The Key Elements of a Strategic Planning Framework

Often businesses make the mistake to take tactical steps without first clearly setting objectives. This can leave an organisation without direction and on the wrong path. 

Strategic planning is a working document that serves as a roadmap for the direction of your company. It helps to guide the whole team to realise the company’s business goals, whatever these may be, and assists with decision-making. 

Let’s take a look at some critical elements of any strategic plan:

Vision

The first step towards creating a successful brand is to define your vision. A vision is a clear image of where you want to go in order to reach your goals.

Vision statements are often used in marketing communication. They summarise the key messages of your brand and give people a sense of purpose. It is generally accompanied by a set of guiding principles. These are the values that underpin the vision and provide the foundation upon which everything else is built.

Mission

Your vision is an organisational goal; your mission is how you’re going to get there.

Without a clear vision, your organisation may lack direction and focus. If everyone in your company has his or her own idea of the vision, it could cause conflict and confusion.

Objectives

When creating a strategy, the above are important parts of the process, but they don’t actually tell us much about how we’re going to achieve our goals. Instead, we need to think about the specific results that we aim to achieve within a time frame.

This helps us identify the things we want to achieve and measure whether we’re making progress toward achieving them.

Objectives are typically quantifiable. They describe what we’re trying to achieve rather than why we’re doing something, so they force us to be very specific about exactly what we mean. For example, we could say “increase sales by 10% by the end of the quarter” or “reduce customer support costs by 15%”. We know exactly what we need to do to achieve this goal.

Set a Clear Strategy

A strategy is a long-range plan based on what you want to accomplish. How will you do things differently over time? A strategic plan helps you define where you want to go, why you want to go there, and most importantly, what you’ll do to get there.

Strategies are much more specific than the organisation’s vision, mission, and objectives. They are typically only shared internally and ideally built around organisational needs and market context. They should map long-term goals to objectives and actionable actions, foster innovation, and anticipate and mitigate potential pitfalls along the way.

Your Approach

An approach is a methodology for executing your overall strategy. It includes a set of questions you need to ask yourself about every major decision you make: What are we trying to achieve? How do we want to measure success? And, most importantly, how do we want to allocate resources?

The best way to plan for the future is to start now. And the most effective way to do that is through a strategic plan – a clear understanding of what needs to happen next.

This will provide clarity about the direction of your company, and helps ensure consistency across your organisation. When executed correctly, it leads to better decision-making, improved processes, increased efficiency, and ultimately greater profitability.

Let’s have a chat and see just what it is going to take to get you where you need to be. Contact me today.