Strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more and the ways for going there. The process is organization-wide or focused on a major function such as a division. As such strategic planning is a top level management function. The flow of planning can be from corporate to divisional level or vice-versa.

There are two approaches for strategic planning - top down or bottom up.  

Top down approach starts with the big picture. It breaks down from there into smaller segments. A bottom-up approach is the piecing together of systems to give rise to more complex systems, thus making the original systems subsystems of the emergent system.

Top down strategic planning describes a centralized approach to strategy formulation in which the corporate centre or head office determines mission, strategic intent, objectives and strategies for the organization as a whole and for all parts. Unit managers are seen as implementers of pre-specified corporate strategies.  

Bottom up strategic planning is the characteristic of autonomous or semi-autonomous divisions or subsidiary companies in which the corporate centre does not conceptualize its strategic role as being directly responsible for determining the mission, objectives, or strategies of its operational activities. It may prefer to act as a catalyst and facilitator, keeping things reasonably simple and confining itself to perspective and broader strategic intent