“Objectives can be compared to a compass bearing by which a ship navigates. A compass bearing is firm, but in actual navigation, a ship may veer off its course for many miles. Without a compass bearing, a ship would neither find its port nor be able to estimate the time required to get there.”
Peter Drucker
Introduction
Strategic planning is all about developing long-term business plans, putting them into action, and analyzing the results compared to a company’s broader long-term objectives. It is about finding the best ways to achieve the strategic objectives in the most strategic way possible. And it answers questions like “How do we get there?”.
Developing a well-defined strategic plan for your firm might be challenging, especially if you need help figuring out where to start. Fortunately, if you follow the six steps below, your strategic planning process will become more manageable:
1. Know your company’s vision, mission, and values
Understand the reasons behind your vision, mission, values and what your company stands for.
2. Know your goals and objectives
Create clear goals and objectives based on your company’s broader direction for the next three to five years. This creates a road map for your strategic planning process.
3. Define areas of opportunity
Identify which departments or areas of expertise are necessary to get you to your goals. This is where you will require outside assistance from a professional who can help, such as a strategist, marketer, IT consultant, or accountant. Remember not to overreach; know what you need at this stage instead of pie-in-the-sky thinking about the next five years.
4. Define the objectives
These are the companies’ objectives regarding the strategic planning process itself. This includes defining the purpose, objectives, and measures. If you need financial information for your company, it is essential to know its earnings during the last few years before attempting to plan for the next three to five years.
5. Define the priorities
Determine which objectives will be given the highest priority of resources (time, money and equipment). Sometimes, only some of the strategic initiatives can be delivered at once; you need to prioritize and balance the portfolio of your strategic initiatives so it can accommodate all the important strategic initiatives in the pipeline.
6. Develop a strategy
Once you grasp the internal and external factors that affect your organization, you can start to make a plan that considers every step along the way and the resources you will need to carry each out.
In the end, developing a strategy requires understanding more about the current situation while looking at trends, financial and economic information, regulations, and competitive moves that give better hints about the future.
About the Author:
Loay Dirar, educates, writes, and advises on strategy development and implementation, as well as change management and risk management for major regional organizations in the Middle East and North Africa. He has 19 years of management experience, including ten years as a manager in multinational subsidiaries of organizations based in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
