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Strategic Planning Process Any organization when entering a business or eve starting a project needs a thorough plan of actions and procedures it is going to operate on. The plan that is needed to run the business smoothly is called as Strategic Plan and the process is called as Strategic Planning Process. A strategic plan takes a thorough look of the business and then it narrows it down to the processes that the business is actually good at. It gives a direction to lead on with the business and helps to tell the executives where to apply resources, man power and most importantly the capital. Strategic planning process may be a tiring process but it gives the best way to conduct business in a specified parameter. A simple illustration of this process is given below:
Mission & Objectives
Environmental Scanning
Strategy Formulation
Strategy Implementation
Evaluation & Control
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Mission and Objectives: The mission statement of an organization states the reason of its existence. It contains the unchanging variables of the business’ purpose and includes most importantly the visionary statement. The vision helps to define the place where the business wants to be in the future. The visionary goals of the future help the organization to pursue ahead optimizing on future opportunities. The mangers then make the financial and strategic objectives that are attainable in accordance with the vision. The objectives can be sales target or increase in market share etc.
Environmental Scan: The factors in the environmental scan are:
Internal analysis of an organization External analysis of industry Analysis of macro environment
The internal analysis refers to the evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of a company, whereas the external analysis refers to the opportunities and threats for the organization. The tool that is deployed to analyze these factors is called as SWOT analysis. In addition to the SWOT analysis another tool is used to analyze the environment of the industry known as Michael Porter’s five forces model which takes in consideration the new entrants, suppliers’ and buyers’ power, intensity of rivalry and threat of substitutes faced by the organization.
Strategy Formulation: The information that an organization derived from the evaluation of the internal and external environment should be properly analyzed and then the business should thrive to use strengths to capitalize on the opportunities while minimizing the threats and the weaknesses. The organization should thrive to develop unique competitive advantage on the basis of cost or differentiation.
Strategy Implementation: The strategy it is implemented by means of a proper program, budget and procedures. The implementation process includes putting organization’s resources to effective use and motivating employees to achieve objective. The success of the strategy depends upon how effectively the implementation has taken place.
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Evaluation & Control: After implementation of the strategy, it should be closely evaluated. Any loop holes if present should be deleted and it should be rectified. The point to remember here is that the strategy should not be only once evaluated, instead it should be monitored and controlled throughout its life span. The evaluation and control of the strategy is crucial. It should properly define the measuring criteria, target measure, performance evaluation, comparing it with standards and then the strategy is changed if there are errors.
Reference: http://www.researchomatic.com/Strategic-Planning-Process-148938.html
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