Have you ever wondered about strategic planning? And do you know the importance it can have within your company?
There is a lot of talk about planning nowadays and about its strategic differences. But only those who understand the nature of business planning and what it means can bring about practical action plans to boost the company.
With that in mind, we think you may be interested in the following:
E-BOOK: trends applied to strategic planning
TOOL for market analysis: Porter’s 5 forces
E-BOOK: how to do Strategic Management to optimize results!
In the following, you will learn about strategic planning, what are the three most important questions to ask and why you should adopt this model for your company!
See also: Learn the 4 steps to create a strategic planning spreadsheet in Excel and download, ready-to-use.
Before reflecting on what exactly strategic planning is, you will need to be aware of the definition of planning itself.
Planning is nothing more than creating a plan to achieve a certain goal.
And how about strategy? It’s the art of exploring the best conditions to reach your goals.
And how to define what is strategic planning in a company?
It is the whole process of creating and executing a strategy to achieve objectives within an organization. From defining goals to decision making and the mobilization of effective measures to achieve what’s proposed with a focus on business success.
Planning is involved with the methodology (the means), while the strategy appears with the creative part of analysis and decision making.
This plan can be done annually, monthly, or over a more long-term basis, such as three to five years. Everything will depend on what you want to achieve with your company during that time.
After all, if you feel that you are falling behind, that the competition is getting closer, or that you have some specific goal, either to leverage sales or differentiate yourself with a new product, why put it off until later?
Once you understand what strategic planning is, you will be able to (in fact, you should) use it immediately when you most need it!
Check it out: What are the various stages of strategic planning: Get to know the 4 main principles and the best tools
Knowing what organizational planning involves. To begin with answer three questions:
Where is your company?
Where do you want to go?
How are you going to get there?
Who hasn’t heard the phrase “if you don’t know where you want to go, any road will do”? Well, in the context of what business planning is, it makes perfect sense to understand what NOT to do.
After all, accepting “any path”, without structure, without organizational culture, without rules and values, will rarely work within a company. But for everything to be planned, it is necessary to know exactly where you are heading.
Strategic planning only happens once you define these questions:
Where are you currently? What is your company’s position in the market?
Where do you want to go? What is the objective over a certain period (one month, one year, three years, etc.)?
How do you intend to get there? What resources do you need and what undertakings do you need to achieve your set goals?
Some other pointers that can help in this investigation include:
The company’s mission, i.e. the reason for existing, what it sets out to do;
The vision, aspirations, and what it intends to achieve in the future;
The values, the principles that guide behavior;
The SWOT analysis, where the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and dangers are defined;
Objectives and goals: with objectives, what is intended to be achieved; and with the goals, the detail (in numbers) of the desired result.
By putting everything down on paper and actually planning what you want for the next 2, 5, or 10 years from now, you can undertake to follow a more proactive course of action. Beyond that, planning also anticipates risks when taking short and long-term decisions.
The process should be participative, which proposes alignment and engagement among teams. Even if it is a leader’s initiative, the plan will only be put into action with the support of the team.
Always remember that planning should be periodically reviewed and readjusted when necessary.
Finally, where competition is concerned, you still come out ahead. This presents you with the chance to see your business in 360º. Planning and executing strategies that offer you competitive advantages.
The initiatives will be based on a vision of the future business, and only then you will be able to measure the accomplishments and determine the best ways to achieve your main goals!
Watch this video from our YouTube channel and learn about some tools to assist in strategic planning! Subscribe to our channel to have access to more videos like this one.
Learn more: How to present a strategic plan in 6 incredible steps
STRATWs ONE is a robust corporate performance management software that is easy to use for all levels. It makes data and information available in a transparent manner, helping to monitor the performance of company processes and teams.
Therefore, decision-making becomes quicker and more accurate and makes strategic planning much easier.
Revolutionize the management of your company with STRATWs ONE
Your technology partner to connect you to what really matters.
