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| Thursday, March 29, 2007 |
| 8. Strategic Planning Worksheet |
To start using the worksheet below, copy the headings marked in red onto a blank sheet of paper (or page in a word processor) and enter short statements about each item as per the guidelines above.
Note: This worksheet is available as a free Online Strategic Planner. See sample strategic plan - you may wish to print it for reference purposes. (Use the back button on your browser to return to this page.)
Contents of the Strategic Plan
1. Assess the business's EXISTING strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities:
(Strengths & Weaknesses are internal to the business and Opportunities & Threats are external. All SWOTs should be 'one-handed' - something is either a Strength or a Weakness but cannot be both. Enter up to six items under each heading and then rank them in order of importance. If you are planning a new business, consider the project's and its promoters' existing SWOTs):
2. Vision of business in 3/4 years time:
(What will the business look like? If a visitor from Mars dropped in what would be seen and evident. Write in future tense. Maximum of 150 words)
3. Mission/purpose statement for business to cover next 3/4 years:
(What will the business really, really be doing? What activities will it perform, where, how etc.? What makes the business special/competitive? Every noun, adjective and verb in the statement is important and must be justified. Maximum of 150 words)
4. Statement of corporate values and beliefs:
(Covers employees, customers, environment etc. etc. Maximum of 150 words)
5. Set out key long-term objectives:
(These are the primary underlying reasons for being involved in the business, and are not specific targets - these come later)
5a Shareholders
5b Management (If different from shareholders)
5c Business (Relative to competitors etc.)
6. Identify key strategies for business and major functional areas:
(Build on strengths, resolve threats, exploit opportunities and avoid threats. Add any new dimensions revealed by Vision and Mission. List and prioritize up to ten or so major strategies. See Devising Business Strategies for further insights.)
7. Assess possible FUTURE strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities:
(Do the foregoing strategies improve the initial SWOTs? If they don't, then they should have done so)
Internal Strengths
Internal Weaknesses
External Threats
External Opportunities
8. Review your vision, mission, values and objectives:
(Refine and revise/restate key strategies to deal with the perceived FUTURE SWOTs)
9. Specify major goals achievable over the next 3/4 years:
(Quantify in terms of sales, market shares, finances, operations etc.)
10. Define strategic action programs:
(Indicate who, what, where, when, how etc. Set targets and prioritize)
Note: This worksheet is available as a free Online Strategic Planner.
Next Steps in Developing a Strategic Plan
If you have prepared a strategic plan along the lines suggested above, you have several possible pathways. These include the preparation of a full-blown business plan, compilation of financial projections, undertaking market research, product development, management team-building etc. etc. You may also wish to refer to some other papers in this series which cover business ideas, business strategies, cashflow forecasting and managing working capital.
If preparing a business plan, look at Free-Plan. This is a free Business Plan Template for Word (48 pages) and a complementary Guide (supplied as a 90+ topic Help file and as a 100+ page PDF file for printing. Note that a strategic plan based on the structure in the Strategic Planning Worksheet (above) is ideal for inclusion in edited form in Section 3. Mission, Strategies etc. of this Template.
If you need to produce financial projections as part of a strategic plan or for use on their own, take a look at our extensive range of Excel-based financial planners - Exl-Plan - which can be used to prepare 3/5-year financial projections (P&Ls, cashflows, balance sheets, ratio analyses and graphs). It incorporates a Quik-Plan facility for doing quick and dirty projections. If you seek a very simple solution, look at Exl-Plan Basic (US$ 29) which generates comprehensive "high-level" 5-year projections based on annual assumptions (in contrast to the more detailed monthly and quarterly assumptions used by other versions in the Exl-Plan range). Get the details and free trial downloads.
If you need to go into more detail with your strategic plan, have a look at the following software-based expert systems:
* Plan Write Expert Business Planner: Combined business plan tool and expert system to help evaluate and develop your plan.
* Quick Insight - Business Idea Assessor: Expert system to help evaluate and improve a new business idea.
* Business Insight - Strategy Evaluator: Sophisticated expert system for evaluating, developing and comparing business and marketing strategies. |
posted by azwan.fatahsz @ 2:12 AM  |
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