Planning is critical to ensuring that a company achieves success and maintains its market share. Strategic planning is the cornerstone of the planning process. It is a formalized effort to weigh alternative courses of action and develop the strategies for the future. Senior management is responsible for working with the CEO in a collaborative environment to develop the strategic plan. The strategic plan includes the strategy and direction of the organization.

The strategy includes the overall goals of an organization such as growth, competitive advantage, and global presence. The direction defines what the organization is striving to accomplish, such as introducing new products or services, expanding into new markets, seeking acquisitions, and divesting obsolete businesses. The strategic plan also includes the long-range plans of the company. Long-range plans outline the long-term objectives, the strategies for achieving the objectives, and the measurable timeframes to achieve targets.

The first step is to create a planning hierarchy for your organization. The hierarchy can be represented as a pyramid with lower level needs at the bottom and higher level needs at the top. As illustrated in Figure 1, values are at the base of the pyramid and the mission is at the top.

Figure 1: Strategic Planning Pyramid

Mission

Objectives

Long-Range Goals

Values & Principles

The Mission Statement is the most critical component of any Strategic Plan. It provides the vision and business purpose for the long-range plans for an organization. Next, it is important to establish the organizations values and identify the guiding principles as the foundation.

The second step is to ensure that all long-range goals and objectives are in line with the mission and reflect your organization’s values and guiding principles. The strategic planning process is executed in a series of planning sessions. The planning sessions are designed to strategize each element of the strategic plan. The strategic planning blueprint provides a template for the strategic plan. As illustrated in Figure 2, the template is a step-by-step design for laying out the plan that includes six key sections.

Figure 2: Strategic Planning Blueprint

Section 1: Mission Statement-philosophy, aim, thrust

Section 2: Mission Objectives – results, measures

Section 3: Core competencies – skills, knowledge

Section 4: Critical Success Factors – tangible landmarks

Section 5: Quality Vision Statement – quality, integrity

Section 6: Long-Range Plans – priorities, principles, targets

The blueprint is designed to include all the key elements of the plan-Mission Statement, Mission Objectives, Core Competencies, Critical Success Factors, Quality Vision Statement and Long-Range Plans. As illustrated in Figure 3, there are some key elements of a successful Strategic Plan:

Figure 3: Key Elements

1. Mission Statement: What does our organization desire to be?

2. Mission Objectives: What results will be needed to achieve our strategy?

3. Core Competencies: What skills and knowledge will be needed to achieve our plan?

4. Critical Success Factors: What are the tangible landmarks to mark our progress?

5. Quality Vision Statement: What is our platform of quality and integrity?

6. Long-Range Plans: What targets will be required to achieve our mission?

The strategic plan represents a company’s unique strategies and the policies to achieve them. Once all the information is compiled in the blueprint, the strategic plan provides information for myriad readers including board members and auditors.