What is Strategic Planning?

What is Strategic Planning?

In business it sometimes seems that everything is ‘Strategic’, but how does being strategic translate into a strategic plan?

Whereas being Strategic means thinking ahead, considering multiple outcomes and making informed decisions; a Strategic Plan is a long term roadmap of your company’s vision, mission and goals.

At its core, strategic planning is the process of defining your business's direction and making decisions on allocating its resources to get there. It's about looking beyond the short term to the horizon and understanding where you want your business to be in the future.

Strategic Planning is  also vital for SMEs!

Think of it like this: Imagine you're setting sail. Without a destination in mind and a route planned, you're likely to drift to and you are potentially vulnerable to unpredictable currents and winds. Strategic planning acts as your navigation chart, helping you set your course, anticipate potential obstacles, and make informed decisions to reach your desired destination.  

Benefits of Strategic Planning:

Clear Direction: Helps you to map our your company’s growth and how to achieve it; it also helps you to identify your USP and differentiate yourself from competitors and carve out a niche against your competitors.

Focus: Aligns your team towards the same goals and ensures the company resources are directed towards the most impactful activities, preventing wasted efforts and cost.

Clarity:  Provides a clear vision, enabling proactive decision making and a shared purpose for a more resilient business model.

Attracting Investment and Talent: A clear vision and direction allows you to proactively identify  and seek out key areas for investment and talent requirements.

Adaptability: While a plan provides direction, it also allows you to know when you need to change and respond to changing market conditions and customer needs.

Risk Mitigation: Identifies and addresses potential risks, allowing you and your team to think of ways to mitigate or protect the business against these.

Sustainable Growth:  Ultimately strategic planning moves your business beyond the day-to-day survival towards a future of continuous improvement and growth.  

Its doesn’t have to be complex

The beauty of strategic planning is its adaptability. For SME’s a more agile and focused approach is often more effective. You can tailor the process to fit your organisation size, industry and resources. It does requires a commitment from leadership to think strategically and you should ensure to involve key stakeholders in the process.

 As a business leader, you may have a strategy mapped out in your mind but do not have the time to put it down on paper. If this is the case have a look at our short Step by Step Guide to Strategic Planning.

A strategic plan provides clarity and focus. It’s your navigation chart for sustainable success! So set sail and embrace the power of strategic planning – your business will thank you for it! 😉

At Little Bird Consultancy we can work with you to create a strategic plan based on how you want to develop your company, along with steps to implementation and ensuring employee buy-in. Contact us for more information. info@littlebirdconsultancy.co.uk