5 Strategic Planning Methods to Achieve Your Goals

What is a Strategic Planning and Why Do We Need It?

Leaders of a company develop their future vision and determine their organization's goals and objectives through the process of strategic planning. Establishing the order in which these objectives should be accomplished can help the organization attain its stated vision in strategic planning business.

Though it can run longer, strategic planning, specifically strategic planning in marketing, typically represents mid- to long-term objectives with predetermined period. This is distinct from business planning, which usually focuses on immediate, tactical objectives, including how a budget is allocated. A business plan may cover a period of time that lasts from a few months to several years.

Organizational goals and direction are essential for businesses. That kind of advice is provided by strategic planning. A strategic strategy is essentially a road map for achieving corporate objectives. Without such direction, it is impossible to determine if a company is on course to meet its objectives.

With dynamic customer needs and changing business environment, organizations need proper frameworks and strategies to sharpen their competitive edge and win the competition. Therefore, Multimatics offers training and certification programs in strategic planning business strategic planning in marketing, strategic planning training, and project management professional to cover your organization needs in developing sustainable service management.

Here are 5 ways to improve your strategic planning to achieve your goals:

1.   Establish Vision, Mission, and Goals

Capture your customer, employee, and shareholder feedback to identify your strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

2.   Measure Your Progress

Develop metrics to track progress on ongoing basis

3.   Turn Long Term Strategy to Short Term Tactics

Analyze your current performance and your targeted goals to determine effective tactics that works in short-term

4.   Gather Simple Strategic Document as a Guidelines

Collect all strategies and methods into one simple guidelines as the cornerstone

5.   Stick to a Result Oriented Management Process

While working on several methods, ensure that you only focus on one that works the best for your strategic planning

Strategic planning is the process of defining a long-term direction for an organization and developing a plan to achieve that direction. It involves identifying the organization's strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and setting goals that will help the organization achieve its desired future state.

Here are the 4 keypoints of implementing effective strategic planning for your organization:

1. Stay focused and on track. In a rapidly changing world, it can be easy for organizations to get sidetracked or lose sight of their goals. A strategic plan provides a roadmap that helps organizations to stay focused on their priorities and make decisions that are aligned with their long-term goals.

2. Identify and exploit opportunities. By regularly scanning the environment for new opportunities, organizations can identify new markets to enter, new products to develop, or new ways to improve their operations. A strategic plan can help organizations to prioritize these opportunities and allocate resources accordingly.

3. Mitigate risks. By identifying potential threats, organizations can develop strategies to reduce their impact. For example, an organization that is facing increasing competition from a new entrant might develop a strategy to differentiate its products or services.

4. Build consensus and alignment. By involving key stakeholders in the strategic planning process, organizations can build support for the plan and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals. This can lead to improved performance and increased productivity.

Although there are different approaches to strategic planning, there is no one right way to do strategic planning. The best approach will vary depending on the size and structure of the organization. Strategic planning is an ongoing process. The organization should regularly review its plan and make adjustments as needed.

The hyper business environment demands organizations to have proper frameworks and strategies to sharpen their competitive edge and win the competition. Therefore, Multimatics offers training and certification programs in strategic planning business strategic planning in marketing, strategic planning training, and project management professional to cover your organization needs in developing sustainable service management.

References:

John M. Bryson, Lauren Hamilton Edwards & David M. Van Slyke (2018) Getting strategic about strategic planning research, Public Management Review, 20:3, 317-339, DOI: 10.1080/14719037.2017.1285111

Steiner, G. A. (2010). Strategic planning. Simon and Schuster.

Bryson, J. M. (2012). Strategic planning and management. The SAGE handbook of public administration, 2, 50-63.

Nickols, F. (2016). Strategy, strategic management, strategic planning and strategic thinking. Management Journal, 1(1), 4-7.