Then
he or she takes action to remove or minimize the cause. If the source of the variation in
performance is from a deficit activity, then the supervisor can take immediate corrective action
and get performance back on track. Also, the manager can opt to take basic corrective action,

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which determines how and why performance has deviated, and correct the source of the
deviation. Immediate corrective action is more efficient, while basic corrective action is more
effective

Financial controls

Definition

Management control (as exercised in planning, performance evaluation, and coordination) of financial
activities aimed at achieving desired return on investment. Managers use financial statements (a budget being
the primary one), operating ratios, and other financial tools to exercise financial control.

Financial reports

Financial reports are your financial controls. Explanations of the three major financial reports
used for financial management are given below.

The balance sheet

The balance sheet shows the financial position of a business at a specific point in time, for
example, the last day of the month or the year.

This financial statement shows total assets (what the business owns -- items of value) and total
liabilities (what the business owes).

The total assets are broken down into subcategories of current assets, fixed assets and other
assets. The total liabilities are broken down into subcategories of current liabilities, long-term
liabilities/debt and owner's equity. The total assets must equal the total liabilities plus owner's
equity.

The accounting equation, assets = liabilities + owner's equity, is a simple formula to describe the
balance sheet.

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The income/profit and loss (P&L) statement

The income/profit and loss (P&L) statement shows revenues, minus the cost of goods sold,
minus operating expenses, plus other revenues and expenses and the net income/loss before
taxes.

The cash flow statement

The cash flow statement is the detail of cash received and cash expended for each month of the
year. A projected cash flow statement helps you determine if the company has positive cash
flow. If your company's projections show a negative cash flow, you must revisit your business
plan and solve this problem.

Proactive vs. reactive financial management

The proactive financial manager uses pro forma or projections to plan ahead for the problems the
business is likely to encounter and the opportunities that may arise. To be proactive you must
read and analyze your financial statements on a regular basis. Monthly financial analysis is
preferred, quarterly is more common, yearly is not often enough. The proactive manager has
financial data available based on actual results and compares them to the budget. This process
points out weaknesses in the business before they reach crisis proportion and allows the manager
to make the necessary changes and adjustments before major problems develop.

A reactive manager waits to react to problems, and then solves them by crisis management. This
type manager goes from crisis to crisis with little time in between to notice opportunities that
may become available. The reactive manager's business is seldom prepared to take advantage of
new opportunities quickly. Businesses that are managed proactively are more likely to be
successful.

Operations management
Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and
redesigning business operations in the production of goods and/or services. It involves the
responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as little
resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. It is concerned
with managing the process that converts inputs (in the forms of materials, labor, and energy) into
outputs (in the form of goods and/or services). The relationship of operations management to
senior management in commercial contexts can be compared to the relationship of line officers
to the highest-level senior officers in military science. The highest-level officers shape the
strategy and revise it over time, while the line officers make tactical decisions in support of
carrying out the strategy. In business as in military affairs, the boundaries between levels are not

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always distinct; tactical information dynamically informs strategy, and individual people often
move between roles over time.

Operations traditionally refers to the production of goods and/or services separately, although the
distinction between these two main types of operations is increasingly difficult to make as
manufacturers tend to merge product and service offerings. More generally, operations
management aims to increase the content of value-added activities in any given process.
Fundamentally, these value-adding creative activities should be aligned with market opportunity
(through marketing) for optimal enterprise performance.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, operations management is the field concerned
with managing and directing the physical and/or technical functions of a firm or organization,
particularly those relating to development, production, and manufacturing. Operations
management programs typically include instruction in principles of general management,
manufacturing and production systems, plant management, equipment maintenance
management, production control, industrial labor relations and skilled trades supervision,
strategic manufacturing policy, systems analysis, productivity analysis and cost control, and
materials planning. Management, including operations management, is like engineering in that it
blends art with applied science. People skills, creativity, rational analysis, and knowledge of
technology are all required for success.

Various Administrative Controls

Organizations often use standardized documents to ensure complete and consistent information
is gathered. Documents include titles and dates to detect different versions of the document.
Computers have revolutionized administrative controls through use of integrated management
information systems, project management software, human resource information systems, office
automation software, etc. Organizations typically require a wide range of reports, e.g., financial
reports, status reports, project reports, etc. to monitor what's being done, by when and how.

Delegation

Delegation is an approach to get things done, in conjunction with other employees. Delegation is
often viewed as a major means of influence and therefore is categorized as an activity in leading
(rather than controlling/coordinating). Delegation generally includes assigning responsibility to
an employee to complete a task, granting the employee sufficient authority to gain the resources
to do the task and letting the employee decide how that task will be carried out. Typically, the
person assigning the task shares accountability with the employee for ensuring the task is
completed. See Delegation.

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Evaluations

Evaluation is carefully collecting and analyzing information in order to make decisions. There
are many types of evaluations in organizations, for example, evaluation of marketing efforts,
evaluation of employee performance, program evaluations, etc. Evaluations can focus on many
aspects of an organization and its processes, for example, its goals, processes, outcomes, etc.

Financial Statements (particularly budget management)

Once the organization has establish goals and associated strategies (or ways to reach the goals),
funds are set aside for the resources and labor to the accomplish goals and tasks. As the money is
spent, statements are changed to reflect what was spent, how it was spent and what it obtained.
Review of financial statements is one of the more common methods to monitor the progress of
programs and plans. The most common financial statements include the balance sheet, income
statement and cash flow statement. Financial audits are regularly conducted to ensure that
financial management practices follow generally accepted standards, as well.

Performance Management (particularly observation and feedback

phases)

Performance management focuses on the performance of the total organization, including its
processes, critical subsystems (departments, programs, projects, etc.) and employees. Most of us
have some basic impression of employee performance management, including the role of
performance reviews. Performance reviews provide an opportunity for supervisors and their
employees to regularly communicate about goals, how well those goals should be met, how well
the goals are being met and what must be done to continue to meet (or change) those goals. The
employee is rewarded in some form for meeting performance standards, or embarks on a
development plan with the supervisor in order to improve performance.

Policies and Procedures (to guide behaviors in the workplace)

Policies help ensure that behaviors in the workplace conform to federal and state laws, and also
to expectations of the organization. Often, policies are applied to specified situations in the form
of procedures. Personnel policies and procedures help ensure that employee laws are followed
(e.g., laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act,
etc.) and minimize the likelihood of costly litigation. A procedure is a step-by-step list of
activities required to conduct a certain task. Procedures ensure that routine tasks are carried out
in an effective and efficient fashion.

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Quality Control and Operations Management

The concept of quality control has received a great deal of attention over the past twenty years.
Many people recognize phrases such as "do it right the first time, "zero defects", "Total Quality
Management", etc. Very broadly, quality includes specifying a performance standard (often by
benchmarking, or comparing to a well-accepted standard), monitoring and measuring results,
comparing the results to the standard and then making adjusts as necessary. Recently, the
concept of quality management has expanded to include organization-wide programs, such as
Total Quality Management, ISO9000, Balanced Scorecard, etc. Operations management includes
the overall activities involved in developing, producing and distributing products and services.

Risk, Safety and Liabilities

For a variety of reasons (including the increasing number of lawsuits), organizations are focusing
a great deal of attention to activities that minimize risk, avoid liabilities and ensure safety of
employees. Several decades ago, it was rare to hear of an organization undertaking contingency
planning, disaster recovery planning or critical incident analysis. Now those activities are
becoming commonplace.

Operating system

An operating system (OS) is software, consisting of programs and data, that runs on computers
and manages computer hardware resources[1] and provides common services for efficient
execution of various application software.

For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating system
acts as an intermediary between application programs and the computer hardware, [2][3] although
the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware, but will frequently call the OS

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or be interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on almost any device that contains a
computer—from cellular phones and video game consoles to supercomputers and web servers.

Management Planning and Control Systems

The Management Planning Process

Few managers realize that a company plan must provide the framework for the company control
system. If missions, goals, strategies, objectives, and plans change, then controls should change.
Unfortunately, they seldom do. Although this error occurs at the top, repercussions are felt at all
levels.

Often, too, the standards of the control systems are derived from previous years budgets rather
than from current objectives of company plans The result is that employees at lower levels are
simply given "numbers to make" based on factors of which they have little knowledge and over
which they have practically no influence.

The above schematic shows the important interrelationships between planning and control. As
you can see, the control process does not begin after the entire planning process ends, as most
managers believe.

After objectives are set in the first step of the planning process, appropriate standards should be
developed for them. Standards are units of measurement established to serve as a reference base
and are useful in determining time lines, sequences of activities, scheduling, and allocation of
resources.

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For example, if objectives are set and work is planned for 18 people on an assembly line,
standards or reasonable expectations of performance from each person then need to be clearly
established.

The second significant interaction between planning and control occurs with the final step of the
control process-taking corrective action. This can take several forms, but two of the most
effective are to change the objectives or alter the plan.

Managers dislike doing either; but if a positive motivational climate is to be established, these
ought to be the first two corrective actions attempted. Objectives and standards are based on
assumptions, but if these assumptions prove inaccurate, then objectives and standards require
alteration. Thus sales quotas assigned on the premise of a booming economy can certainly be
altered if, as is often the case, the economy turns sour.

Likewise, if the assumptions are accurate and objectives and standards have not been met, then it
is possible that the plan developed was inadequate and needs to be changed.

The control process - consider the effects

Planning and organizing are two management functions that have been popular research areas in
recent years. Control, the third well-known management function, has received surprisingly little
attention.

This is perhaps because the task side of control is noticed and the behavioral or human side is
largely overlooked. But as previously noted, managers should carefully consider the behavioral
aspects of the process when designing a control system if employees are to be motivated to
accomplish assigned tasks.

Knowledge management
Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an
organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and
experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals
or embedded in organizational processes or practice.

An established discipline since 1991, KM includes courses taught in the fields of business
administration, information systems, management, and library and information sciences. More
recently, other fields have started contributing to KM research; these include information and
media, computer science, public health, and public policy.

Many large companies and non-profit organizations have resources dedicated to internal KM
efforts, often as a part of their 'business strategy', 'information technology', or 'human resource
management' departments. Several consulting companies also exist that provide strategy and
advice regarding KM to these organizations.
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Knowledge Management efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved
performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and
continuous improvement of the organization. KM efforts overlap with organizational learning,
and may be distinguished from that by a greater focus on the management of knowledge as a
strategic asset and a focus on encouraging the sharing of knowledge.

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