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Use Case - Strategic Planning (Drive Organisational Alignment (A strategic…
Use Case - Strategic Planning
Drive Organisational Alignment
A strategic plan is a platform from for change. Preparing a plan has employees thinking about the future and assembling resources.
Involving employees in the strategic planning ensures everyone is algined when it comes to the execution and that employees are making decisions with respect to the organisations goals.
Assists in surfacing disagreements that may otherwise remain hidden. You can have all the discussions you like with your fellow staff and think that your management team is in agreement, until you actually distill these discussions in a written document that people have to sign off on.
Strategic planning guides unifies organisational activities and efforts towards the long-terms goals. It guides employee pathways and ensures their day-to-day activities are in alignment with organisational goals
A strategy and plan increases levels of productivity and operational efficiency as employees understands the tasks in hand and how to attain them in the most efficient and effective manner in accordance with the organsiations objectives.
Strategic planning allow employees to be given tasks and responsibilities as per their expertise and professional qualification along with the proper rewards. This makes them feel highly motivated and provides a sense of accomplishment.
The context of strategic planning involves the skills, knowledge, abilities, limitations, concerns and so on, of the members of the organization. Managers need to consider these characteristics of the workforce in order to ensure that the resulting strategic plan would be able to contribute to the maximization of the performance of the business organization of interest.
The performance of managers in providing the appropriate solutions for the issues encountered in the organization depend on the specific activities involved in the strategic planning process. The strategic planning process influences the capabilities of managers in providing support for the organizational ability to address his issues as the organization develops.
the strategic planning process influences the alignment between the characteristics of the strategic plan and the characteristics of the workers in the organization, such that the strategic planning process also influences the performance of individual workers. The natural ability of the workers to satisfy the requirements of their jobs would be significantly influenced through the characteristics of the strategic plan.
Strategic planning directly impacts the organizational performance. The level of organizational performance directly depends on the level of performance of the managers; and the level of performance of the individual workers in the organization directly determines the ability of the organization to achieve its goals and objectives.
Continuous & Flexible
A plan is a guidance tool; the problem for many managers is that their expectations are all skewed from what can be realistically achieved via a strategic plan. They anticipate that by doing the necessary analysis and writing down how their business will succeed the world will be converted from uncertain to certain. In their eyes the strategic plan becomes a device for control rather than one of guidance.
A strategic plan is not a set-and-forget instrument. It’s a living and breathing document that guides decision making and helps marshal resources.
Reviewing a strategic plan is very important. It allows orgasnisation to update their plan due to changed conditions but to also go through the actions that were scheduled for completion and monitor performance.
Review a strategic plan regurlarly and revising strategy when new opportunities or issues are identified. Keeping a plan current is critical to acheiving ultimate success.
Strategic planning is a continuous process. Every time business organisations want to achieve a higher growth rate or change their operations, desire for better management information system, co-ordinate activities of different departments, remove complacency from organisations; they make strategic plans.
The implementation of the strategy must be monitored and adjustments made as needed. Evaluation and control consists of the following steps:
i. Defining parameters to be measured
ii. Defining target values for those parameters
iii. Performing measurements
iv. Comparing measured results to the pre-defined standards
v. Making necessary changes.
Continuously Review Strategic Planning Context: The context of strategic planning requires consideration for the changes that occur in the market and optimisation of the organisation to suit.
Strategic planning influences the ability of an organisation to survive in the long term. The viability and survival of the organisation in the long term depends on its capacity to change according to the changes of its market. Basically, it is necessary for the organisation to change in order to effectively address the needs or demands in the target market.
Growth & Competitive Advantage
A documented strategic plan allows businesses to perform at a higher level with the most likely benefit being increases in revenue
Strategic planning is proven to increase sales, lower costs, and lead to higher profits
Globalisation has resulted in a more competitive business environment. Competitive advantage can be acheived if the future can be predicted. Strategic planning allows organisations to anticipate problems before they arise and define solutions to manage the impact.
Strategic planning involves studying the market conditions, researching about the next moves of the competitors, coming up with the innovative product ideas, and keeping customers happy various strategies and measures.
Strategic plans are important for attracting good investment and securing funding from banks. Outside parties will only instill their trust and faith in the organisation if it has a strong legacy of strategic planning plus has the future plan ready as well. They are solely interested in their return on investment and profit generation.
Features of Effective Strategic Planning
Provideing guidance on where we are today and where we want to head to in the future
Focussed on acheiving long-term outcomes whilst cnosidering the present and future opportunities
Focusesses the organisation strengths and resources on important and high-priority activities
Enables organisations to adapt to an ever-changing, dynamic environment
Coordinates organisations internal environment with the external environment, financial resources with non- financial resources and short-term plans with long- term plans
Picking the right model for your business
1. Bottom-Up Approach:
Initiatives in formulating strategy are taken by the various units or divisions of an organization and then passed upward for aggregation at the corporate level
2. Top-Down Approach:
Initiative is taken by the upper-level executives of the organization, who formulate a unified, coordinated strategy, usually with the advice of lower-level managers
3. Interactive Approach:
This approach is a compromise between the bottom-up and top-down methods, corporate executives and lower-level managers develop strategy in consultation with each other, making a link between wider corporate objectives and the managers’ detailed knowledge of specific situations.
4. Dual-Level Approach:
Strategy is independently formulated at both the corporate and business levels. All units form plans which suit their particular situations, and these plans are regularly reviewed by corporate management.
Follows a structured process
1. Setting of Mission and Objectives:
A mission statement reveals the long-term vision of an organization in terms of what it wants to be and whom it wants to serve. Objectives may be defined as “those ends which the organization seeks to achieve by its existence and operations”
2. Environmental Scanning or Surveying the Environment:
includes collection of relevant information from the environment, interpreting its impact on the future organizational working, and determining what opportunities and threats-positive and negative aspects are offered by the environment.
3. Strategy Formulation:
Given the information from the environmental scan, the firm should match its strengths to the opportunities that it has identified, while addressing its weaknesses and external threats.
4. Strategy Implementation:
The strategy is implemented by means of programs, budgets, and procedures. Implementation involves organization of the firm’s resources and motivation of the staff to achieve objectives.
5. Evaluation and Control:
The strategy has to be monitored and adjustments that become necessary have to be brought. Essentially, the thing had to be compatibility of the strategy with the environment as well as internal realities.
Risk & Opportunity
Confusion and day-to-day business issues are often reasons why strategic planning yields little results, but these risks can be mitigated by having a plan that is written down, with clear assignments, dues dates, and deliverables, so that employees know what must be executed by when.
A strategic plan allows you to put these business challenges into perspective. It gives you the foresight you need to tackle them in a coordinated way. You’ll have a better view of the ways your business is affected by any particular problem, which in turn makes it easier to take control of your own future.
A well-designed strategic plan will dictate how you respond to opportunities and challenges
Strategic planning provides information to assess risk and frame strategies to minimise risk and invest in safe business opportunities.
Strategic Planning helps the organization to be more proactive rather than being reactive to the forthcoming issues and problems in attaining the goals and objectives. Whilst accomplishing all the short term and long term objectives, problems and issues are bound to arise and when the firm follows the fundamentals of strategic planning, it becomes more proactive as it envisions and foresees the problems arriving. Hence, the management along with the key members of the team take corrective measures well before time ironing out the issues
Every organisation has to work with the factor of risk. Organisations that undertake Strategic Planning and makes every move understanding the nuances and intricacies, the factor of risk is minimal. It helps the firm to envision and foresee the bottlenecks and problems that may arise in the near future and take corrective measures beforehand.
Clarity, Direction & Focus
A strategic plan is essential for communicating the organsiations vision to investors, stakeholders and employees, and it illustrates the process by which that vision will be made real. A plan that resides only in someones head may work for a little while, but as the organisation grows collaboration becomes key to bringing a businesses growth strategy to fruition.
Strategic planning is “a thorough self-examination regarding the goals and means of their accomplishment so that the enterprise is given both direction and cohesion.”
Strategic planning helps in knowing what we are and where we want to go so that environmental threats and opportunities can be exploited, given the strengths and weaknesses of the organisation.
Strategic planning is important to meet the demands of government regulations, changing workforce demographics, advancing technology and economic uncertainty.
A strategic plan points the way forward for your business by laying out your oganisational goals and why they’re important.
Strategic planning is systematic, formally documented process for deciding what are the handfuls of key decisions that an organisation, viewed as a corporate whole must get right in order to thrive
The aim of strategic planning is to help a company select and organize its businesses in a way that would keep the company healthy in spite of unexpected changes in the environment.
Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy or direction and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people.
Strategic planning allows the leadership team to prioritise the activities necessary for success. Priorities make it easier to say no to distracting initiatives.
Resources
https://hbr.org/2016/06/strategic-plans-are-less-important-than-strategic-planning
https://www.thealternativeboard.com/blog/why-is-strategic-planning-important
http://www.economicsdiscussion.net/strategic-management/strategic-planning-meaning-features-importance-and-limitations/31502
https://www.marketing91.com/the-importance-of-strategic-planning/
http://panmore.com/strategic-planning-process-important-business-management
https://managementhelp.org/blogs/strategic-planning/2011/10/18/why-you-need-a-plan-5-good-reasons/