|
Business English
5 Steps to Strategic Planning
By June Campbell
日本語
Where do you want your business to be a year from now? Five
years?
The process of identifying where you want to be and deciding
what you must do to get there is known as strategic planning.
And it's as important for small business operators as it is
for large corporations. Without a clear picture of where you
want to be, your path will be fraught with indecisiveness,
second thoughts and forays off into directions that you don't
want to pursue.
The process is a simple one, although each step requires
considerable thought and analyses. Here are the five steps
to strategic planning. For best results, write or type your
responses to each step, rather than trying to keep everything
sorted out in your mind.
Step One: Look to the past and examine your business' history.
Where have you been? What successes has your business enjoyed
in the past? What challenges did it face and how did it handle
those challenges? What have you learned through these experiences?
Step Two: Look to the present. Where are you now? Perform
a SWOT analyses on your present operations. SWOT stands for
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Analyze
your business and your products/services according to the
four SWOT categories. And please, be realistic. There is no
such thing as a business without weaknesses or a business
without threats from outside sources.
Step Three: Look to the future. What vision do you have for
your business in one year? Five years? Drawing on the data
and knowledge you have obtained from steps one and two, create
a picture of how you want your business to be. Do you want
to be home based? In a downtown office? Do you want employees?
Do you want a new product or a different product? What revenues
do you want to generate? Who will your customers be? What
role do you want to play personally and what do you want to
see others are doing? At this point, don't worry about how
you will move from where you are to where you want to be.
You will analyze that step later. For now, just create a realistic
vision and write it into a Vision Statement. When you are
finished, move on to the next step.
Step Four: Draw up your goals. Using your Vision Statement
as a guide, develop a list of goals for your business. For
example, if your vision included "Being the biggest supplier
of widgets in the Pacific Northwest", then ask yourself what
you will need to do to accomplish that vision. The things
you will need to do are your goals. For example, perhaps one
of your goals would be to establish a branch office in Seattle
or Vancouver. Create goals for each aspect of your vision.
When your goals are drawn up, move along to Step Five.
Step Five: Identify your Objectives. Your objectives are
the action steps you will take to meet your goals. Include
the dates by which you want to have completed each objective.
In the example above, if your goal is to establish a branch
office in Seattle by 2003, your objectives could be something
like the following:
- Make list of desired features in new office. Identify
which are critical and which are expendable. To be completed
by
- Contact real estate agent in Seattle. Date of completion
- Arrange lease of office space. Date of completion
- Acquire furnishings and office supplies. Date of completion
- Recruit employees for new branch office. Date of completion
- Open branch office. Date of completion - You get the
idea.
Your strategic plan gives you a step-by-step plan of action
that will move you systematically to the place you want to
be.
Please remember that strategic planning is an ongoing activity.
The most successful corporations and organizations consider
this type of planning to be vital to their ongoing success.
In an ever-changing business environment, our strategic plans
need ongoing attention.
------------------------------------------------------------------
How to Write Business Plans, Business Proposals, JV Contracts,
More! No-cost ebook "Beginners Guide to Ecommerce". Business
Writing by Nightcats Multimedia Productions www.nightcats.com
Back
|
