The term “strategic planning” is used to describe the process by which business executives and managers develop a plan for the future, which will help them anticipate and react to changes in the business environment.
Fintalent’s Strategic Planning Consultants agree that strategic planners look at both internal factors and external factors when coming up with their plans. Internal factors will include things like resources, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for growth or decline, etc., while external factors might include trends in the industry, financial implications of various courses of action, technology advancements that could have an impact on your company’s strategy going forward.
The process of strategic planning involves several steps, including:
- Identifying the purpose and key success factors for your organization. These would include things like your strategic vision, mission statement, corporate values, objectives, and strategies. It would also include developing a measurement system to track the results of your strategy over time. These elements should be communicated throughout the company to provide everyone with a common understanding of what you are trying to accomplish. This will help ensure that everyone stays on track in terms of achieving your company’s goals.
- Identifying the current state of your organization and setting milestones. Your objectives can change over time, so it is important to set timelines for being able to accomplish certain tasks and measure certain outputs. An example of this would be setting goals related to new products or services that may need to be developed in an environment where financial resources are limited.
- Developing a plan for achieving your organization’s purpose and key success factors by looking at several alternatives such as:
a. The best alternative to achieve our strategic vision, mission statement, corporate values, objectives and strategies through the planning process.
b. Contingency plans that will be activated if targets are not met (Planning). These are the Plans which you may design to get the initiative going.
c. The short-term “go/no go” alternative options which need to be assessed in the total context of your plan (Milestones).
- Allocating resources in accordance with each alternative as described in step three (A) and then, evaluating all alternatives against the criteria and priorities of step, 2 & 3 (B) as well as determining strengths and weaknesses of each alternative once they have been evaluated (Evaluating). This will be done by:
a. Calculating resources required and comparing this with saved costs or internal capabilities (Budgeting).
b. Determining when the first milestone will be reached (Milestones).
Once the planning process has been completed, it is important to communicate your plan throughout the company so that everyone understands how to accomplish your goals and what role they need to play in reaching those goals. You may also want to conduct periodic reviews of your plan along the way, so that you can make any necessary changes along the way and measure your progress as you go.
An example of strategic planning would be a startup company that needs funding to grow their organization. They may have a plan to expand their operations by adding new equipment and hiring additional employees. This plan would be based on research that has been done on the current state of the economy, market demands, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats that the company is facing. The company’s management team would then outline a number of potential options they could take to achieve their plans along with several milestones that need to be reached along the way. The strategic planning process might also include looking at a contingency plan in case certain milestones aren’t met or if additional funding isn’t available when needed. It will also help determine what resources are needed for reaching each milestone.
