What is the Importance of Strategic Planning

Running a business requires you to take risk sometimes or rather most of the times. This is like gambling, you cannot be 100 percent sure that the outcome will be successful. With this, careful and strategic planning is needed.

Strategic Planning vs Crisis Management

Executives and organizations spend most of their time reacting to various changes in the market. Of course, they will do everything they can to keep their businesses standing firm. This method of finding solutions to existing problems to avoid the negative effects is called crisis management. However, the thing with crisis management is that it will exhaust you so much that you feel like you just came from a World War III. Instead of hurting your brains and making yourself nervous if you will be able to surpass a storm or not, isn\’t it better to prepare for the storm while it is not happening yet. This is what we call strategic planning.

Strategic planning involves advance preparation for the future endeavours that your business or company might face in the future. This is a step-by-step process with exact and clear objectives and products that can be evaluated and implemented. In other words, strategic planning is anticipating solutions to a problem based on the present situation.

Strategic planning looks 3 to 5 years ahead giving enough preparation time to face and overcome difficult situations. It uses strong indicators to know what kind of problems will be facing in the future. Some of these indicators include:

1. Census demographic statistics

2. Economic indicators

3. Government policies

4. Technological advances

Why Strategic Planning

Some people might ask why strategic planning when you can do crisis management. Well, aside from the fact that it will make you feel less nervous when you have a plan prepared ahead of time, here are more reasons why you should consider strategic planning:

1. It will determine the mission/vision of your company – This is particularly true for those who are just starting with their business. It would be best to determine what are the missions and visions of your company. This way you will be able to see the path that you need to take towards success.

2. It will influence the future – Since you are always thinking and planning ahead, for the future of your business then this will somewhat influence what the future of your company will look like.

3. Awareness of the facilities that you need – You will be able to determine the facilities and other things that you need to improve your business when you start planning ahead of time.

4. To provide strong leadership – A good leader must lead his/her people towards the future and you will be able to do this when you have a strong plan for the future not only for the organization but also for all the employees.

5. It will inspire everyone – Lastly, having a clear vision of your organization 3 to 5 years from now will inspire everyone to work harder. They will feel more secured and therefore they will be able to do their work efficiently.

These are the importance of strategic planning. If you are just starting with your own business then you might as well prepare a strategic plan that will keep your business strong and prepared for various challenges and trials.

Mabel Miles likes to share information on business plan template and strategic plan as well as related business matters.

Mabel Miles likes to share information on business plan template and strategic plan as well as related business matters.
http://www.growthink.com/products/business-plan-template
http://www.growthink.com/products/strategic-plan-template

Author Bio: Mabel Miles likes to share information on business plan template and strategic plan as well as related business matters.

Category: Business
Keywords: strategic planning,crisis management,planning ahead,consider strategic planning

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