Does your business have a plan for when the unexpected happens? Is your plan to figure it out day-by-day, or do you understand the business advantage of having a strategic plan in place?
Saddock Advisory believes that strategic planning is a must for a business of any size. A solid strategic plan makes your company more resilient in combatting disruptions and seizing new opportunities. First, start by having an outlined strategic vision in place can help your business survive and find new opportunities when the unexpected occurs.
Our advisory team can help your business by building this strategic plan in a professional and reliable way.
A Solid Strategic Plan for Your Business
A strategic plan is a way to develop an organization’s direction. This is where you define who you are as a business and set up a concrete plan of action to help achieve goals for the future. Developing a strategic plan will help you in preparing a vision for your company’s future and maximizing its growth potential. This makes a strategic plan a key component of continued business growth and success.
What Isn’t Included in a Strategic Plan
A strategic plan is not a business plan. A business plan details how you operate your business from day-to-day and is focused on your return or profit, which is why it’s sometimes referred to as an operating plan. However, building a strategic plan lays out the company’s long-term objectives as well as a plan for getting there.
3 Key Elements of Strategic Planning
1. The Current Status of Your Business
You need to understand the current state of your business as much as possible. How does it operate internally? What drives profitability? How does it compare to competitors? This requires being realistic, almost analytical, and thinking beyond your company in terms other than its day-to-day operations.
2. The Future of Your Business
Building a strategic plan involves taking a step back from the daily responsibilities. Consider what your priorities should be in order to get your company to where you want it to be.
- Timeframe
- Generally, a strategic plan covers planning for the next 3 to 5 years. Technology is rapidly changing, and this will always have an impact on your company. As a result, many businesses have had to adapt to a shorter timeframe, focusing on the next two to three years.
3. The Right Resources to Help You Achieve Your Business Goals
Consider your company’s short and long-term goals. This is where you need to think about what adjustments should be made to get your company to where you want it to go in the next three to five years. Will there be structural or financial oversight changes? Will you need to set deadlines to meet your objectives?
Strategic Planning Process
Strategic planning must be efficient, and you must start with a solid foundation. It’s much more likely to positively impact your business if the process is goal-oriented, specifically implemented, and carefully managed.
- Understand Your Business
Evaluate the current state of your business, review core business information, such as your vision, mission statement, and core values. Changes in circumstances, such as leadership, or the marketplace may cause you to periodically reconsider the core of your business.
- Analyze Your Strengths, Weaknesses, & Threats
A SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a tool for critically evaluating the current state of business.
The Alternative Board lays out some questions you might ask yourself what:
- do we do well?
- do customers identify as our strengths?
- are the most common complaints we receive?
- outdated technologies do we use?
- external roadblocks are in the way of our progress?
- do our competitors do differently?
You also need to ask yourself:
- Which emerging trends can we capitalize on?
- Who are our competitors under-serving?
- Establish Objectives and Goals
Defining targets that will help you in achieving your long-term business strategy. Having an objective is only as good as the measure you use to evaluate the success of meeting the purpose. Without some specific metrics to track, you won’t be able to determine progress on your goals.
- Put the Plan into Action
Now is the time to develop short-term action steps, or tasks, to be completed within a few days or weeks. Decide how you will delegate responsibilities, set deadlines for completion, and create accountability.
Strategic Planning with Saddock Advisory
Strategic planning with Saddock Advisory puts you in the driver’s seat of your business operation. Your plan will begin with evaluating your starting point and determining what direction your company must travel in the future.
In addition, building a solid strategic plan with Saddock Advisory will provide a foundation and foresight for any potential roadblocks along the way. Let’s journey together so that you can be confident on the road, knowing that you are joined by a strong and reputable team. Contact us today.
