Do you already have a Strategic Plan for your company? Do you know what it is exactly? Be that as it may, thanks to this set of business techniques, you will be able to make the best possible decisions to give your Brand a correct course and in accordance with your business objectives.
And it is that, within the lines of action of a business, there are times that we get lost in a sea of technicalities or trying to put too complex techniques into practice, which not only do not bring us closer to said corporate objectives, but also make us diverge more and more from them.
For this reason, today I invite you to create your own Strategic Company Plan , with which you will plan all the actions to be done and, in addition, transmit them to your team in an efficient way and make them sink in. But, I’ll start by offering you its definition, in case you still don’t know what I’m talking about:
What is the Strategic Plan of a company and what is it for?
This strategic plan will allow you to clearly define each and every one of the Business’s objectives and pave the way towards being able to achieve Your goals .
But, do not pave the way in any way: we must spend the least amount of time and money along that path, that is, this Strategic Plan will make our project as profitable as possible.
In addition, it will help you coordinate in an orderly manner, together with your work team, all the main ideas that should drive efficient day-to-day actions, allowing you, why not, to better understand the nature and direction of your business.
And last but not least, you will be able to get to know your competition better , being able, thanks to all of the above, to achieve the success you dreamed of, according to the aforementioned objectives.
Why should I prepare a Strategic Plan if I have a company?
It is essential that you keep in mind the objectives you want to achieve with your company and what actions you are going to carry out to achieve it.
The best way to know them and control compliance is in the Strategic Plan.
This roadmap in which you are going to describe in detail everything you want to achieve and how you are going to work to achieve it, is the fundamental pillar that gives your company all the meaning.
In addition to the peace of mind that knowing what you have to do at all times gives you, the Strategic Plan gives you all these benefits:
- The company always goes in the same direction, something that helps a lot to achieve the objectives set.
- You learn to know yourself better. You will have maximum control over your strengths, that is, what you know how to do perfectly; and you will also be able to measure the threats, that is, everything you need to improve your quality.
- You make better decisions. The Strategic Plan obliges you to carry out follow-up controls, both of the strategy and of the objectives set. This helps you to check that you are doing things right; or else rectify in time by identifying the problem very precisely.
- All the people who are part of the company feel more committed. And it is that thanks to the Strategic Plan, employees know the importance of their job at a global level, something that helps them feel more valued.
In addition, as they also know the path that the company will follow to achieve its objectives, they will feel happier. And, therefore, your work performance will be optimal.
Next, I am going to teach you how to make a Strategic Plan in detail, so take note!
How to make a Strategic Plan of a company in four simple steps?
Planning of this type is a very simple process; You must analyze the current situation, both inside and outside your company, in order to determine the objectives and design the strategies that will help you achieve them.
Once the entire process has been analyzed and defined, you only have to prepare the Action Plan , that roadmap that will make your company work perfectly, and where there is only room for success.
Let’s see how you can create your own Strategic Plan in 4 steps.
1) First step: define the purpose of your company
Before starting to analyze anything, you must be clear about why and for what you have created your company; It is the only way to be able to define the path you must follow to reach the goal you set for yourself.
To do this, you must have very well defined foundations that define the purpose of your company:
› Mission
This is the reason for your company, the reason and why you have decided to create your little empire.
You have to answer the question of how do you help improve the lives of others?
That is, why did you open your company? What is the main reason that led you to open it?
› Vision
With the vision you must be clear about where you are going and what you want to achieve.
> Values
Values are the ethical code of your company. They should reflect the red lines that you are not willing to cross, as well as everything that is allowed and that will help you fulfill your purpose.
In addition, the definition of the values must coincide with what others say about you.
And when I say “others”, I mean your employees, your customers, your suppliers and even your competitors.
» You are also interested in reading: How to define the Mission, Vision and Values of a company?
2) Do the internal and external analysis of the current business situation
This is the most important and objective step that you must do during the process of developing your Strategic Plan.
And you have to know where your company is and how you got here.
And you must also know your company’s environment : know how it relates to it and how foreign relations affect it, both with agents close to it such as client, suppliers and competitors.
In order to carry out these two analyses, internal and external, you can use a series of tools that will help you obtain a better and more realistic view of the situation.
I’m going to teach you the tools you need to do this analysis of the current situation.
> Internal analisis
The preparation of this analysis should lead you to know the basic elements of your company, such as the organizational chart, the status of the website.
In addition, you must accompany this step with a financial analysis that gives you back the reality of the situation.
To do this, you need to have a “P&L” (profit and loss account) handy next to the balance sheet.
Once you have all this data extracted, it is time to see the first results.
You will get to know the areas of the company that you manage perfectly and also those that you are not so good at.
That is, this internal analysis helps you to know your strengths and weaknesses .
And with this information you can start designing the first strategies that reinforce your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses.
3)Design of strategies
Without losing sight of everything you have analyzed so far, you must define the objectives you want, maintaining consistency with the Mission, Vision and Values that you designed in the first step.
› Define your objectives following the SMART methodology
This is nothing more than a kind of guide that will help you define your SMART goals based on 5 characteristics that they must meet:
- S (specific): you have to be specific and specify what you want to achieve.
- M (measurable): indicate how you can measure their follow-up.
- A (attainable): It is very important that it is an achievable goal.
- R (relevant): do not lose focus and design results-oriented objectives.
- T (timely): set a time limit to get it.
The 4 strategic orientations
The combination of the four variables of the SWOT gives rise to the 4 strategic orientations that will help you in the elaboration of your own strategies:
- Defensive strategies: they arise with the combination of Threats and Strengths and their objective is to prevent the current situation from getting worse.
- Offensive strategies: they are the result of combining Strengths and Opportunities. His mission is to improve the current situation of the company.
- Survival strategies: they appear after combining the Weaknesses and Threats and must eliminate all the negative aspects that harm the company.
- Reorientative strategies: joining the Weaknesses and Opportunities, we have this result whose objective is the transformation of the current situation eliminating the Weaknesses of the company and creating new Strengths.
4) Fourth step: launch and follow-up control of the Strategic Plan
Without forgetting the four characteristics that the Strategic Plan must have: Quantitative, Personalized, Descriptive and Temporary, in this fourth and last phase of its elaboration, you have to create the Action Plan that begins its execution.
To do this, you have to divide the strategies into small tactics that lead to very short-term objectives; some will even be daily goals.