Whether your business is just starting or has been around for decades, strategic planning is essential to the success of your business. A strategic plan helps to set business goals along with the steps necessary to meet these goals.
Strategic planning gives the business direction, helps in decision making, and establishes a structure to coordinate activities. It also helps with the distribution of time and resources and improves communication between team members. Here are five steps to creating the perfect strategic plan for your business.
Step 1: Gather your team and create a timeline
For this step, it is essential to gather the right people that should be involved. The leader of the strategic planning team will be in charge of aligning the team’s objectives with the process that the business can use to execute the strategy.
The team will translate the objectives into clear and achievable actions. The team will need to include members from every department, including finance, human resources, and sales. Every team member needs to understand the goals and objectives and their roles.
Once a strategic planning team is established, they will need to create a reasonable timeline. This timeline has to consider the abilities of those on the team and the maturity of the company. It can take more or less time to implement a strategic plan, depending on how well the team works together to achieve its goals.
Step 2: Understand your company and the market
Before creating a strategic plan, you have to gather data internally and externally to establish the parameters of the business. You will also need to gather data regarding the industry you have chosen and the market it is in. Research is critical for any strategic plan to work. You have to understand the business and the market thoroughly.
Step 3: Confirm your mission and your vision
You should always keep in mind that the mission and vision of your business are what define all your Strategic Planning, strategic objectives, action plans, and others. Remember that your mission establishes what your business does and what makes it different from other businesses that are your competence. Your vision describes what your business aspires to be in the future, what you expect to achieve with the step weather.
The mission is timeless, while the vision is subject to deadlines and is much more tangible. In this step, it may be functional to consider the strategic pyramid that we show below. The order of the elements is not so important. What is essential is that you contemplate each of them when creating your strategic plan, ensuring that these will help you achieve success.
Step 4: Build your five-year plan
For this step, it will be essential that you choose and develop a Strategic Planning model. Why is it important? Because through this, you can define your priorities and objectives, and most importantly, you can manage them easily. Many of the business do not get results simply because of disorganization.
Here you will find some of the most popular planning models, such as the Balanced Scorecard.
As mentioned, a Strategic Planning model will help you manage your objectives, indicators, and initiatives. First of all, it will be essential to have these three well-defined within your business.
Objectives: Are goals or goals developed at a strategic level and achievable in a given period. Usually, they must be clear, coherent, measurable, and achievable. Learn more about them here.
Indicators: They are a measurement tool that allows monitoring the business’s objectives. Ideally, they should be actionable, quantifiable, understandable, repeatable, and timely. Learn more about them here.
Initiatives: Are action plans or projects designed to achieve the objectives proposed by the strategy. Learn more about them here.
Step 5: Create your strategic map
Having a visual representation of your Strategic Planning will be of great help. Remember that if you are not using the Balanced Scorecard method, a strategic map will help you better understand how the elements of your strategy work, as well as helping your team understand your plan.
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