The relevance and future of environmental scanning for corporate planning has become a controversial issue. Some of the recent studies contend that there is no evidence to warrant a conclusion that environmental scanning would become a regular element of corporate planning. While some other studies contend that systematic omnidirectional scanning for planning is on the threshold of rapid growth and development. It is the contention of this paper that what is missing in this controversy is the consideration of the stage of development of the planning system prevailing in the various corporations studied by them. This omission has led to questionable inferences regarding the relevance and future of environmental scanning. The stage of development of the scanning system is contigent on that of the planning system. In support of this, we present a case study describing the process of evolution of the link between formal planning and scanning systems in a large multi product-multi unit corporation in India.