Overview
Strategic planning is a process mapping out a vision for the organization’s future and how to get there. The strategic planning process lays down the organization’s decisions, development and objectives.
Strategic planning helps clearly define a company’s long-term objectives and maps how short-term goals and work will help achieve them. This gives a clear sense of where the organization is going and allows to ensure teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Essentially, if goals and objectives are destinations on a map, the strategic plan is the navigation system.
Strategic planning defines the direction to be taken in the next three to five years. It involves stakeholders reviewing and defining the organization’s mission and overall objective, conducting competitive assessments and identifying company goals and work.
A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it is a tool used to define the organization’s goals and what actions to take to achieve them. Typically, a strategic plan includes:
- the company’s vision statement and mission statement
- the organizational goals, including long-term objectives and short-term, yearly goals
- any plan of action, tactics or approaches planned to take to meet those goals
Strategic Planning Process
Start with globally assessing current business and business environment.
Before being able to define where to go, one first needs to determine where one is, the current situation. Moreover, basic understanding of the external environment, including trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase. Assessment is done by collecting significant varieties of opinions from stakeholders “embodying” core competencies (domain expertise and specific excellence in specialization or segmentation), either internal or in the context of the environment. In particular, focus is on
- relevant industry and market data to assess any opportunities as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future
- target audience insights to understand what customers want
- any feedback that needs to be addressed, whether about product, services or experiences, business practices or the day-to-day company culture
Further analysis then helps to assess both current and future AI potential for business.
Identify, analyze and represent strengths:
- what is currently done well and what differentiates from competitors
- what are most valuable internal resources and what tangible assets are there
- what is the main strength
Identify, analyze and represent weaknesses:
- what is done poorly and what is currently lacking (whether product, resource or process)
- what do competitors do better
- what limitations are holding things back and what processes or products need improvement
Identify, analyze and represent opportunities:
- what are the opportunities and how can unique company strengths be leveraged
- what are relevant trends and how can one capitalize on marketing or media opportunities
- is there an emerging need for the product or service
Identify, analyze and represent threats:
- what are emerging competitors to keep an eye on and are there any weaknesses that expose the organization to risk
- in what way could negative media reduce market share
- is there a chance of changing customer attitudes
Identify goals and objectives for AI
Strategy development begins by taking into account the current position, which is where the business is now, and then define goals.
A business plan can help document the strategy, specifying core business priorities and goals. It helps document and share strategy with key shareholders and stakeholders as the business gets up and running. A business plan may be needful when:
starting a business or a new project
significantly restructuring ongoing business
If the business is already established, creating a strategic plan rather than a business plan makes sense. Even in relatively young companies, a strategic plan can build on the business plan to help it move in the right direction.
Vocabulary
A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that.
A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan.
A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals.
Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.
Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success.