LIMITATIONS OF PLANNING

  1. Time-consuming process:
    • Sometimes top-level management consumes a lot of time in formulating the plans, as a result of which very less time is left for them to implement these plans.
  2. Involves huge costs:
    • Huge cost is involved in the formation of plans.
    • This cost is in terms of money and time. For example, a lot of time is involved in scientific calculations to ascertain facts and figures and to check the accuracy of facts while formulating a plan.
    • Likewise, a lot of money was spent on boardroom meetings, discussions with experts and preliminary investigation to find out the effectiveness of the plans.
    • Moreover sometimes are cost incurred in formulating plans is higher than the benefits received from these plans.
  3. May not work in a dynamic (changing) environment:
    • The various forces of the business environment like social, political, technological and legal keep on changing and the organization has to adapt themselves to these changes.
    • Thus, it becomes very difficult to forecast when there is a change in government policies, natural calamity, political instability in the country, etc.
  4. Inflexibility
    • Usually in an organization planning function is performed by the top management and the rest of the members are required to implement these plans.
    • As a result, middle management and other members are neither allowed to deviate from plans nor granted authority to act on their own.
    • Hence most of their initiative and creativity in them gets reduced.
  5. Does not guarantee success:
    • An organization is successful when the plans are effectively drawn and implemented.
    • Managers are in the habit of depending on previously tried and tested successful plans, but this practice sometimes does not work and may lead to failure instead of success.