STRATEGIC PLANNING UNDER CONDITIONS OF UNCERTAINTY: ADAPTING CLASSICAL CONCEPTS TO MODERN CHALLENGES

Abstract

The article explores how strategic planning evolves when companies operate under instability, rapid change, and increasingly complex global challenges. It revisits the core ideas of classical strategic management - including the positioning, resource-based, and planning schools - and explains how these frameworks are being reinterpreted into more flexible, learning-oriented, and context-sensitive models. Approaches that once relied on environmental stability, predictable competition, and long-term forecasting no longer fit markets defined by volatility, geopolitical shocks, technological acceleration, and continuous disruption. The study offers a deeper reflection on how strategic thinking can remain relevant in a world that transforms faster than organizations can measure or anticipate. It weaves together systems thinking, scenario analysis, and dynamic capabilities into a unified perspective that helps firms remain steady yet adaptable. Particular attention is paid to how organizational learning becomes part of strategy itself – not as a preliminary stage or a periodic reassessment, but as a continuous rhythm that keeps companies alert, resilient, and capable of sensing emerging opportunities. In this view, digital transformation is not limited to the adoption of new tools but represents a broader shift in how insight is generated, interpreted, and shared. Technologies such as Big Data analytics, artificial intelligence, machine-learning systems, and digital twins function as instruments of strategic awareness. They allow leaders to detect weak signals, uncover hidden patterns, simulate future scenarios, and understand the potential consequences of their choices with greater depth and precision. What was once static planning becomes a living, iterative process where data, intuition, and foresight work together, allowing strategies to evolve rather than remain fixed on paper. The growing relevance of the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) agenda is highlighted as an integral dimension of long-term corporate strategy, strengthening sustainability, transparency, and stakeholder engagement. Drawing on examples from Ukrainian and international practice, the paper proposes a conceptual model of adaptive strategic planning designed to support innovation, social responsibility, institutional renewal, and post-war recovery. Altogether, the findings point toward a more human-centered, technologically enhanced, and sustainability-driven form of strategic thinking that balances analytical rigor with flexibility and ethical priorities.