What is strategic planning? Professional planning process

Strategic planning is an important step that determines the development of a business. A detailed and effective strategic plan helps businesses find the right direction and seize business opportunities. In the article below, 1C Vietnam will help administrators learn about concepts, roles as well as steps to plan professional business strategies !

1. What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of researching, analyzing, planning and implementing business strategies to achieve the overall goals of the business. This concept was commonly used in the 1990s and has remained until now.

Strategic planning requires a thorough research process and comprehensive assessment of factors affecting the business such as the market, competitors, target customers, etc. from which to map out the opportunities. opportunities and challenges for businesses. Strategic planning ensures that staff reach consensus on common goals, helping administrators evaluate and make appropriate and timely adjustment policies.

A business strategy plan will include: Decisions about products/services, distribution channels, customer segments, product development strategies, pricing strategies, competitive strategies,...

2. The role of strategic planning for business organizations

2.1 Determine clear goals

Strategic planning helps to visualize the overall business process and ideas in a clear and intuitive way. The strategy represents specific development orientations to help businesses seriously implement set goals, exploit and strictly control human resources. In addition, business strategic planning also helps businesses manage risks and difficulties in the future and devise appropriate contingency plans.

2.2 Identify opportunities and challenges

Strategic planning helps evaluate the current situation of a business, thereby identifying opportunities or challenges, minimizing potential risks and achieving desired results quickly.

2.3 Build a long-term vision

Under the constant fluctuations of the business market, businesses always face many changes related to policies, legal regulations, customer expectations, human resources, innovative technology, and economic conditions. inflation…

Thanks to strategic planning , businesses will easily grasp this macro information in a realistic and clear way. From there, it encourages businesses to build a long-term vision instead of focusing on short-term goals like before.

2.4 Improve team spirit

The strategic planning process helps convey statements, vision, mission, core values to personnel, partners, customers, investors... From there, ensuring everyone understands all the information, Build cohesive relationships, agreeing towards the common goals of the business.

3. Enterprise strategic planning process

Step 1. Analyze business SWOT

SWOT is a commonly used model in planning business strategies for businesses. This model includes 4 components: S - Strengths; W - Weaknesses; O - Opportunities; T - Threats (Challenges).

SWOT analysis helps businesses evaluate current and future potential. To do that, administrators need to answer some of the following questions:

Strengths of the business:

• What is the business currently doing well?
• What makes a business different from its competitors?
• The most valuable internal resource of the business?
• What tangible assets does the business have?
• What strengths does the business possess?

Weakness:

• What problems do businesses still have?
• What is the business lacking right now? (Product/service, resource or process)
• What activities are competitors doing that are more outstanding?
• Predict risks that are hindering business development
• What processes or products/services need to be improved?

Opportunity:

• What are business opportunities?
• How to take advantage of your strengths in business?
• Take advantage of business trends within your capabilities
• Take advantage of promotional or press opportunities
• Is there a need to innovate the business's products/services?

Challenge:

• How many emerging competitors are there?
• Identify weaknesses that put businesses at risk
• Can businesses encounter negative information that causes market share to decline?
• Is there an opportunity to change customer attitudes towards the business?

Step 2. Analyze the environment and competitors

Identifying the business environment and competitors is extremely important. Only when knowing the strengths and weaknesses of competitors can businesses come up with the best business strategies. All activities from promotional plans, marketing strategies or company personnel need to be considered based on foresight and approved with the most objective perspective.

Step 3. Plan a business strategy

When planning business strategies, managers need to determine the following factors:

• The business's priority goals for the next 3-5 years are based on the SWOT analysis strategy.
• Determine your goals for the first year.
• Key results and related KPIs are measurable and actionable. KPIs will help track progress and ensure the business is moving in the right direction.
• Budget for one or more years ahead, this is based on financial statements or business direction. So, let's clarify the important ideas and how to budget for those ideas.
• High-level project roadmap. This is a tool that helps businesses visualize the completion time of a project, outlining in an easy-to-understand way plans for the following quarters or years.

Step 4. Monitor and measure performance

This step helps businesses know why their business strategies succeed or fail and learn lessons for future projects. Therefore, administrators need to continuously monitor and evaluate the internal and external environment to promptly identify potential risks.

When problems arise, managers need to promptly deploy corrective actions and measure strategic effectiveness to compare actual results with estimates to see how much difference there is, from which managers will make accurate strategic assessments.

4. Example of corporate strategic planning

4.1 Planning marketing strategy

This is the process of identifying and devising strategic plans to achieve business goals based on approaching and communicating with customers. Marketing strategy planning helps businesses identify specific customers, core values of products/services, choose media and implement appropriate marketing strategies. As follows:

• Market analysis: Research about customers (needs and wants), competition, trends and other business factors.
• Determine goals: Set goals that the business wants to achieve after analyzing the market. The goals here may be related to sales growth, branding, customer relationships or differentiating yourself from your competitors.
• Identify strengths and core values: Clearly identify the special benefits and values that products/services bring to customers, helping to create a competitive advantage in business.
• Select media: Select and use communication channels such as advertising, social media, PR, Email Marketing... to help reach customers and build brands effectively.
• Implementation and evaluation: Includes implementing plans to monitor and measure the results of marketing activities. These indicators are used to evaluate strategic effectiveness and can be adjusted when necessary.

4.2 Planning PR strategy

Strategic public relations planning , abbreviated as PR strategic planning , is an organization and information management plan to build and maintain positive relationships between businesses and the public. The main goal is to build and protect the credibility of the business in the eyes of the public as well as with stakeholders such as customers, partners and other interest groups.

Strategic PR planning may include:

• Build and protect image: Analyze and understand public goals, clearly understand the message and build appropriate communication strategies to create trust with customers.
• Managing information and addressing media terrorism: Identifying appropriate messages to convey to the public. At the same time, handle bad situations such as media terrorism, emergency incidents...
• Build relationships: Interact and build good relationships with the public and stakeholders such as listening to feedback from customers, creating an open communication environment,...
• Promotion and marketing: Use media to promote and market products/services, increase awareness and strengthen public trust.
• Partner with the media: Be open and maintain relationships with journalists, exchange press releases and provide some useful information to provide positive news about the business.

5. Professional strategic planning experience

5.1 Use work management software

Using work management software and support tools helps analyze and organize work in a systematic way. When there are activities that are consistent with multiple sources of advice, referencing becomes better.

A great suggestion for businesses is 1C:Company Management software - a comprehensive and smart business management solution. The software connects every department in the business together, managing Sales - Purchasing - Production - Warehouse - Finance - Human Resources and Salary - CRM. The software centrally stores information, supports quick analysis and report export, thereby helping to optimize the strategic planning process for administrators.

5.2 Have a backup plan

Establishing contingency plans and capital sources for business strategic planning helps the plan to be adjusted and changed promptly when unexpected incidents occur.

5.3 Plan a market-appropriate strategy

Businesses must always observe and learn about the current status and trends of the market, ensuring their strategic planning can change flexibly to adapt.

6. Distinguish between strategic planning and business concepts

6.1 Strategic planning, mission and vision

Strategic planning , mission and vision all have a special relationship with each other. During the strategic planning process, managers will be inspired by the mission and vision to create their own strategic plan.

Administrators only need to:

• Mission statement, summarizing the purpose of the business.
• A vision statement and a comprehensive explanation of how the goals will be achieved.
• Get inspired by your mission and vision to create the perfect strategic plan, and outline the actions you need to take to stay on track.

For example, in the case of a business that produces safety equipment for pets, administrators can do the following to determine mission, vision, and strategic planning:

• Mission: "Committed to ensuring the safety of farmed animals around the world".
• Vision: “To create safe, tracking products for pets".
• The strategic plan will outline the steps that need to be taken in the coming years to help the business achieve its mission and vision (Example: Developing a smart collar to track pets).

6.2 Strategic planning and business plans

A business plan helps managers record and share their strategies with investors or stakeholders. Business planning needs to be done when a new business starts business and restructures the business.

If the business has been in operation for a long time, administrators should create strategic planning instead of business plans. During the planning process, administrators will have an overview of the business situation, helping the business move in the right direction.

Thus, the above article has introduced to administrators in detail the concept, role as well as the correct strategic planning process. This is considered one of the important steps, helping to complete common goals, identify opportunities and challenges, improve long-term goals and promote team spirit in the organization. If you want to own effective strategic plans , don't forget to seek support from 1C:Company Management software. Contact 1C Vietnam immediately for detailed advice.