In times of uncertainty, a company’s strategy becomes even more important for your team. That’s why the beginning of a new year is the perfect time to reflect and think about your company’s future.
Key Questions for Strategic Planning
Strategic business planning helps answer three essential questions:
- What is the current state of your business?
- What goals should you set for the upcoming year?
- How can you achieve those goals?
Here Are Seven Steps to Developing a Strategy:
1. Define Your Goals as Precisely as Possible
It’s not enough to say you want to “increase sales”—you need to specify by how much, where, and how. When setting goals, consider three key elements:
- Your business vision (what inspired you to start it),
- Your mission (what you want to achieve),
- Your personal values (what truly matters to you as a person).
2. Consider Possible Scenarios
Identify the factors that could most significantly affect your business, and plan for both the best-case (Plan A) and worst-case (Plan B) scenarios. Talk to your customers—their needs, challenges, and opportunities are more critical than ever to understand.
3. Assess the Reality of Your Current Position
How far are you from your goals?
Is your business profitable enough?
What is your standing in the professional community?
What are you offering your employees?
Compare this reality with your vision, mission, and company values to gauge alignment.
4. Set Clear Priorities
Based on your available resources and capabilities, choose a few specific, high-priority goals to focus on. Start planning how to achieve them.
At the same time:
- Strengthen your company’s advantages.
- Work to minimize or eliminate weaknesses.
5. Limit Strategic Initiatives
Say no to strategies that don’t currently fit your situation.
Postpone ideas for which you currently lack resources—whether people, space, time, or money.
Avoid planning for what is clearly unfeasible.
Understand what you can achieve—and what you cannot (yet).
Focus your efforts on:
- Growing the business,
- Improving products and services,
- Managing your team effectively.
Each quarter, select no more than three core strategic directions. More than that, and your team may lose focus.
However, if you have ambitious goals, don’t be afraid to keep thinking ahead about how to reach them in the future.
6. Create a Roadmap to Implement Your Strategy
Developing a corporate strategy is only half the battle—the real challenge is in executing it.
Outline:
- How and when each part of the plan will be addressed,
- Who is responsible for each task,
- What exactly they need to do, and
- Deadlines for completion.
7. Turn Strategic Planning Into a Continuous Process
In today’s environment, reviewing your current plans and adjusting operations is needed more frequently than in the pre-COVID era.
Set a regular cadence for reviewing what’s working and what needs tuning.
Check in periodically to ensure that both you and your team clearly understand your goals and are aligned.
