Strategic Business Planning & Your Organization

STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLANNING

By Randy Flewelling, President & CEO – Reverse Management Associates Inc.

“If you fail to plan you plan to fail” -Anonymous

That quote is a great starting point. I am sure everyone has heard that you should have a strategic plan or a business plan. That is true. A plan has many purposes and many audiences. Commonly entrepreneurs use to obtain funding. Increasingly small businesses recognize the Strategic Business Plan as a living document that directs the organization’s activities towards the strategic objectives.

BUSINESS PLAN V.S. STRATEGIC PLAN:  THE STRATEGIC BUSINESS PLAN

A plan is a well thought out road map.

The conventional Business Plan most entrepreneurs think of is largely a financial plan with balance sheet, income statement and cash flow projections combined with a short piece of commentary including assumptions

The strategic plan is all about action.  What are the actions and strategies to be implemented to achieve your goals?

The conventional business plan and strategic plan are really intertwined.  I believe there is really only one type of basic plan needed for most small businesses, that is the Strategic Business Plan.

A Strategic Business Plan is an essential tool for management as well as for maintaining the support of other stakeholders such as lenders, investors and boards.

Define Your Organization’s Strategic Vision

“To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan… believe … act!” – Alfred A Montapert, American Author

To have a Strategic Business Plan you need to lay out your vision. Vision for the entrepreneur is a dream that turns into action. As Walt Disney, founder of the famous resorts, once said, “Construct the castle (your vision) first”. Walt Disney built the castle first then built the rest of the park around it. Of course he also needed all of the aspects of his business plan to turn the strategic plan into reality.

A Strategic Business plan provides clear rationale and goals (1-5 years or more), for your organization.  That is your castle.  It then lays out a roadmap as to how to get there. That map may contain multiple paths and have many detours along the way but the key is stay focused on your castle.

A final very important thought on planning

“It’s not the strongest species that survives or even the most intelligent, it’s the one most responsive to change” – Charles Darwin

One final point on planning.  As the earlier quote by Alfred Montapert states, don’t let your organization be immobilized by planning. I have seen too many organizations spend excessive time debating such things as their mission and vision statements while weeks and months pass by. You must plan but you also must act. One final quote to put this into perspective:

“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there” – Will Rogers, humorist

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