I think we have drifted into two different areas. The type of planning I'm talking about is primarily industrial planning between two corporations, not really planning on the consumer end of things. But I maintain that they heavily influence the markets they sell into, beginning long before their new product actually hits shelves, either literally or figuratively. After all, the more predictable costs and profits are, the less waste there is, and so long as they can at least reasonably guarantee a reasonable return on a given investment, its worth the risk.
I understand what you're talking about, I am just saying it is no longer true. Fordism is quite dead, at least in its pure form. Every corporation, including industrial giants, is struggling to be more responsive to the market. A tremendous amount of effort is being put at developing assembly lines that can quickly be converted for a different product.
Where the heavy planning goes on is for corporations like US Steel, for example, or Lockheed; the latter of which enjoys a virtually invincible and singular customer.
US Steel is largely a failed company nowadays, and part of the reason is their lack of responsiveness to market variation (granted, they have many other flaws as well). I work in the steel industry, and I can assure you that even a titan like ArcelorMittal, which dwarfs US Steel, tries its hardest to be able to able to quickly respond to the market.
The growth of the service sector has facilitated this I'm sure. The point is not merely that planning is a luxury, but rather that it is a necessity. To advocate a return to markets in these areas is essentially luddism.
All corporations, industrial included, are trying to be more responsive to the market and to rely less on long term planning. Of course planning to one degree or another will always exist - but flexible and adjustable production is the way of the future, not a massive assembly line of black Ford T's.
Well they didn't fail, they just weren't up to par. Presumably, using your logic, they could collect enough information to be reasonably responsive to consumer demands, even if they never equally the response rate of a market. But the problem is decisions being made from afar; where planning should take place (were we attempting to plan these things) is in the areas most directly involved with consumers, not in the capital city thousands of miles away; maybe even not across town.
The problem is even the best central planning never managed to come close to market results, on the long term, so why insist on it?
The great corporations that engage in planning do so because all other corporations in their would-be market do the same. They cooperate in this, because their goal is sustainability through predictability, not profit maximization and destruction of competition. This is why corporate buy-outs aren't really a big deal, its a change of the name on the front door, but that's about it.
As I said, we live in a world of decreasing reliance on planning and where industrial titans of old collapse if they're not responsive enough to the market. The customer is king.
I couldn't think of any. They may rubber-stamp things their managers decide, but they are hardly fountains of original ideas that shape the company; unlike their entrepreneurial counterparts, of course.
CEO's are just managers, senior level managers. They're capable of great ideas just like any other manager, and they're also sometimes a complete waste of resources. It's also important to note that a good part of a CEO's job is to name effective managers.
