In this discussion, you will provide a response to the stimulus question below. Later in the week, after reading the posts of others, you are required to respond to at least one other student's response.Be sure to support your arguments and demonstrate critical thinking.

Stimulus question:

You are part of the executive team of a mid-sized manufacturing organisation that relies heavily on steel as a prime material and upon overseas markets for your exports. Recent events and trends in commodity markets, foreign exchange markets, export markets and the domain of competitors have posed significant challenges for the company. You are attending a key executive meeting as you approach the end of the financial year and plans need to be made for the future. The following exchange occurs between the CFO and the Marketing Director:

CFO: Honestly sometimes it is all so frustrating, we carefully do our analysis based on trends, work out our budgets for the next year and beyond, but within six months a number of our key assumptions are no longer sound and market conditions have changed dramatically.

Marketing Director: Yes, I know, and then someone comes up with a new process we don't have that completely changes the playing field.

CFO: There is so much turbulence and uncertainty. Things seem to change in unpredictable ways, so however much analysis we do, we can't make sound projections.

Marketing Director: At times I feel like all the work we do in our strategic planning is wasted effort ... we might as well not bother and save ourselves some money ... and perhaps our sanity!

Comment on this exchange and reflect on the value or otherwise of strategic planning and/or on changes to the way strategic planning should be undertaken in such conditions.

Your Task:

1. Reflect on and respond to the stimulus question.
2. Post your response on this page.
3. After reading and reviewing your classmates' initial responses, comment constructively on at least one.
4. Each post should be around 250-350 words.
5. Each post is to contain two references.