This column marks the one year anniversary of It鈥檚 your Business.
We鈥檝e covered a lot of ground from how to write a media release and branding your business to developing the big idea. The one topic that has not been touched upon is the need to develop a strategic plan.
With the challenges those of us in business are facing today, it can be so easy to lose sight of our ultimate objectives. This is perhaps the most compelling reason why having a strategic plan is a necessity.
However, it is not a necessary evil because a well thought out plan will act as a guide for decision making, provide a blueprint for developing business and operational plans, help with analysis of performance monitoring, stimulate change and help explain your business to others whether they be customers or investors.
A strategic plan should not be confused with a business plan or operational plan. The later two should be short term, tactical and focused on day to day activities. A strategic plan should be a very brief document that is more visionary, conceptual and focused on long term goals that can be realistically implemented over the next three to five years.
In essence, a strategic plan is the big picture of your business and the world around you.
In order to develop a strategic plan, it is essential that you follow a multi-step process that has been used with great success. The first order of business though is for you to make the commitment that you need the plan and are willing to invest your time to make it happen.
Secondly, you must decide on whether you have the resources to develop the plan yourself. You can go online and find millions of results for strategic planning and try to decide what will work best or hire a facilitator who is familiar with the process. This will of course be an expense but in the end one that will save you time and give you an unbiased look at your business.
Typically when you enter into the strategic planning process you will start by doing a SWOT analysis. This is an open and honest examination of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats that are pertinent to your business.
Unless you do this it will be next to impossible to develop all the other aspects of your plan which include the following components: vision, mission, values, overall goals, strategies, objectives and actions. In brief here鈥檚 what each component provides:
Vision: This is a statement that presents a picture of what you expect your company to look like in three or more years time.
Mission: Who are you? What do you do? What is your purpose as a company? Your mission statement should be able to give someone a clear understanding of your company in as few words as possible. Think in terms of how you would respond to the question of 鈥淲hat do you do?鈥� at a social gathering. Some refer to this as the 鈥渆levator pitch鈥� where you have only a few seconds to explain yourself before a potential client has to get off.
Values: This should be simple as it reflects the manner in which you conduct yourself with customers, suppliers, employees and the community at large.
Objectives: What do you want to achieve over the next three to five years? They should cover growth, technology, target markets and the underlying reasons why you are actually running your company.
Strategies: These answer the questions related to the guidelines that will help you achieve your vision, mission and objectives. For example, you might include that you will participate in trade shows and increase your internet presence.
Goals: These are your key targets that can be measured in terms of success. A simple example is that you will become the largest supplier of the proverbial widgets in two years.
Actions: This component is fairly straightforward as this is where you clearly define what you need to do in order to get results. Your actions set out the implementation plans needed to accomplish your key strategies.
One of these action plans might be to make the commitment to prepare a comprehensive public relations plan.
As with all of the steps undertaken to create a strategic plan, they must be developed in such a manner that the vision, mission, values, objectives strategies and actions must be inter-linked and are complimentary with each other and focused on your business.
Joe Smith is a communications consultant and an accomplished fine artist. He can be reached via email at joesmith@shaw.ca.
