Strategic Planning

In today’s competitive business environment, you have to know where your business is going and how it’s going to get there. Otherwise, it’s easy to lose focus and drift in different directions, from project to project without ever really achieving anything.

Determining what you want to achieve and clearly defining those objectives are one of the key steps in any strategic plan.  When you clarify your organization’s plans and get them down on paper, you ensure all key leaders are on the same page and working toward common goals. These goals will also provide the framework for their future decisions on everyday matters.  By clearly stating the company’s purpose, goals and objectives, the strategic plan will guide everyone involved with the organization toward a common target.

Strategic planning also helps ensure that your company’s resources are used as effectively and efficiently as possible.  This increased efficiency and effectiveness, in turn, increases your overall productivity. Management also can better focus resources on top priorities when those priorities have been clearly defined with a specific timeframe for completion. 

Before diving straight into a planning session, it is important to first assess where your company is today and what you have done in the past.  What has been working and what has not?  Try to figure out how and why you have experienced the results you have.  This will help develop a foundation on which to make decisions for your new or updated strategic plan.

After examining the past goals, processes and achievements, you can begin the all-important examination of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses deal with internal issues while opportunities and threats relate to external factors that may exist.  After identifying these critical features, the pieces of your plan will begin to take shape.

The first step is to is develop a realistic vision for your company.  Where do you see your company in three to five years?  Deciding on where you want the organization to go from here is the crucial beginning step to building a plan that can work.  From this vision, you can develop your company’s mission.  Often in the form of a mission statement, the mission expresses the overall purpose of the business.    

The next step is to identify the goals you want or need your company to achieve in a given timeframe.  These objectives should relate to the expectations and requirements of all stakeholders and employees.  Typically, objectives will cover growth, profitability, product offerings and market presence. They should be specific, time-based measurements to be achieved by implementing certain strategies.  Keep your goals quantifiable, consistent, realistic and achievable. 

One of the most critical components in strategic planning is developing the strategies by which the vision, mission and objectives will be achieved.  By this time, you have already established your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.  Use this analysis to help you identify possible strategies by building on your strengths, resolving weaknesses, exploiting opportunities and avoiding threats.  The results can be filtered and molded to form the basis of a realistic strategic plan.

Lastly, you will need to establish implementation plans for your key strategies.  These should cover resources, objectives, timelines, deadlines, budgets and performance targets. The financial management component of strategic planning should be conducted at least once a year since budgets are usually based on a year-to-year or fiscal basis.

Timing of strategic planning and who is involved can vary greatly depending on the nature of your company and the needs of the organization.  In some cases, strategic planning can involve the entire organization. In others, it is done only by managers.

While it’s good to do strategic planning – or at least tweak an existing plan – annually, there are times when it is downright imperative. Strategic planning should definitely be done if your company is just getting started or is preparing to launch a new venture, such as a new product line or division.

You wouldn't drive across the country without a roadmap.  Don’t try to achieve your goals and objectives without first figuring out where you are and where you want to go.  With your strategic planning map in place, you and your employees will greatly increase your chances of arriving at your intended destination.

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