An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Strategic Planning Within Point Lisas Industrial Port Development Corporation (PLIPDECO)

Strategic planning was designed to assist with preparing a company’s future by providing an opportunity to circumvent or curtail the impact of unforeseen or sudden events. In the same breath, implement the company’s goals and objectives. Additionally, within the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, state enterprises are required to submit their Strategic Plans to both the Investment Division and their respective Line Ministry. The mandate set, is for at least six (6) months prior to initiating the implementation period for their plan. The point of this investigation is to ascertain and evaluate the degree and nature of strategic planning practiced within Point Lisas Industrial Port Development Corporation (PLIPDECO) Limited. An attempt was made to answer research questions: (a) How the planning, documentation and dissemination phases of the strategic planning process are conducted within PLIPDECO? (b) What are the biggest challenges PLIPDECO must overcome to develop and implement successfully, a strategic plan? (c) At the implementation stage, what methods were most effective? (d) How is the strategic planning implementation monitored? As studies on shipping port’s strategic planning process within the Caribbean are scarce, a decision was taken to examine PLIPDECO. The literature review was organized to explore concepts of strategy, strategic management, strategic planning, the resultant strategic plan and implementation. In order for PLIPDECO’s strategic planning process to be evaluated, this paper further delved into processes, models, strategies as well as highlighting results from research conducted within 203 firms on cognisance and utilization of tools and techniques. This research design was guided by Saunders, et al. (2019) ‘research onion’ whereby stages were cultivated to arrive at a practicable and viable approach. The research applied an epistemological assumption, which made use of interpretivism as the research philosophy and induction for the approach towards theory development. Adopting a case study strategy by employing a methodological choice that was qualitative in nature permitted the author to gather and analyse a wide array of data types and information, which placed emphasis on a specific phenomenon (strategic planning). Data from interviews, field notes, websites and documents collected throughout were utilized as part of an all-inclusive analysis process. Common themes related to the strategic planning process and in particular, implementation were categorised from the data obtained. Based upon analysing results from the investigation conducted at PLIPDECO, the company is in alignment with counsel rendered by Bryson, et al. (2017). This research distinguished specific areas the company has to develop in order to overcome factors affecting their strategic planning process. Additionally, a significant contribution was made by adding the Point Lisas Port perspective being a company that is in existence for over fifty-four (54) years towards strategic management literature. At the time of this study, it had not been documented and subjected to critical review. A supplementary contribution is in the provision of a set of practical guidelines to assist public managers with optimising their use of strategic planning.