7. Using the Strategic Planning Worksheet

When using the Strategic Planning Worksheet below, note the following suggestions:

1. Relate the planning exercise to a specific company or, if diversified, to individual strategic business units.
2. Ideally the worksheet should be compiled by a multi-discipline management group, or separately by 2/3 groups and then discussed in plenary session if a large business unit is involved.
3. If working on your own, complete the worksheet and then return to it a few times over the following few days and critically review what you wrote - why, why, why etc. and ask yourself whether you have seen the "wood for trees".
4. A completed worksheet should be edited down into a 1-2 page document and reviewed by the group(s). The final form of the document need not follow the worksheet's layout provided all the matters are covered.
5. All ideas, issues etc. should be internally consistent and realistic.
6. You need a very good understanding of the market, competitors etc. in order to make a clear assessment of your SWOTs. If you haven't got this insight, suspend work on your strategic plan until you have done this basic research.
7. Allow enough time as you may find it much more difficult to write a short plan than a long one !!!!

6. Simple & Short Strategic Plans

Notwithstanding that "battles are often lost for want of nails", a company rarely succeeds or fails for minor or trivial reasons. The causes are usually substantial and are often self-evident, at least to an outsider. For example, the business was completely over-borrowed; management was weak; a major new product opportunity was identified; legislation changed; a major competitor went bust or expanded; the company never reinvested.

It should be possible in the course of a few pages to set down the main elements of a business's vision, mission, values, objectives, goals, strategies, SWOTs etc. The compilation of a short report along these lines is likely to prove much more difficult than a lengthy dissertation which mixes up details and principles, and confuses the broad picture. See a sample strategic plan - use the back button on your browser to return to this page.

Independent advisers or non-executive directors can play a valuable role in this process because they can readily adopt the role of devil's advocate and also bring external knowledge and expertise to bear. The worksheet presented below may also assist.

For further information on business planning issues, refer to other papers in this series which cover business ideas, business strategies, financial planning, cashflow forecasting and business planning.

5. SWOTs - Keys to Business Strategies

Having built up a picture of the company's past aims and achievements, the all-important SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis can commence.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths and weaknesses are essentially internal to the organization and relate to matters concerning resources, programs and organization in key areas. These include:

• Sales - marketing - distribution - promotion - support;
• Management - systems - expertise - resources;
• Operations - efficiency - capacity - processes;
• Products - services - quality - pricing - features - range - competitiveness;
• Finances - resources - performance;
• R&D - effort - direction - resources;
• Costs - productivity - purchasing;
• Systems - organization - structures.

• If a startup is being planned, the strengths and weaknesses are related mainly to the promoter(s) - their experience, expertise and management abilities - rather than to the project.

The objective is to build up a picture of the outstanding good and bad points, achievements and failures and other critical features within the company.

Threats & Opportunities

The external threats and opportunities confronting a company, can exist or develop in the following areas:

• The company's own industry where structural changes may be occurring (Size and segmentation; growth patterns and maturity; established patterns and relationships, emergence/contraction of niches; international dimensions; relative attractiveness of segments)

• The marketplace which may be altering due to economic or social factors (Customers; distribution channels; economic factors, social/demographic issues; political & environmental factors)

• Competition which may be creating new threats or opportunities (Identities, performances, market shares, likely plans, aggressiveness, strengths & weaknesses)

• New technologies which may be causing fundamental changes in products, processes, etc. (Substitute products, alternative solutions, shifting channels, cost savings etc.)

• Against an uncertain and shifting background, the objective must be to identify and prioritize the key SWOTs in a one-handed manner (Don't say "on the one hand ...........but on the other hand.........").
  Develop Business Strategies
  Once the SWOT review is complete, the future strategy may be readily apparent or, as is more likely the case, a series of strategies or combinations of tactics will suggest themselves. Use the SWOTs to help identify possible strategies as follows:
  Build on strengths
  Resolve weaknesses
  Exploit opportunities
  Avoid threats
• 
  The resulting strategies can then be filtered and moulded to form the basis of a realistic strategic plan - see also Devising Business Strategies for further insights into the development of strategies.

4. Effect not Equal to Cause when Planning Strategy

When reviewing a business it is essential to cut through the symptoms of problems and reach the underlying causes. Questions which can assist in revealing the real causes include the following:

• "What stopped the business from?"
• "What caused the cause of?"
• "Why didn't the business achieve a 25% return?"
  

By way of an example consider why this company may be unable to increase its market share:

• Because it cannot penetrate major customers because its product range is too narrow because the company doesn't have the capability to produce additional products because of shortcomings in R & D because of a lack of expertise and resource because R & D is not an immediate priority because of a lack of profits because of a high interest burden because the company is over-reliant on borrowings because the shareholders won't/can't raise additional permanent capital.

The moral in this case is that there are no major customers due to under-capitalization !
Also have a look at the discussion on causes of business failure in Devising Business Strategies.

resource : http://www.planware.org/strategicplan.htm#3

3. Use Hindsight when Strategic Planning

Statements on vision, mission, objectives, values, strategies and goals are not just elements of future planning. They also provide benchmarks for a historic review. Most managers will find it exceedingly difficult to develop a future strategy for a business without knowing its current strategies and measuring their success to date.

Assess Current Position

The starting point must be to determine a company's existing (implicit or explicit) vision, mission, objectives and strategies. Then judge these against actual performance along the following lines:

Assess Current Position

The starting point must be to determine a company's existing (implicit or explicit) vision, mission, objectives and strategies. Then judge these against actual performance along the following lines:

• Is the current vision being realized?
• How has the company's mission and objectives changed over the past say, three years?
• Why have the changes occurred or why have no changes occurred? Identify primary reasons and categorize them as either internal or external.
• Describe the actual strategies followed over the past few years in respect of products/services, operations, finance, marketing, technology, management etc.
• Critically examine each strategy statement by reference to activities and actions in key functional areas covering such matters as:
• How has the company been managed?
• How has the company been funded?
• How has the company sought to increase sales and market share?
• How have productivity/costs moved?

• Take each element and quantify by reference to actual performance. Ask of each "why not"?, "why only"?, or "why so"? and locate the reasons for differences between the actual and desired performance.

Resouurce : http://www.planware.org/strategicplan.htm#3