What successful businesses have in common – old and new – is an efficient STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN. It is no secret but unfortunately, this is a major component that many companies are missing.
THE IMPORTANCE
Strategic Planning is crucially important for every organization because it is what sets the roadmap and direction of the company. It outlines the macro goals of the business and specifies realistic actions that lead into achieving these goals. It defines metrics to see if the day-to-day operations reflect objectives that lead up to achieving the wider goals that the company is trying to achieve.
With a defined goal and roadmap, the company players will have a basis and guidance into their decisions. Importantly, they would know their priorities when faced with unexpected challenges.
The metrics contained in a Strategic Plan also serves a big role. It evaluates the actions based on results and allows managers to shift course when they are aware of what are working and what are not.
THE COMPONENTS OF A STRATEGIC PLAN
An effective Strategic Plan entails an in-depth dive into each component going from Mission and Goal Setting – to Execution Process – to Evaluation.
Here are the main components of a Strategic Plan.
MISSION
The whole plan starts with a mission. The Company Mission serves as the overarching goal of the business. This is where the practical goals are connected and lead into. With a guiding mission made clear to the company players, the management and employees can specify where to align their actions.
The mission has to be general enough to cover both management and employees. But has to be narrow enough to know where to focus the people’s efforts.
GOAL SETTING
Setting a clear and solid goal weaves together the processes and efforts involved in a Strategic Plan. The company must set a clear goal that is measurable and specific. This is in a form of specified quantity and set timelines.
Measurable goals are extremely important to benchmark and track the progress of the people’s efforts. And how they are hitting objectives that come together to accomplish the mission.
Instead of setting generic goals such as: “To grow the company’s sales this quarter”, a company better specify it into “grow the company’s sales by 10% in the first quarter”.
EVALUATING PROCESS
It is imperative to create objectives that are realistic and executable with the best amount of information that the company has at the time. Then couple that with timely assessment. Having timely assessments is important especially when variables change such as a competition, prices, demand, etc. The goals and objectives should be responsive and adaptive to certain changes.
THE STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING PROCESS
The strategic planning process takes an especially big part of the whole plan. In this part, the team maps out how to get from Point A – of current standing to Point B – of target standing.
This is the part that lists down each department, employees, system flow, and micro strategies – finding a way for all of these to efficiently work towards hitting targets and objectives. And all these should lead up to building the fulfilment of specific goals.
Strategic business planning flow vary from company to company. Some work from scratch all the way up, and some work on an existing strategy. Nonetheless, it is an extensive process with a whole lot of business-defining factors to consider.
Below is a skeleton of how a Strategic Business Planning Process likely flows.
Getting started
Step 1: Determining organizational readiness
Step 2: Developing the team and schedule
Step 3: Collect current data
Step 4: Review collected data
Phase 1: Determining the company’s strategic position
Step 1: Identify strategic issues
Step 2: Conduct and environmental scan
Step 3: Conduct a competitive analysis
Step 4: Identify opportunities and threats
Step 5: Identify strengths and weaknesses
Step 6: Customer Segments
Step 7: Develop your SWOT
Phase 2: Developing the company’s strategy
Step 1: Developing the mission statement
Step 2: Developing values
Step 3: Casting the vision statement
Step 4: Identifying the business’ competitive advantage
Step 5: Crafting your organization-wide strategies
Phase 3: Strategic plan development
Step 1: Use the SWOT to set priorities
Step 2: Define long-term strategic objectives
Step 3: Setting organization-wide goals and measures
Step 4: Select KPIs
Step 5: Cascade the strategies to operations
Step 6: Cascading goals to departments and team members
Phase 4: Strategy execution and performance management
Step 1: Implementation schedule
Step 2: tracking goals & actions
Step 3: Review and adapt
Step 4: Assess and update
Subscribe on our blog as we go further and expound on each point involved in creating an effective strategic plan. SDAC Consulting has been helping new and existing businesses with extensive strategic planning for almost 10 years.
We dissect the company’s challenges and work to create tailor made strategies. For questions and queries, get in touch with us at commercial@sdacconsulting.com. We provide a complimentary consultancy if you want to discuss strategic planning for your business.
