‘Strategic Management’ is a very complex term as many eminent researchers and scholars have had different views and conclusions on strategy. According to White (2004), “Strategic Management involves both systematically developing an idea together with its implications and testing the empirical validity & usefulness of that idea against the real world.” Thus strategy is not only about planning for future but also about confirming the validity of the hypothesis considered and implementing it successfully. Strategy formation may take various forms such as implicit, explicit or emergent. Implicit strategy is a strategy formed by intuitions of an individual. As per implicit strategists, strategic management is about reading the environment
Finally the strategy is scheduled to be applied by set duration of time. Thus a timeframe can be developed for implementing each part of the strategy. (Haberberg & Rieple, 2001)

Advantages of planning school are that it gave a good frame work and main points towards which strategy could be formed. It made room for in-depth analysis and focus on future. There are some drawbacks of planning school as well. Firstly it restricted strategy on the lines of specified thoughts, i.e., it forces Comfort zone strategy to be based on given procedures such as merger or acquisition or divestment leaving creativity aside. It is difficult to forecast what is about to happen in future for long term planning such as technological advancement. Also Comfort zone can’t predict the market environment after one or two years. Planning school neglects cultural and political aspects of the environment. Too much analysis leads to more complications in strategies. Planning is focused more on mergers and acquisitions rather than focusing on overall business development. Planning school does not always give good strategic alternatives but the planners may be happy to select one that just satisfies their basic needs. These pitfalls led to downfall of planning school. (Mintzberg et al., 2005)

Positioning school managed to narrow down the context of strategic planning. It focused on economic and competitive strategies and strongly argued that higher profits