Strategic planning is a backbone support to strategic management. It is not, of course, the entirety of strategic management but it is a major process in the conduct of strategic management. Everyone recognizes that strategic and operational management are tightly inked. Strategic management provides guidance, direction, and boundaries for operational management. Just as strategic management is vitally concerned with operational management so is strategic planning concerned with operations.Strategic can lead to serious difficulties, no matter how internally efficient a company may be. Conversely, a company may be in-efficient internally but successful if it has the right strategic. Good marks in both, of course, is the preferred position.Although strategic planning is of commanding significance in strategic management it is not the whole of strategic management.