Sample Strategic Plans
Strategy is more than simply achieving business goals. it creates clarity, alignment and organization-wide engagement. we’ve assembled a handful of sample strategic plans. some are from our clients. others are just examples. all of them reflect good general guidelines and structure, which can be incorporated into your own strategy design., for profit sample strategic plans, these sample plans are based on a fictional organization. the information for our business clients is confidential..
One-Page Strategic Plan
An easy-to-read, full-color overview to help everyone visualize the complete strategy.
Company Strategic Plan
A summary of your strategic plan with strategic objectives, goals and action items.
Department Strategic Plan
Company SWOT
An assessment of your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Department Action Plan
A quick-hit summary of progress against goals and action items. Great for use at strategy reviews.
Individual Action Plan
Team Member Performance Review
Use this action plan as a performance review sheet for periodic staff reviews.
Non-Profit Sample Strategic Plans
These sample plans are deliverables for north slope borough school district. this is public information and is shareable..
School One-Page Strategic Plan
School Full Strategic Plan
School Strategic Plan with Progress
Church Sample Strategic Plans
Church One-Page Strategic Plan
Church Full Strategic Plan
Church One-Click Strategic Plan
A comprehensive report from mission through action items & includes SWOT, scorecard, roadmap & budget.
Church Roadmap
A summary of high-level goals broken out by year according to the dates established during goal.
We're sorry, this computer has been flagged for suspicious activity.
If you are a member, we ask that you confirm your identity by entering in your email.
You will then be sent a link via email to verify your account.
If you are not a member or are having any other problems, please contact customer support.
Thank you for your cooperation
More From Forbes
Strategic plan template: what to include in yours.
- Share to Facebook
- Share to Twitter
- Share to Linkedin
A strategic plan is a roadmap to grow your business. To help you succeed, use this proven strategic plan template , and the information below details the 13 key sections you must include in your strategic plan.
Section 1: Executive Summary
The Executive Summary of your strategic plan should be completed last, and this section merely summarizes each of the other sections of your plan.
The Executive Summary is important since it will help other key constituents, such as employees, advisors, and investors, quickly understand and support your plan.
Section 2: Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is a brief description of your business. Your elevator pitch is included in your strategic plan since it’s key to your business’ success, and often times should be updated annually. Here’s why it’s important: if your employees can’t clearly and concisely articulate your business to others, you inevitably miss out on tons of sales and other opportunities.
Section 3: Company Mission Statement
Your company mission statement explains what your business is trying to achieve. While it may seem unimportant, it’s not. You see, for internal decision-making, your mission statement guides employees to make the right decisions; decisions that are in line with helping the company achieve its mission. For external parties, such as investors, partners, and customers, your mission can inspire them to take the actions you want.
Section 4: SWOT
The reason to include a SWOT analysis (analysis of your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) in your Strategic Plan is to help you determine the best opportunities to pursue to achieve your growth goals. It also helps you identify which strengths you must develop in the near future to improve your company.
Section 5: Goals
Setting and achieving goals is the hallmark of successful companies and is a critical element of your strategic plan.
They key is to first identify your 5 year or long-term goals. Next, identify your one-year goals; that is, what you must achieve in the next year for it to be successful and to put your company on the right trajectory to achieving your 5 year goals.
Then work backwards two more times to determine your goals for the next quarter and the next month. Ideally you update you strategic plan monthly to modify this section.
Section 6: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Great businesses understand their metrics and KPIs. By tracking your KPIs, you know exactly how your business is performing and can adjust as needed.
For example, a basic KPI such as Total Sales is critical for understanding if the company is performing well. “Underlying” KPIs are equally as important. For example, if sales are affected by 1) number of visitors to your website, 2) number of visitors who complete a contact form, 3) number of proposals you issue to these leads, and 4) the proposal closing ratio, then each of these KPIs should be tracked. Then, if for instance, the number of visitors to your website decreased, you would know and fix this immediately, rather then waiting until sales plummet later.
So, it’s critical to identify the KPIs you will track in your business and list them in this section of your strategic plan.
Click “next page” below for sections 7 to 13 of your strategic plan or here for the proven strategic plan template .
Section 7: Target Customers
In this section of your strategic plan, you will identify the wants and needs of each of your target customer groups. This is important in focusing your marketing efforts and getting a higher return on investment on your advertising expenditures. This is because the more you can “speak” directly to your target customer wants and needs in your marketing, the better you will attract them.
Section 8: Industry Analysis
Your industry analysis doesn’t have to be a comprehensive report on what’s going on in your market. However, you should conduct an analysis to ensure the market size is growing (if not, you might want to diversify), and to help identify new opportunities for growth.
Section 9: Competitive Analysis & Advantage
Similarly to your industry analysis, your competitive analysis doesn’t have to be a thorough report listing every detail about every competitor. Rather, in addition to defining who your key competitors are, you should list their strengths & weaknesses.
Most importantly, use this analysis to determine your current competitive advantages and ways to develop additional advantages.
Section 10: Marketing Plan
In addition to your strategic plan, I recommend you develop a comprehensive marketing plan describing how you will attract prospects, convert them to paying customers and maximize your lifetime customer value.
Include a summary of your marketing plan in your strategic plan.
Section 11: Team
The team section of your strategic plan ensures you have the human resources to execute on the opportunities you’ve identified and to achieve the goals you established in section 5 of your plan.
Here you should list your current team members and identify the types of people you need to hire in the next year to achieve your goals.
Section 12: Operations Plan
Your operations plan helps you transform your goals and opportunities into reality. In this section of your plan, you will identify each of the individual projects that comprise your larger goals and how these projects will be completed. Finally, you’ll map out each of your initiatives, ideally in a Gantt chart, so you know when each project will start and who will lead them.
Section 13: Financial Projections
The final section of your strategic plan is your financial projections. Your financial projections help in multiple ways. First, you can use a financial model to assess the potential results for each opportunity you consider pursuing.
Also, once you determine the opportunities you will pursue, your financial projections will map out the goals. For example, you’ll know exactly how many new customers you must attract in the next month, and at what price point, to achieve next month’s goal.
You should develop your complete strategic plan each year, and then update it monthly as actual results come in and you gain more clarity and intelligence. While you will rarely achieve the precise goals established in your strategic plan, scores of research show that you’ll come much closer to them versus if you didn’t plan at all. So, develop your strategic plan today , and achieve the goals you desire.
Also on Forbes:
Gallery: Career Advice For Millennials From A Marketing Whiz
- Editorial Standards
- Reprints & Permissions
e-Sign with PandaDoc
Strategic Plan Template
Used 5,378 times
Created by:
[Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName] [Sender.Title] [Sender.Company]
[Sender.Phone] [Sender.Email]
Prepared for:
[Client.FirstName] [Client.LastName]
[Client.Title] [Client.Company]
[Client.Phone] [Client.Email]
Executive summary
Problem statement.
In recent feedback sessions, (percent) % of
your customers experience a need for (declare customer need, such as faster delivery, accessibility, or a cheaper product).
In surveys of customers who have chosen the competitors (product) , they mentioned that (price/delivery/accessibility, etc.) and (price/delivery/accessibility, etc.) was a problem (percent) % of the time.
To best serve your existing customers, you need to develop a series of (product/service/initiative) and sell it (at/with a better price point/faster delivery/improved accessibility, etc.) .
Proposed solution
Your new (product/service/initiative) should begin (at/with) (percent) % (cheaper/faster delivery/more accessibility, etc.), with the potential to increase it to (percent) % depending on (what could prevent your product from succeeding, like marketing, amount of employees, etc.).
In order to offer (these prices/improved accessibility/faster delivery, etc.) , you should do the following:
Pain point 1
(How to improve pain-point #1)
Pain point 2
(How to improve pain-point #2)
Pain point 3
(How to improve pain-point #3)
Note that our proposed solution will not affect the overall quality of your business or brand.
With our proposed solution, your brand could (breakout into new markets/reduce manufacturing costs, etc.) . These new offerings could bring in $ (profit amount) , which would help your business's financial projections at the end of Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4/year).
Your company
! The following information discusses what your company currently looks like.
Mission statement
Core values/principles.
(What does your business want to accomplish for its customers?)
(What is your vision, is it to become the best in your industry?)
Goals and objectives
(What are your objectives? Gaining more customers, expanding the company to 100 employees, or getting more investors?)
Product or service development
! We recommend your business creates the following products/services.
Product/service description
(Product/service description)
Pricing model
(Pricing model, including one-time costs or subscription costs)
Delivery capabilities
(Includes resource requirements for delivery, design ideas, and performance projections.)
Delivery system
(How you’ll deliver the product: online, shipment, etc.)
Critical element suppliers
(Includes the supply chain, such as inventory management, packaging strategy, storage and delivery strategy, regulatory compliance, safety, financial models, and data integrity and control.)
Marketing research
! Based on data, your business should be targeting the following customers.
Your competition and market status are how we determine if you’re aligning with industry marketing outcomes.
(Create a customer avatar that includes their age, gender, marital status, children, location, occupation, job title, average income, education, goals, values, challenges, point points, and common objections.)
Competition
(Choose at least 3 competitors, preferably direct competitors, in your industry to use for your SWOT analysis.)
Market status
(How is your market performing?)
Marketing goals
! Based on data, we believe your business should commit to the following
marketing goals.
Consumer climate
(How much do you expect your consumers to spend?)
Market share
(What portion of the market share do you expect to have?)
Diversification
(What industries or areas do you want to invest in?)
Distribution channels
(What direct and indirect distribution channels do you want to invest in? Retailers, wholesalers, or agents?)
Marketing plan
! Based on research, your business should include the following marketing initiatives.
Strategy and tactics
Customer markets.
(What are your main marketing strategies and tactics?)
(What customer markets are you targeting? Primary and/or secondary?)
Market positioning
Advertising research.
(How do you want your customers to view your brand or product?)
(How will you conduct market research? What is your strategy?)
Public positioning
Test marketing.
(Will your public positioning be based on product characteristics, price, quality/luxury, product use, or on the competition?)
(What markets, besides your direct market, should you test?)
Cross-selling
(Where are your cross-selling opportunities?)
SWOT analysis
! Based on research, this chart represents your and your competition’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for growth, and potential threats. Use this chart to improve on your offerings.
Self: (What are you doing right? Why do your customers like you?)
Competition: (What is your competition doing right? Why do their customers like them? Can you capitalize on their strengths?)
Self: (What are you doing wrong? What do your customers say they want you to improve? How can you improve on these problems?)
Competition: (What are they doing wrong? What do their customers say they want them to improve? How can you capitalize on these problems?)
Opportunities
Self: (Where are there opportunities for growth in your company based on your and your competition's weaknesses and your strengths?)
Competition: (Where can your business improve and capitalize on your competition’s customers? When can you implement these changes?)
Self: (What projects are you creating at the moment? What could go wrong, and how has your competition implemented a similar project?)
Competition: (Are you aware of new projects your competition is implementing? What could go wrong? Could your business do it better?)
See risk factors and contingencies for possible financial shortfalls.
Financial plan
! Below are your total costs regarding your employees, office expenses, and utilities. Your sales are covered in the “projected revenue” charts. The final two charts, “projected quarterly expenses” and “projected yearly revenue and expenses,” cover your total costs.
Projected costs for the year
Your projected costs for (year) is as follows:
Projected quarterly revenue
Your projected revenue for (year) is as follows:
Total yearly sales:
Total yearly returns:
Net profit:
Projected quarterly expenses
Your projected quarterly expenses for (year) is as follows:
Projected yearly revenue and expenses
Your projected quarterly expenses for (year), (year), and (year) are as follows:
Assessment and review
! The below chart includes our assessment and review of the following categories.
Analytics and tracking
Financial analysis.
(What are your results for tracked metrics and KPIs?)
(How is your company doing financially?)
Customer surveys
Market share analysis.
(What do your customers say?)
(What percentage of the market share do you currently own?)
Market survey
(Where is the market headed in your industry?)
Risk factors and contingencies
! Risk factors regarding your business are indicated below. If you limit the number
of risk factors and contingencies in your business, you’ll be able to meet your financial projections.
Revenue Shortfall
(Do you expect a shortfall? What can you do to prevent this?)
Pro Forma Invoices
(Are your Pro Forma invoices accurate? By how much?)
Critical Ratios
(What is your critical ratio percentage? How can this be improved?)
Budget Variance
(Will your budget be higher or lower than projected costs?)
Financial Audits
(How accurate are your financial audits?)
! Below are the sources we used to find the data we needed to conduct your strategic plan.
Research: Clients
(Use existing reviews, own analysis, data analytics, websites, surveys, product/service usage, audience insights, one-on-one conversations, Google research, heat mapping, social listening, and more to conduct your research.)
Research: Competition
Research: environment.
*Please go back to your executive summary to see how we used our findings.
MM / DD / YYYY
[Client.FirstName] [Client.LastName]
[Sender.FirstName] [Sender.LastName]
Build plans, manage results, & achieve more
Learn about the AchieveIt Difference vs other similar tools
We're more than just a software, we're a true partner
- Strategic Planning
- Business Transformation
- Enterprise PMO
- Project + Program Management
- Operational Planning + Execution
- Integrated Plan Management
- Federal Government
- State + Local Government
- Banks + Credit Unions
- Manufacturing
Best practices on strategy, planning, & execution
Real-world examples of organizations that have trusted AchieveIt
Ready-to-use templates to take planning to the next level
Research-driven guides to help your strategy excel
Pre-recorded & upcoming webinars on everything strategy & planning
Learn What Makes a Good Example of a Strategic Plan
RELATED TAGS:
blog , Strategic Planning , Strategic Planning Tools , Structure
What Makes a Good Example of a Strategic Plan?
Many companies are looking for help, searching for an example of a strategic plan as a yardstick they can use to compare their own plans. But strategic plans can come in many forms, shapes, and sizes; they are not a “one size fits all” document. There are simple strategic plans that include goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics, as well as complex plan structures that include multiple levels and layers. How developed your plan needs to be depends on several factors, including the level of accountability you are trying to create, the time frame for implementing the plan, and the culture of your organization. In this post, you’ll see an example of a strategic plan that is most common among businesses today.
Strategic Plan Example: Basic Structure
At a minimum, strategic and operational plans contain three levels that serve specific functions. These are listed in inverse order as they appear in a plan, to demonstrate the linkage from bottom up:
- Tactics: These are task assignments that must be carried out on an individual basis. These action items comprise the strategies. For instance, if you have a client satisfaction strategy that focuses on an annual client event, there are a number of things that must be completed in order for the event to happen. These are the tactics, which include due dates, deliverables, and are assigned to specific people for execution.
- Strategies: The collection of tactics need a name, and this name is the strategy. The name of the strategy provides the focus for something specific, and the strategy itself contains individual tactics. As such, strategies are the broad action-oriented items that we implement to achieve the objectives. In this example, the client event strategy is designed to improve overall client satisfaction. We may have additional strategies aimed at improving client satisfaction, and each of these other strategies will have a collection of tactics, too.
- Objectives: These are quantifiable and measurable targets, that answer the questions of how much, by when. There is an old adage that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. As such, plans without measurable objectives are no plans at all; they are merely task lists. Objectives include baseline performance, targeted performance, and an established date for achieving the objective. Any example of a strategic plan must include objectives, as they are the foundation for planning. In this example, our objective is to increase client satisfaction from 82% to 90% by December 31st. How we accomplish that is the business of strategies and tactics.
Strategic Plan Example: Objectives, Strategies, and Tactics
Objective 1: Increase client satisfaction from 82.0% to 90.0% by December 31st.
- Strategy 1.1: Implement an annual client conference • Tactic 1.1.1: Identify date and venue • Tactic 1.1.2: Develop agenda • Tactic 1.1.3: Identify and invite speakers • Tactic 1.1.4: Develop social events • Tactic 1.1.5: Develop menus • Tactic 1.1.6: Develop invitations
Strategic Plan Example: Strategic Themes and Goals
Although objectives, strategies, and tactics are core elements in any example of a strategic plan, they are not the only elements. Many plans are more robust and include additional levels in the hierarchy. These levels are usually referred to as strategic themes and goals, and they come before objectives. As such, a fully developed plan would look like the example of a strategic plan below:
- Strategic Themes: These are one- to three-word affinity group headings used to compartmentalize strategic and operational plans, such as Quality, Safety, People, Customers, Service, Finance, and Growth. For companies that use strategic themes, four to six such categories appear to be the most common.
- Goals: These are broad statements that translate the organization’s vision statement into something more meaningful and time-bound. If strategic themes are also used, goal statements are used to translate the vision to specific strategic themes.
- Objectives: Similar to above, Objectives are the quantifiable items that measure the success of your Goals, and ultimately your strategic plan. They should measure how you plan to increase, decrease, or maintain some key performance indicators critical to the success of the goal.
- Strategies: With an understanding of success measures, Strategies determine how your strategic plan will be executed and ultimately move the needle on Objectives. In some organizations, strategies are called initiatives or projects or programs. Regardless of the term used, Strategies set the foundation for the actual work that will make up the plan itself.
- Tactics: To best execute a strategic plan, a strategy needs to be broken down properly. In many cases, these are your tactics. Tactics are the core components of your strategies that will help measure success towards completion. Tactics are NOT quick tasks that can be completed by checking a box and instead are milestones or key deliverables of the strategies.
FREE RESOURCE
Strategic Plan Template
This five level strategic plan template will help you create a plan that’s built around best practices for optimized execution.
Strategic Plan Example: A Complete Plan
Strategic Theme : Satisfaction
Goal : To be considered a trusted partner by our clients
Objective 1: Increase client satisfaction from 82.0% to 90.0% by December 31st.
Keep in mind that there are many acceptable formats for strategic plans and you should use the approach that is right for you. Some companies prefer the one-page approach and others don’t adhere to specific approaches other than perhaps implementing a basic structure like the ones above. Either way, remember that creating a strategic plan is only the beginning; the hard part is executing it .
The best way to ensure your plan gets executed is to get everything in view, get everyone engaged, and work with a team that will give you every possible advantage. When you’ve got your plan crafted and ready to execute, take these next steps .
About AchieveIt
AchieveIt is the platform that large organizations use to get their biggest, most important initiatives out of the boardroom and into reality. Too many great ideas never quite make it across the finish line, because there’s no real way to keep everyone on course and keep everything on track. What does it take to actually guide these initiatives all the way through to completion? You’ve got to:
- Get everything in view – so you can see what’s happening with every initiative, at every level, from the enterprise to the individual, in real-time.
- Get everyone engaged – with an easy-to-use platform that connects your organization from the executive leadership to the project teams, keeping everyone accountable and on the same page.
- Get every possible advantage – not only because you have the premier platform in this space, but because you can draw on the experience and best practices of our execution experts.
That’s why everyone from global corporations , to regional healthcare systems , to federal agencies have turned to AchieveIt for their Integrated Plan Management. Let’s actually do this.
Ready to improve your plan execution?
Organizations of all types leverage AchieveIt to connect, manage, and execute their most important initiatives. Replace manual processes & siloed systems with interconnected plans in a single, automated platform .
Related Posts
What Is a Sustainable Competitive Advantage?
Tactic vs. Strategy: What’s the Difference?
A Quick Guide to Critical Success Factors
HEAR DIRECTLY FROM OUR AWESOME CUSTOMERS
WATCH PRODUCT VIDEO
SEE FIRST-HAND WHY THE WORLD'S BEST LEADERS USE ACHIEVEIT
Stay in the know. Join our community of subscribers.
Subscribe for plan execution content sent directly to your inbox.
Fill out the form below to get your free strategic plan template!
Enjoying the sneak peek?
Get in touch for a live walkthrough..
- Articles and tools
- Business strategy and planning
- Define your strategy
What is the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?
3-minute read
Business plans are often confused with strategic plans, but they’re not the same thing. Every company should have both types of plan, and it’s important to know the differences between them so your business to benefit from both.
“A business plan describes the foundations of a company, its owners, its capabilities, the industry and market(s) in which it operates, how it generates revenues and its financial projections,” says Jérôme Côté, a Business Advisor with BDC’s Advisory Services who counsels companies on strategic planning.
“A strategic plan assesses the current environment of a business, both internally and externally. It establishes future goals and targets and describes the strategies it will implement to reach them.”
In other words, a business plan describes a current business or a specific new project. A strategic plan talks about how you want to change your company to grow or be ready for the future.
At a glance: Business plan vs. strategic plan
- Advisory Boards and Mastermind Groups
- Business Coaching
- Stratpro Leadership Workshops
- Strategic Leadership Tools
- Our Members
- Case Studies
- PULSE SURVEYS
- WHITEPAPERS
- Business Diagnostic
What is Strategic Business Planning?
The importance of strategic planning, the strategic planning process, six strategic planning examples, elements of strategic planning implementation.
Strategic Business Planning 101
Operating without a strategic plan is like sitting in the passenger seat of your own business. You see it accelerate into overdrive and pass one milestone after another. Eventually, however, you helplessly watch as it swerves aimlessly or, worse, crashes and burns.
Strategic planning puts you behind the steering wheel. It serves as a roadmap that defines the direction a company must travel, and that helps leaders prepare for potential roadblocks. Companies and markets without this foundation and foresight are far more likely to get lost, stuck, or wrecked.
Strategic planning is a systematic process for developing an organization’s direction. It also articulates the objectives and actions required to achieve that future vision, and outlines metrics for measuring success.
By helping you refocus on your foundational purpose, your goals, development and your opportunities, strategic planning reintroduces you to “the big picture.” It’s the basis for business owners to achieve their vision, which they communicate to stakeholders in a strategic business plan and program.
It’s common to confuse a strategic plan with a business plan, which is used to start a business, obtain funding, or direct operations and generally covers one year.
A strategic plan, on the other hand, is about high-level thinking and generally looks at 3 to 5 years. It can be created at any time and should be regularly revisited. Key points to review the plan include whenever a company begins a new venture (like launching a new product), if the economy or competitive landscape changes, or when new regulations or trends affect the business environment.
Taking the time to identify exactly where your business and your executive team are headed (and how you’ll get there) can help mitigate the risks associated with business growth. In fact, the strategic planning process can fuel long-term success by bolstering these five key areas:
Having a clear picture of your company’s future, plus a roadmap to get there, allows your company to be far more proactive. Rather than constantly reacting to outside forces beyond your control, you can strategically make moves designed to help you achieve your long-term objectives.
Strategic planning can even help you anticipate unfavorable scenarios before they happen and take precautions to avoid them. You can keep up with market trends and avoid common industry pain points.
Every company has a finite amount of human and financial resources. By defining exactly what activities are needed to achieve objectives, a strategic plan helps you assess costs and means to allocate resources in the most efficient way.
CEOs must be selective about which new opportunities they invest in and which they avoid. The strategic planning process makes it clear when to spend and when to pass.
The business landscape changes at a rapid pace. CEOs must contend with new government regulations, shifting workforce demographics, technological advances such as Facebook, and economic uncertainty. A strategic plan puts these challenges into perspective.
The process of reviewing your company’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities can help you rise above tricky situations. You’ll be prepared to respond to a competitor’s new product launch, a technology upgrade on your production floor, or an unhappy customer base. This degree of foresight can result in increased profitability and market share.
The strategic plan is essential for communicating your vision to investors, managers, and employees. It ensures that all key stakeholders are on the same page, rather than struggling (perhaps inadvertently) against one another.
Even more than building consensus, the strategic planning process can improve performance. As an example, it may generate ideas for restructuring to help employees reach their full potential. Sharing realistic goals and metrics for measuring them also motivates employees to keep up their efforts.
Running a business is a tumultuous endeavor; many CEOs are familiar with the feast-famine, boom-bust cycle. And organizations that don’t have a solid foundation—like the one a strategic plan provides—are the most likely to struggle.
According to a TAB Pulse Survey , business owners who say they have a high-quality strategic plan are much more likely to forecast sharp increases in profits and sales revenue over the next year than are owners who lack a plan.
How do you build a strategic business plan? There are many different frameworks you can use, but generally the planning process addresses four considerations.
Understand Your Business
Assess where your business is today. This includes reviewing core business information (such as key financial documents), and writing or revisiting your vision, mission statement, and core values. Do they still resonate with your vision? Changes in circumstances, leadership, or the marketplace may require you to rethink the core of your business from time to time. Take time for serious reflection to come up with something truly meaningful. You may also seek input from your staff, business owner advisory board, or a business coach. When writing these core business documents, ditch the jargon. What is the most idealistic version of your business? What are your most ambitious goals? What is the grandest vision for what your company could be?
Analyze Your Strengths, Weaknesses, and Threats
A SWOT analysis is a tool for critically evaluating your company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. It can provide insight into where your business should focus its marketing efforts, give you a better understanding of your industry and customers, clue you into your competitive advantages, and give you a heads-up on potential threats to your growth. Examples of the types of questions you might ask during the SWOT process include:
- What do we do well?
- What do our customers identify as our strengths?
- Which emerging trends can we capitalize on?
- Who are our competitors under-serving?
- What are the most common complaints we receive?
- What outdated technologies do we use?
- What external roadblocks are in the way of our progress?
- What are our competitors doing that’s different?
Even if you’ve done a SWOT analysis in the past, it’s useful to do another as part of the strategic planning process. Don’t love the SWOT method? Skip ahead to the next section to learn about a few alternatives.
Define Objectives and Set Goals
Drill down into specific objectives that will help you achieve your vision. These might include things like launching a new product, trying different marketing strategies, re-allocating financial resources, or improving employee culture. Also, determine the specific initiatives required to meet the big-picture goals. Setting goals is only effective if you actually meet them, so you must also establish how you’ll measure success. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the specific metrics you’ll track to determine progress on goals. KPIs can include things like percentage of market share, customer acquisition cost, and average support ticket resolution time.
Put the Plan into Action
Objectives are future focused, so now you need short-term action steps. Unlike goals, tasks should take only a few days or weeks to complete. Break down tasks into the smallest possible steps. Keep asking yourself, “What needs to happen before we can take this next step?” For example, a goal of “upgrade aging equipment” could be broken down into individual tasks like “research suppliers,” “make appointments with reps at the next expo” and “purchase equipment.” Assign a responsible party to each task, set deadlines for completion, and create accountability. Finally, establish a timetable for reviewing your strategic plan (at least once a quarter). Regularly tracking and analyzing your plan ensures you’ll stay on track and make progress toward your goals. Ask hard questions during these reviews to avoid continuing on with an outdated plan.
SWOT is perhaps the most common tool used in the strategic planning process, but it’s not right for everyone. Some critics think it’s too limited in scope and doesn’t encourage deep analysis. That’s why business advisors have created several alternatives, each with its own structure.
- A SOAR analysis is a common, more positive twist on SWOT. It stands for Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results, and the goal is to use appreciative inquiry to focus on what works, rather than perceived weaknesses or potential threats.
- NOISE stands for Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths, and Exceptions. This solution-focused process looks at what works and what should improve, and also encourages you to explore opportunities you didn’t realize existed.
- The Five Forces framework examines competitive rivalry, supplier power, buyer power, threat of substitution, and threat of new entry. It can help companies assess industry attractiveness, how trends will affect industry competition, which industries a company should compete in, and how companies can position themselves for success.
- Hambrick and Fredrickson’s Strategy Diamond framework consists of five essential parts that together should form a unified whole: Arenas, Vehicles, Differentiators, Staging, and Economic Logic. It’s intended to serve as a concise way to show how the parts of an organization’s strategy fit together.
- STEEPLE is an acronym for Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political, Legal, and Ethical—and each is an external factor you’ll judge using this tool. (There are several similar variations on this external-focused model, including PEST and STEEP).
- A CORE assessment uses a strictly financial perspective to craft a business strategy and long-term plan. It looks at a company's capital investment, site, ownership involvement, risk factors, and exit strategy.
A strategic plan is useless if it sits on a shelf-collecting dust. That’s why implementation is perhaps the most critical step of the planning process. It’s what turns strategies and plans into actions and successes. The plan is the what and why, but implementation is the equally important who, where, when, and how.
Strategic plans fail for many reasons, including lack of ownership or confusion about the plan among stakeholders, lack of accountability or empowerment, not tying strategy to budgeting, not linking employee incentives to strategy.
Success hinges on a quality implementation plan. It starts with the top brass, who should take responsibility for spearheading execution. It’s essential, however, that all stakeholders are involved.
Start by assessing whether you have the appropriate and sufficient budget, people, resources, content and systems in place to execute on the plan. Shore up any weaknesses before trying to put the plan in motion.
As with most things, communication is key. Educate stakeholders about why the company participated in strategic planning, how the plan and specific objectives support the company’s mission and values, and how employees’ day-to-day work affects the company’s success.
Establish responsibility for tasks to the appropriate parties, a scorecard for tracking and monitoring progress, and a performance management and reward system.
Educate managers on how employee work translates into meeting goals, and regularly check in with them on progress. In fact, it should become the norm to hold structured performance conversations throughout the entire company.
Hold quarterly strategic reviews to monitor progress and make small or big adjustments as needed. During annual reviews, revisit all elements of the plan. Conduct new assessments and adjust objectives and KPIs accordingly.
Strategic planning should be an essential part of any company’s decision-making process. No matter how large or successful your organization is, TAB’s StratPro® process can help you to excel when faced with tomorrow’s business challenges.
The StratPro® process provides an effective framework for transforming your personal vision of your company into a clear and concise road map that will help to guide your organization’s response to every new challenge and opportunity.
TAB helps forward-thinking business owners grow their businesses, increase profitability and improve their lives by leveraging local business advisory boards, private business coaching and proprietary strategic services.
Quick Links
- Join Our Team
- Find a Local Board
- My TAB Login
keep in touch
- Privacy Policy
- Terms & Conditions
IMAGES
VIDEO
COMMENTS
Sample Strategic Plans. Strategy is more than simply achieving business goals. It creates clarity, alignment and organization-wide engagement.
An effective asset management strategy is planning for and building restricted financial reserves to respond to facilities-‐related operating contingencies –.
There are four primary phases of strategic planning: determining the current position of the organization, creating the strategy which includes
10 business strategy examples · 1. Cross-sell more products · 2. Most innovative product or service · 3. Grow sales from new products · 4. Improve
Strategic Plan Template: What To Include In Yours · Section 1: Executive Summary · Section 2: Elevator Pitch · Section 4: SWOT · Section 5: Goals.
What are the five elements of a strategic business plan?
Business plan software, business planning shareware, free sample plan & template and advice.
Strategic Plan Example: Basic Structure · Tactics: These are task assignments that must be carried out on an individual basis. · Strategies: The collection of
For example, if a company's business model is manufacturing bicycles, its strategic plan may be to expand into building electric bikes. Its business plan
Six Strategic Planning Examples · A SOAR analysis is a common, more positive twist on SWOT. · NOISE stands for Needs, Opportunities, Improvements, Strengths, and