Planning the strategy of large, multidivisional corporations can be complex and time consuming. It often takes slightly more than a year for a large company to move from situation assessmenttoafinaldecisionagreement.Forexample,strategicplansintheglobaloilindustrytend to cover four to five years. The planning horizon for oil exploration is even longer—up to 15 years.21Becauseoftherelativelylargenumberofpeopleaffectedbyastrategicdecisioninalarge firm,aformalized,moresophisticatedsystemisneededtoensurethatstrategicplanningleadsto successfulperformance.Otherwise,topmanagementbecomesisolatedfromdevelopmentsinthe businessunits,andlower-levelmanagerslosesightofthecorporatemissionandobjectives