Many business people have really bad attitudes about strategic planning even though they believe that strategy is probably a good thing. This is consistent in that most people do not plan their lives less alone their businesses. Plan is really a hidden dirty 4 letter word.
However before the word plan is the word strategy. So what is strategy?
The origins of this word literally means for a general to out think and defeat his enemies. In today’s business world, that means to out think and outlast the competition.
Strategy is an intensive thinking process that begins with the vision of the business owner or executives. This is the first step because as the old Chinese proverb states:
Vision without action is a daydream, but action without vision is a nightmare.
Next follows what are acceptable and non-acceptable behaviors within your organization. Many organizations fail because non-acceptable behaviors are allowed and sometimes even championed by the leadership. Remember the old Do as I say, not as I do mantra from parents, to teacher to bosses?
After careful analysis of all trends from industry to economic, the organizational structure and the target market, then the mission statement is constructed. For some who do not have the resources of time, money and energy, the mission statement can simply be how much money do you want in your bank account by December 31 of the planning year?
Within the strategic plan also reside the critical success factors or growth goal categories. A critical success factor is defined as what is both necessary and sufficient to achieve the mission. For many businesses, these are 6 basic action plan categories: financials, growth & innovation (new products), customer loyalty, management & leadership, marketing and sales.
Each of these goal categories can be further expanded into their own action plans. Goals are prioritized. These sub action plans are the business plans that you share with the various departments such as sales, marketing, budget, etc.
TAKE ACTION to think about your strategic plan and the other action plans. If your plan is resting in the desk drawer or on the shelf and you visited it months if not years ago, dust it off and revise it. Remember a strategy does not work when it is not executed.
