Steps Strategic Planning

For any organization to be successful, strategic planning is very important. Most of the companies need to do strategic planning to achieve what they intend to. For most of the strategy making it is needed that all the important personnel of the company come together.

With the help of the strategic plan a company gets the much needed direction for growth and development. This also enables the management to review the performance of the company by comparing it to the strategic plan that has been formulated.

In this way, it becomes easy to know the shortfalls in time and corrective measures can be taken before it is too late. Daily work can be managed and some problem here and there mostly cannot the performance a lot; but the long term goals and objectives of the company are of utmost importance as these are what take the company to the next level of growth.

Strategic planning is undoubtedly very necessary for all organisations and thus the making of strategic plan is a responsibility which one should carry out effectively so that they can get the maximum results out of it. Most of the successful organizations make their strategic plan and in the process of doing so they follow some standard steps. There are seven steps in a typical strategic planning process which are listed as follows:

Step 1-Develop and Review the Mission and Vision

In the first step, the company needs to gather all information about the customers, the stake holders, the suppliers, the employees and the communities. There are templates available, which can be used to evaluate and analyse what the shareholders and other important people think about the company. This helps to understand if the company’s actions and way of working are in sync with what is expected from them.

The company on a regular basis faces new challenges and the business needs to undergo constant changes. Thus, it becomes very important for the company and its management to review the mission and the vision of the company. In this process, it becomes imperative to involve the shareholders of the company so that it is a coordinated effort and there are no chances of anything going wrong.

Step 2-SWOT analysis

It is essential to analyse the operations and the business of the organisation by using tools like SWOT analysis. With the help of the SWOT analysis the company can understand its internal strengths, weaknesses, and the external opportunities and threats. These four factors of the SWOT analysis are very essential for a company to understand the present status of the company and also to design the future course of action. Getting inputs from all the relevant people at this stage of the strategic plan process is very important again as these are the people who will finally implement the strategies and know the problems and the USPs.

Step 3- Developing and Selecting Strategic Options

The planners can use various templates which can help them to develop different options for the strategies which will be in sync with the objectives of the company. These options are made after the first two steps are done and the relevant inputs are available. Most of the strategies that are listed out can seem to be right. The organisation might have few issues to be handled and thus the right strategies need to be selected by using prioritising tools.

Step 4-Formulate Strategic Objectives

In this step, the overall picture of the organisation is present and thus one needs to select the strategic options. Templates can be used to understand the options that are available and measures can be chosen to ensure these are achieved. The measures have to be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Bound. With SMART options it becomes easy to communicate with the lower levels of the employees who play an important role in the organisation.

Step 5-Startegy Execution Plan

The fact is that many organisations do not succeed in spite of having a strategic plan is because they are unable to implement the strategies that they have formulated. Thus, in this step it is important to formulate a plan in which the strategy to implement the plans is chalked out.

Step 6-Resource Allocation

It is very essential to allocate and give the responsibilities to all the employees and management people in an appropriate way ensuring that no one is overloaded so that there are no chances of any effect on efficiency of the resources.

Step 7-Review of Execution

Once the strategic plan is executed it becomes very important to review it periodically. There might be circumstances, which may need deviations and thus the review part is very important. It is also essential to decide with whom the review has to be done.

With the above 7 steps, the complete cycle of strategic planning is complete and the stage for expansion and success of the company is set.