If you want your business to grow successfully, you need a solid business plan. Strategic planning is the most important thing that a business’s Board of Directors can do. The business’s future is in your hands.
Strategic business planning helps you to identify your long-term goals and figure out how to achieve them. It can also help you to identify potential problems and how you can best manage them.
Strategies help you to develop a plan that will benefit your business and ensure success in the future. Moving forward with your strategic direction set is key to sustaining the growth you need for your business.
Create your business’s mission
When growing a business, you need a mission. This is a goal that’s specific about what you want to achieve. For a great business plan, your business needs a target that is measurable and achievable.
Your mission will help you to stay on track with your growth. It will also help keep you informed when it comes to making decisions as your business grows.
Having a strategic plan is also important for attracting the eye of potential investors. They want to see that you have a well-thought-out business plan and that you’re serious about succeeding.
Strong goals make for a strong foundation for your strategic plan. You want to spend a lot more time on this bit than you might first think. When you’ve got the right mission in place, the rest will fall into place.
Research your market
In order for your business to be successful, you need to have a firm understanding of your industry and the competition. Knowing your industry allows you to figure how to move up it.
What are your strengths and weaknesses in business in relation to your competition? What can you do to stay ahead of your competitors?
You don’t want there to be a weakness that could easily be exploited by your competitors. It’s never good to leave a reason they can use to convince your customers that they’re a better choice than you are.
Meanwhile, if it’s clear that everyone else is doing something that works, maybe you need to consider doing it too. This doesn’t mean start copying everyone else. You still want to maintain what makes you unique and special, but there’s nothing wrong with being informed about the obvious changes you can make.
Business planning can help you stay one step ahead of the rest. By taking the time to plan out your moves, you can make sure that your business is always moving in the right direction, and maybe getting there that little bit faster than the competition.
Write a business plan
When it comes to successfully running a business, failing to plan is planning to fail. Business planning is essential for any business, no matter its size. Without a plan, you would be reacting blind to whatever chance throws at you, and that’s not a recipe for success.
This plan should take the form of a formal, written document. Something written down is important because it makes it much easier for you to come back to for reference. An actual plan is also easier to communicate to others when you need to.
Your business plan will outline your mission, objectives, strategies, and tactics. It should include a timeline so you can monitor your progress and modify the plan as needed. A strong business plan is there so you can stay on track for reaching your mission.
How to generate a business plan
Planning how you’ll plan can be very useful as well. Making sure you understand the process that your meeting will follow means you can better prepare for it. You don’t want to skip around different ideas, or you’ll miss things out.
The following strategic toolkit is a tried and tested 3-step method for generating a strategic plan.
SWOT
A great tool for understanding your business. It looks at 4 main areas. The first 2 are internal to your business, while the second 2 are external factors that are out of control.
- Strengths – what is it your business does well? What can you rely on?
- Weaknesses – what don’t you do very well? What could cause you problems if left unsorted?
- Opportunities – what could happen that’s out of your control but could be beneficial to your business?
- Threats – what events are out of control that pose a risk to your business?
Crisis Analysis
Life is unpredictable, and a business that’s prepared for the unexpected will be much more resilient.
- Generate ideas for crises that could affect your business. This can be global scale events, such as the closure of a major logistics route, or small scale ones, like a new competitor entering your market.
- Work down from global effects, to how it would affect your business directly.
- Figure out how you would deal with it. This could mean shoring up weaknesses it’s revealed in your business currently, or making a plan for how to handle situations like the crisis if they occur.
MOST Analysis
MOST Analysis breaks planning down into 4 steps. For each of these 4 stages, start by listing every idea you can without trying to analyse them. Once you’ve run out of ideas, then you can think about them more.
- Mission – a specific, achievable growth goal. For example, 25% increase in a year.
- Objectives – what do you need to accomplish to achieve your mission?
- Strategies – what are the options available to your business for completing your objectives?
- Tactics – what actionable tasks make up a chosen strategy?
Bringing it together
MOST synergises well with SWOT and Crisis Analysis as they both give you information on objectives you may want to focus on. An opportunity you found or the preparation for a dangerous crisis are both great examples of something to include in your plan.
Crisis Analysis can benefit from doing SWOT, as it provides a list of threats to explore. The weaknesses in your business will help you to understand the effects a crisis could have.
Many businesses find that it’s a good idea to have someone who owns the process, but is separate to it. When you have your strategy meeting, you want to make sure there’s someone present who won’t join in with the actual planning.
This allows them to steer the direction of the meeting back on track when it gets distracted. This also means they’re free to chase up the completion of tactics without having to worry about their own work.
Some businesses use this as a chance to let a promising employee get Boardroom experience. Others hire a dedicated Strategy Director. This is a role that lends itself very well to a part-time hire.
Monitor progress
Simply creating a business plan and putting it on a shelf won’t be enough. The plan should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that it remains relevant and viable.
Measuring your results and making the necessary changes is an essential part of the growth process. If you’re not monitoring progress, you won’t know if your efforts are actually paying off.
Are your sales increasing? Are you managing to reach more customers? Do you need to make any changes to your plan so you can continue growing?
These are all questions that can be answered by monitoring your growth with regular strategic reviews. How often you should review your strategies will depend on your business. Generally, the more complex the business and plan, the more often it should be reviewed.
Remember that no plan is perfect, and no one can accurately predict something as big and complicated as a business. Things will change, and the plan will likely need to be adjusted accordingly. Regularly revisiting and updating your plan is the key to keeping your business on track.
Seek necessary support
When it comes to business planning and creating a strategic plan, don’t hesitate to ask for help if you think you need it. There are plenty of experts in this field who would be happy to assist you in putting together a winning strategy for your business.
By seeking assistance from more experienced business leaders, you can avoid common mistakes that plague a growing business. Many of these mistakes will be ones that your support will have had to learn the hard way, so will gladly avoid doing again. This should help you stay on track and achieve your mission with fewer setbacks.
The support you access could be in the form of one-to-one mentoring or it could be hiring support directly into your business. As seen, part-time Strategy Directors could help you with your strategic planning, but offer flexibility that better suits a small business.
Succeed in your planning
Following this advice could help your business succeed with its business planning. Planning is vital to any successful pursuits, so make sure you take the time to develop a plan that fits you and your business.
Remember to stay focused on your objectives, and regularly check your plan as your business evolves. With careful planning and execution, you can achieve success for your business.
Boardroom Advisors offer support for your business with experts such as a part-time Strategy Director. They offer flexible contracts that provide expertise to suit your business’s workload and budget.
