Strategic planning and its Framework

A wise man once said, Failing to plan means planning to fail.

Running an organization is not something that comes in your mind overnight and it's definitely not something you execute in the morning. There is a ton of things to be considered, markets and consumers to be analysed, laws and statutes to be complied with and goals to be achieved.

Just imagine, you are planning to begin your operations to secure a competitive position in the market. You have in front of you, a detailed analysis of consumers preferences for your product, the relevant provisions of various acts and laws carefully considered in your operations, the demand for your product and how much of that you can actually supply, the status of your competitors and similar businesses.

And this stuff that you have in front of you, is what strategic planning is all about.

Well, that was the concept of strategic planning. If you want a definition, well I got a lot of those:

The strategic planning process is defining the strategy of organisation which provides a roadmap for the organisation. It is also defined as the process by which managers make a choice of a set of strategies for the organization which helps to achieve business goal. The strategic planning process of strategic management lists what steps the managers should take to create a complete strategy and how to implement that strategy successfully in the company

As we know, there are numbers of frameworks on the basis of which the top management of an organisation makes an strategy. However, choosing best strategic framework for the organisation is crucial task  for the management. The basic framework of strategic process can be described in a sequence of five stages as follows:

Stage one: where are we now?

It is an initial stage of strategic planning. In this stage organisation has to conduct situational analysis of the firm in the environmental context. It needs to conduct SWOT analysis in order to find market position, corporate image, its strength and weakness and also environmental threats and opportunities.

Stage two: Where we want to be?

When you find the clear picture of organisation in terms of SWOT in first stage then next process will be setting organisational goal on the basis of mission and vision statement.

A strategic vision provides a road-map for the company’s future. It  provides specifics about technology and customer focus, the geographic and product markets to be pursued, the capabilities it plans to develop, and the kind  of company that management is trying to create.

An organization’s Mission states what customers it serves, what need it satisfies, and what type of product it offers.

Stage three - How might we get there?

Here the organization deals with the various strategic alternatives it has. The organisation list out all the possible strategic alternatives in this stage.

Stage four - Which way is best?

On the basis of available various strategic alternatives in the earlier stage it identify the alternatives to be pursued. Thus, organisation considers the relevance of various alternatives as per the expected goals and selects the best suitable alternative in line with its SWOT analysis.

Stage five - How can we ensure arrival?

This is an implementation and control stage of a suitable strategy. Here again the organization continuously does situational analysis and repeats the stages again.

So that's all on the strategic planning framework. If you have any doubts or concerns, just click on ask a question on the left panel of your screen.