What is Strategic Planning?

Answer:
Strategic planning is the process

of assessing or re-assessing a company’s vision, mission and goals. Strategic planning involves determining the answers to questions such as, “Where is this company going? What should this company be doing? How will this company do what we need to do?

There are various methodologies for strategic planning; however, most strategic planning methodologies involve some type of a three-step process.

Listed below are some of the three-step strategic planning processes a company may consider:

STP:

“S” stands for “Situation” and a company determines and evaluates their current situation and how the situation occurred.

“T” stands for “Target” and a company determines what they want by defining measurable goals for the company.

“P” stands for “Path” and a company considers and maps out the direction which would be most likely to meet the goals and objectives they set as their target.

Draw-See-Think Process:

“Draw” or determine what a companies ideal image might be.

“See” assess a company’s current or immediate situation. They would also consider any difference this might be from their ideal image.

“Think” the company would determine what steps need to be taken to close the gap (or difference) between their immediate situation and their ideal situation.

After this, a company would plan what steps need to be taken to achieve their goals and what resources will need to be utilized to complete their plan.

Other processes include:

SWOT

S - Strength – A company would consider their strengths.

W - Weaknesses – A company would consider their weaknesses.

O - Opportunities – A company would consider their opportunities.

T - Threats – A company would consider threats that may affect their strategic plan.

PEST

P – Political

E – Economic

S – Social

T - Technological