Strategic Plans - What's the Point?

	Strategic Plans - What's the Point?
	Some people think that just because they have created a business plan, that they have done everything required to be ready to go out there and take over the world! Not so! There are a number of things that strategic plans achieve which are distinctly different from business and project plans. A strategic plan: Serves as a framework for decision making, Is the basis for accountability to owners, investors and shareholders, Forms a basis for business and project planning, Explains the business to others (both external and internal to the business) in such a way as to involve them in the company direction, motivate them to support it, and let them know what the strategic direction is, Helps with benchmarking and performance monitoring, Is a stimulus for change in the business, and become the building block for future plans. Strategic plans are explicitly not detailed - nothing like a business plan. The strategic plan provides the foundation and framework for a business plan. Strategic plans are visionary documents and not intended in any way to be operational plans. Instead, they are conceptual, directional, and long term. While they are conceptual and visionary, they need to be concrete enough that they can be seen as realistic and attainable, so that you have something solid to hook your business and operational plans in to, and so you can actually tell when you have achieved the stated goals.

	Why use Mind Mapping for Strategic Planning?
	Every business needs a strategic plan to make sure you know where you are going. Strategic planning is all about setting the long term direction of the company - knowing what your goals, intentions and values are. Business owners and managers often get so preoccupied with the immediate issues (thinking tactically rather than strategically), that they lose sight of their ultimate objectives. Having a strategic plan doesn't guarantee your success though. Very often, even when strategic plans are prepared, they are not implemented. Sometimes the employees don't even know of their existence, let alone understand the contents, and "buy in" to the goals and spirit of the company. So what makes the difference between a plan that is useful and one that is ignored? Well, when you create a Mind Mapped plan, it is colorful, interesting, easy to understand, and hooks into the full understanding of everyone in the company, whether they are more inclined to logical linear thinking, or more creative and artistic. Mind Maps are memorable, and make a deep lasting impression - the sort that gets the ideas in your strategic plan implemented throughout the day to day operations of the company. Mind Mapped strategic plans are also the sort of thing that you can make into a poster and put up on the wall so that everyone can see it - including your clients and business associates. This in itself builds the need for you to be consistent with your stated plans. These are some very powerful reasons to use Mind Maps for your strategic plans, and as we will see, there are a lot of ways Mind Mapping helps in the generation of strategic plans too.

	Developing a Strategic Plan
	It can be very easy to be stuck in the rut of firefighting current issues, and thinking tactically or even in short term planning for immediate business goals and projects. It is therefore a good idea to get out of the office - away from the immediate pressures of tactical things, so you can put together your strategic plan. When thinking about what should go in your strategic plan, you should be thinking about a 2-4 year time period. Any longer than that seems unattainable, and the business and market environment is likely to change so much that the goals would not make sense anyway. Any shorter and you get back into tactical thinking. Here are some key points for putting together your strategic plan: It should be intended for a 2-4 year implementation timescale, It should be created by the owners and/or directors of the company, Focus on things that are important from a strategic perspective - this is not operational, tactical, business, project, or marketing planning, Get out of the office and away somewhere you can concentrate on things of strategic importance, Be realistic about the expectations, but also detached from the current business, and even critical of the way things are being done now. Look at the competition from a strategic perspective and learn from their approach. Before you start developing the strategic plan, make a Mind Map of your current status, objectives and strategies. A large part of this can be covered by a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analysis Mind Map. Some areas to consider when putting together your SWOT analysis are: 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. Understanding the Company Vision As a first step to developing the strategic plan, you need to have a clear vision for the company. In the context of a strategic plan, what you are looking for is something that describes the business in 3-5 years. How big will the business be? What products will you be selling? What services will you provide? What will your position be in the market? Understanding the Company Mission The second thing to be clear about is the company mission. This is a statement of what you do. It is very concrete, and states what you will make, sell or provide; whom you will provide it to; who it will affect; what the intended purpose is; what technologies you will use; what sales channels you will use; what makes you unique. Understanding the Company Values Now we get into the softer issues: What are you here for? What are you here to do and accomplish? What is the difference that you will make to your clients, suppliers, employees, shareholders, your community, the world? The Company Objectives With that background, explicitly state the business's objectives in terms of the results it needs/wants to achieve in the medium/long term. Aside from presumably indicating a necessity to achieve regular profits, objectives should relate to the expectations and requirements of all the major stakeholders, including employees, and should reflect the underlying reasons for running the business. These objectives could cover growth, profitability, technology, offerings and markets. The Strategies Well, this is a strategic plan after all, so I guess we need some strategies in here somewhere! These are the rules and guidelines by which the mission, objectives etc. may be achieved. They can cover the business as a whole including such matters as diversification, organic growth, or acquisition plans, or they can relate to primary matters in key functional areas, for example: The company's internal cash flow will fund all future growth. New products will progressively replace existing ones over the next 3 years. All assembly work will be contracted out to lower the company's break-even point. Use SWOTs to help identify possible strategies by building on strengths, resolving weaknesses, exploiting opportunities and avoiding threats. The Goals Next come the Goals. These are specific medium or long term measurable milestones towards the company's objectives, for example, to achieve sales of $3m in three years time. Goals should be quantifiable, consistent, realistic and achievable. They can relate to factors like market (sizes and shares), products, finances, profitability, utilization, efficiency. It goes without saying that the mission, objectives, values, strategies and goals must be inter-linked and consistent with each other. This is much easier said than done because many businesses which are set up with the clear objective of making their owners wealthy often lack strategies, realistic goals or concise missions. Follow Through The strategic plan should be reviewed on a regular basis - at least annually, and must be written down and communicated to everyone it impacts. More: http://namecardmy.com/2011年兔年运程 (from 1 Name Card, 1 Malaysia)