Strategic Planning is essential to Your Company’s Success

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Tue, 05/03/2011

Failing to plan is like planning to fail. How many times have you heard that before? Yet the vast majority of new companies are lax in completing a strategic plan, never mind adjusting it on a yearly basis.

Many companies go into business without the need to go to the bank for a loan. If you did go in for a loan, your chance of obtaining the loan would increase if you can present a complete strategic plan. There are several major components to the plan, including a breakdown of both the revenue and expense sides of the ledger. Major components within those two areas of the plan is the sales plan; how you are going to develop revenue, and the marketing plan; how you are going to expose the company to your target market and interest them in buying your products or services.

Each year there are several variables that change, which means it is vitally important to adjust your plan annually and look into the future by developing one, three and five year plans. Market conditions, competition, cost of manufacturing, employee expense are only a few of those variables that must be dissected to stay on track.

Are the goals of the company in line with the plan? Is there enough market share available to increase your business? Possibly adding product lines or brand extensions to what you sell now could enhance the bottom line profit of the company.

The strategic plan is a roadmap that everyone in the company should use to one extent or another. So that means having many employees involved in strategic planning. If they build it together they will support it together. When the company reaches it’s goals, everyone can feel good about the accomplishment.

Generally a strategic plan is either done on a calendar or fiscal year basis. However, If you are doing business without a plan, you can develop a partial plan now until it is time to develop the full year plan. How about this; succeeding to plan is like planning to succeed!

What are your challenges when it comes to strategic planning for your business? I look forward to hearing your comments.

Until next time …