Understanding the Importance of Strategic Planning for your Company

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We made a survey about the main aspects that should be included in your strategic planning and how to implement them. We’ll talk about the importance of planning for your business success. Are you interested? So, keep following!

Why is strategic planning important?

Strategic planning describes where the company wants to be in the future. However, like life in general, first, the company needs to know where you come from (lessons), so that it can plan to get to where it wants to be in the future. Strategic planning defines where the company is heading.

Strategic planning is importante because it affects all plans and decisions of an organization.

It also needs to be said that strategic planning can provide a global strategic direction for managing the organization, aside from giving a specific direction to areas such as finance, marketing, organizational development, human resources (among others) to achieve success.

These other types of planning (specific to some areas) sometimes are confused with strategic planning. But, to be clear, all of these other peripheral types of planning (specific areas) shall be guided by the strategic planning.

When is the ideal time to plan?

Strategic planning is a time for reflection, discussion, evaluation and direction of the company as a whole. Therefore, the period from December to February is the best time to do a company checkup and determine goals for the upcoming year.

In strategic planning, we evaluate strengths and weaknesses of the company, competition, business opportunities, lessons learned, etc. After making these evaluations, planning must be structured in practical action plans and projects.

That is, one must define what, when, by whom and with what budget things will be done. That is why the end of the year and the beginning of the upcoming year are the best dates for the executive body to make strategic planning.

What can be considered a good strategic planning?

The goal of the business planning process is to reach an enthusiastic consensus among the top executives of the company for a handful decisions that they have to make in order to put the business in a strong position to face the new year. So there are some key aspects to consider.

Put everything on paper

Gather the executive team to reflect, discuss lessons learned, brainstorm, etc. Start by putting everything on paper, reminding yourself of the company’s mission, values, and vision.
Reinforce the importance of the strategic plan in the market.

Define the actors involved

Bring together all the decision makers and chart their participation in the decision of the directions that the company should follow for next year. Observe which professionals have excelled in each role and seek to delegate tasks that enhance the capabilities of each team member.

Gather key information

The next step is to gather as much relevant information as can be used as a basis for decisions. This pervades the previous year’s performance, missed opportunities, where the market is moving, how the competition is doing, and what the team’s productivity is. It also includes the investments that will be made in human, financial and other resources.

(Re) evaluate the behavior of your target audience

The market is what we can call “liquid”, that is, it is constantly changing. Concerning the public and their desires and needs, this reality is even more striking. Constantly patterns of consumption and behavior are reinvented and influenced by new trends.

For that reason, thoroughly research which campaigns are bringing better (or worse) returns for each type of customer. Once this is done, invest in what is working so that the results are even better and, above all, correct the failures of the unproductive campaigns.

Set clear and metric goals to evaluate results

Goals must also become objectives to be achieved – these objectives must have clear deadlines.

How will the achievement of these objectives be measured? It is important to define metrics, that is, strategies to measure the quality and quantity of results in relation to what should be achieved.

Encourage the engagement of your employees

Little is worth having quality resources and products, having the market conducive to business growth, or already having brand visibility if your employees are not committed to the company – in such cases, the problem lies on the lack of an effective employee recognition policy.

So do not forget to observe and value all the talents that have stood out throughout the year and, at the same time, seek to establish a constructive dialogue with those who show dissatisfaction. Show your employees that they are, yes, recognized and praised for their abilities and work.

Explore your potential

With the results of your metrics and results evaluations, try to determine what your company’s key differentiators are. With this, you can combine your efforts for investments and more successful planning.

If, for example, your brand is more successful among the public than the direct competition, you can leverage it even more with campaigns that foster consumer desire. For this, it is also very important to evaluate your competition and seek to cope in what it is missing.

Organize and put into practice

After all that, comes the hard part: transforming strategic planning into action plans for each department of the company. That is where systemic thinking comes into play.

How, in the day-to-day operations, will actions be taken to achieve the objectives outlined in the planning? This the most important question that needs to be answered.

Finally, it is also fundamental to reflect that the relevance of strategic planning does not come from the degree of control or supervision, or the level of detailed instruction that it includes, but from the decisions it represents.

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