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Guide Strategic planning Share on:. The purpose of strategic planning The three key elements of strategic planning Getting started with strategic planning Build your plan on solid strategic analysis What a written strategic plan should include Some important strategic planning issues to consider Implementing a strategic plan.
Where is your business now? This involves understanding as much about your business as possible, including how it operates internally, what drives its profitability, and how it compares with competitors.
Keep your review separate from day-to-day work and be realistic, detached and critical in distinguishing between the cause and effect of how your business operates. You should also write it down and review it periodically. Where do you want to take it? Here you need to set out your top-level objectives.
Work out your vision, mission, objectives, values, techniques and goals. Where do you see your business in five or ten years? What do you want to be the focus of your business and your source of competitive advantage over your rivals in the marketplace? This step should be the foundation for the final plan and motivate change. What do you need to do to get there? What changes will you need to make in order to deliver on your strategic objectives?
What is the best way of implementing those changes - what changes to the structure and financing of your business will be required and what goals and deadlines will you need to set for yourself and others in the business?
Think about the business as a whole, for example consider diversification, existing growth, acquisition plans, as well as functional matters in key areas. Analysis of internal drivers - corresponding, for example, to the strengths and weaknesses of a SWOT strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis.
Analysis of external drivers - this should cover factors such as market structure, demand levels and cost pressures, all of which correspond to the opportunities and threats elements of a SWOT analysis. Vision statement - a concise summary of where you see your business in five to ten years' time. Top-level objectives - these are the major goals that need to be achieved in order for your vision for the business to be realised.
These might include attracting a new type of customer, developing new products and services, or securing new sources of finance. Implementation - this involves setting out the key actions with desired outcomes and deadlines that will need to be completed to attain your top level objectives. Resourcing - a summary of the implications your proposed strategy will have for the resources your business needs.
This will reflect financing requirements, as well as factors such as staffing levels, premises and equipment. The future role of the owner - for example, it may be in the best interests of the business for the owner to focus on a smaller number of responsibilities, or to hand over all day-to-day control to someone with greater experience. The location of the business - most small businesses are located close to where the owner lives. But as a business grows it may make sense to relocate the business -for example, to be closer to greater numbers of customers or employees with certain skills.
Ownership structure - growing businesses in particular should ensure that they get this right. The more a business grows, the more sophisticated it needs to be about meeting its financing needs. In many cases, the best option is for the owner to give up a share of the business in return for equity finance - but this can be emotionally difficult to do.
Why is this important? Certainly, key elements of your strategic plan such as specific initiatives with time-frames and parties responsible fall more squarely on individual folders. However, the overall plan and its success or failure is the responsibility of everyone on the strategic planning team. Conversely, no one person should get all the glory and accolades if parts or all of the plan succeed. Strategic plan ownership requires initiative, honesty and buy-in. Make sure everyone around your strategic planning table understands his or her stake in this process.
I definitely enjoyed every little bit of it. It is a great website and nice share. I want to thank you. Good job! You guys do a great blog and have some great content. Keep up the good work. SEO canada. Companies first come up with strategic plan to establish their long term goals and objectives along with general actions to be taken to support those goals and objectives.
You then establish policies to ensure that your team is staying within those actions. For example, your strategic plan may say you want to increase revenues 20 percent next year in the aerospace market.
Your actions will include marketing campaigns and outreach events. Your policies will then ensure that your team are not undertaking actions that are not included in these campaigns and events. Thank you for this article. It helped me to understand the strategic planning process, which is something I am studying and this was straightforward and to the point. This article is a good basic overview. Something that must be emphasized is translating the strategic plan into specific actions with measurable outcomes.
If you go into work on Monday after completing your plan and do your work the way you did before the plan, then the plan has already failed. I see this frequently in the businesses with which I work. Another key is to clearly tie individual staff roles and performance expectations and goals to the strategic goals.
Thanks for sharing. This is very helpful to business owners and managers. As it is said, the strategic plan need to be flexible, same applies to getting knowledge of strategic plan as business environments keep changing. Thanks for so much for the this exciting read. Strategic planning is important to an organization because it provides a sense of direction and outlines measurable goals.
Strategic planning is a tool that is useful for guiding day-to-day decisions and also for evaluating progress and changing approaches when moving forward. Found an another website Evolvetraining. I really enjoyed reading the article. It was written in simple language and in a manner that helped me identify key points under each subtitle. I am going to use this as a guide to some strategic plans am working on, thanks.
I actually appreciate this piece. The writing is incredibly beneficial. My gratitude to the masterminds behind this program, Cheers. Your article is helpful if you have employees, but how does this work if you have sub-contractors? Do you get them involved?
Now i have an insight of what strategic planning is. So what can be the sub-topics to include when writing an essay? Great article. Thanks for the detailed information. Very interesting and valuable document. Enjoyed reading the participatory role of employees. Thanks a lot. Interesting read. This article is a meta-analysis of empirical studies on strategic planning and organizational performance. It shows whether and when strategic planning actually works based on quantitative evidence.
Great article on strategic planning for small businesses. I agree with the statistic you quote from Constant Contact. In my work, I find that most business owners can only think and plan about a year out. For many business owners, this is the first time they have ever been where they are. The second is the rate of change in the economy, which only speeds up each year; it is just that very few businesses have the tools and expertise to keep pace with the change.
Both factors lead to a general hesitation to look out too far or to dream too big. I love the fact that you see that strategic planning needs to flexible and inclusive. When you involve all the people who work in and on your business, there is more engagement, better ideas and a higher rate of success.
Thanks a lot for this wonderful article, Eric. You have resolved my problem of trying to know what strategic planning really is. I look forward to more up building articles. Your question about involving subcontractors is an interesting one.
So if you have a few good contractors like my company does that you think could contribute some value to the formation of your plan I say go for it. Your article is helpful if you have employees, but how does this work if you have sub-contractors. Do you get them involved. You have the BEST newsletter! This article was another great one. I shared it on all my social media platforms.
I offer strategic planning services and this article is helpful in promoting my services. As well, most people think a strategic plan is ONLY for nonprofits. I often encourage our clients to start simple and achieve! This road map is an excellent way to jump in to real-life strategy setting! Disclaimer: Comments are subject to moderation and removal without cause or justification and may take up to 24 hours to be seen in comments.
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