Strategic planning for small businesses
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Many entrepreneurial ventures mistakenly belief that strategic planning is only for large businesses that can afford the time and personnel to develop a sound plan. However, if you are to compete in the marketplace against the "big guys", you need to learn some of their gameplans - and strategic planning is a major part of any successful, large business. That does not mean that your startup needs all the bells and whistles of the more complex plans.
What is strategic planning and how does it differ from other types of planning? Strategic planning involves setting up a strategy that your business is going to follow over a defined time period. It can be for a specific part of the business, like planning a marketing strategy, or for the business as a whole.
Differing businesses use various time periods for their strategic planning. The time period is usually dependent on how fast the industry is moving. In a fast-changing environment like the internet, 5-year plans don't make sense. In industries that change more slowly, longer range planning is possible and desirable.
Writing a business plan is different from strategic planning. One writes a business plan when one is starting something new - a business or a product/service line within a business. Strategy looks to growth while business planning looks to beginnings. Part of the strategy of a business may be to introduce a new product line. That product line would then have its own business plan for its development and introduction. Without a strategy your business has no direction.
There is no set format for a strategic plan. There are a large variety of models. The important criterion is find a model that is workable for your particular business.
In its most basic form, the critical components are:
Business Purpose
The business purpose is often also called the mission of the business. It is a brief statement about why the business exists - what you want to achieve. This does not need to be complicated, but it must sum up the essence of what you are trying to do as a business.
Organizational Goals
Goals are the ends to which your efforts are aimed - how you plan on accomplishing your purpose or mission.
Strategies for Reaching Each Goal
A strategy is another way of saying what approach are you going to take in reaching this goal. The important thing in this step is to build in checkpoints to ascertain that the strategy is working and to be flexible about changing if need be.
Action Plans to Implement Strategy
Action plans are the specific activities that you will be using to implement the strategy. It is good to have this step stated as precisely as possible so that you can measure progress towards its achievement.
Monitoring Plan Implementation
Here is where many, many strategic plans fail. If you don't follow through on whether the plan is being followed and how it is doing, you might as well have not spent the time doing it in the first place. Put checkpoints in and make it a point to not let them pass unnoticed.
posted at 2:40 AM
|
