Strategic Planning: A Powerful Development Tool for Companies.

Strategic planning is a very useful tool to help you achieve your business objectives and set yourself apart. Regardless of the size of the company, the process allows you to equip yourself with an action plan that serves as a guide for the years to come. We explain what it consists of, the advantages it has, and how to accomplish it.

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is a time of reflection to look at business opportunities, determine where the business stands and think about where you want to take it. The process then results in a plan that will guide you in achieving the company’s objectives.

The benefits of strategic planning

Here’s why it’s worth spending the time and effort to do strategic planning:

Improve productivity and efficiency. Your strategic plan helps optimize all of the company’s resources. It can also facilitate decision-making and avoid making mistakes.
Facilitate growth. By detailing the steps to follow to achieve your goals, you will be better positioned to take action (business acquisition, equipment purchase, etc.). This is one of the tools to grow your business.
Increase competitiveness. You will be better prepared to face the unexpected and to seize new opportunities. You will be able to better choose your areas of growth, complete your current offer, develop new markets, determine the growth segments of the future and better position yourself in relation to your competitors.
Innovate. The plan enables the company to maintain or create a culture of innovation by finding ways to think outside the box. It can also help pivot to new business areas.
Unite and strengthen teams. The plan makes it possible to have a common vision and to clearly communicate to employees what the objectives are and the means to achieve them.
Take a step back. You come out of the daily whirlwind to reflect and make some corrections if necessary.

A strategic plan is not a business plan

Be careful not to confuse a strategic plan with a business plan. The two are rather complementary. The business plan allows you to understand how the business works on a daily basis and what needs to be done to manage it well. The strategic plan helps you project yourself: it explains how to achieve your objectives and your vision.

What are the 5 Steps of Strategic Planning?

1- Get ready and do the preliminary assessment

To start the strategic planning exercise on the right foot, bring together the right participants. Among the stakeholders, you need creative people and people who have a good understanding of the operations. Of course, the leaders and the head of the company must participate and support the process in order to maximize the chances of success. That said, it’s not just about bringing the leaders together, the involvement of key employees is also important. Among those who will take part in the exercise, designate the people who will be in charge. They will have to keep track of the activities and consolidate everything.

Pro Tip: Consider bringing in an outside consultant for your strategic planning. Someone with experience and more neutrality can make it easier for you, get you out of your comfort zone, and help the process go smoothly.

Once the key people have been brought together, make sure they can take a step back from the day-to-day tasks of the business. To be more united and promote reflection, the team could isolate itself for a few days in order to withdraw from operations (for a retirement, for example). Expert tip: Preparing for this meeting can help generate new ideas. Participants could think ahead and share their thoughts with the group during the working session.

Remember the mission, vision and values of the company to build on a solid foundation for the years to come. This step also ensures that the decisions that will be made during the strategic planning remain consistent with the company’s DNA. If there was already a strategic plan before, take the time to review it and do a strategic analysis to learn from it. Understanding what worked and what didn’t will help you build a new, stronger plan.

2- Make the diagnosis and seize the opportunities

Once at this second stage, ask yourself the following questions:

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the company?
What are the business opportunities to seize?
What are the potential obstacles?
How to mitigate the risks?

Gather all the relevant information to enable you to answer them. You could first invite all employees, regardless of their level, to send you their findings and impressions. Once you have everything in hand, incorporate the answers into your strategic planning process. Then think about:

Analyze the characteristics of current and potential customers

Take stock of accounts payable
Check if payment terms meet industry standards
Examine business productivity
Determine whether the workforce is sufficient to carry out new projects
Think about who the customers are, what they want and how to meet their needs
Anticipate the expectations and future needs of customers

With this complete diagnosis, you will be able to design better adapted and more thoughtful strategies. You will be in a better position to fix the problems that have been identified and change the methods if necessary. You will also be able to better seize the opportunities that arise and achieve the objectives that will be set.

3- Prioritize according to the diagnosis

The diagnosis allowed you to establish a clear vision for the company and identify the resulting objectives. To reach them, we must now divide the vision into several strategic orientations. Depending on the objectives, also choose the areas of development that are the most relevant and that are priorities for the company. Then, establish the sequence of concrete actions to take and set deadlines. The number and the cadence are important. It is better to have fewer objectives and actions to set and execute them well than to have too many and discourage employees.

As a general rule, the strategic plan unfolds over a horizon of two to three years. Beyond this period (five years for example), too many unknowns can jeopardize your plan. Think, for example, of rapidly changing markets and new technologies.

Pro tip: at this stage, it is recommended to have the choices made by managers and employees validated. Communication and feedback will facilitate adherence to the business project.

Finally, it is time to write the strategic planning document.

4- Establish the necessary budget and resources

The financial aspects are essential to achieving your goals. In the document detailing the plan, it is therefore necessary to:

Quantify the investments required
Project the financial benefits
Determine the resources needed
Plan how to find resources
Set the budget

5- Make the plan and keep it up to date

Last step of strategic planning: making the plan a reality by implementing it. To achieve this, regularly monitor ongoing actions and projects (budgets, for example). It is an ongoing process: stay flexible, listening to the market and the changes that occur (technological, demographic, etc.). You can then make the necessary adjustments. Tell yourself that when it comes to life, the strategic plan can evolve.

For short-term action plans (up to a year), you could opt for monthly follow-ups. For plans that span multiple years, such as three to ten years, monthly, quarterly and annual monitoring is recommended.

Pro tip: consider creating a dashboard to facilitate your follow-ups and measure the progress made.

Good to know: several strategic planning approaches exist, such as: the three Cs method (customer, competition, company), the lean approach, the mission-based approach or a mixture of these methods. No matter which one you choose, the exercise will undoubtedly allow you to take your business even further.

Strategic Planning: A Powerful Development Tool for Companies.

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