Dont Eat That Elephant! SmartDraw Strategic Planning Thats as Easy as Pizza Pie In business, its not enough to simply have a great idea, product or service and then hope that success will find its way to you. Successful businesses are built around a vision or purpose. Its what drives those within the business to set out on a mission to achieve that purpose. Much like the old adage about how to eat an elephant (one bite at a time), the mission is much too large to digest at once. It must be broken down into smaller pieces. That process is strategic planning. Though, for most business people the thought of strategic planning is just as nauseating as the notion of eating an elephant. What we need is to eliminate the elephant paradigm. Strategic planning should be more like eating a pizza. But can it be that easy? Yes, it can; by combining a few simple concepts with visual strategic planning tools from SmartDraw. I brought you to this pizza joint, Ralph, to present my alternative to your how to eat an elephant strategic planning philosophy. Copyright by The Cartoon Bank I brought you to this pizza joint, Ralph, to present my alternative to your how to eat an elephant strategic planning philosophy. Buy SmartDraw now and save $100 or more for a limited time. Buy SmartDraw Why Visual Strategic Planning? Top companies know that strategic planning is critical to their competitive advantage and long-term success. And the very best know that visuals are an essential part of each phase of the process-from data collection and pre-planning to action, implementation and measurement. By extending the use of strategic planning visuals to all members of the team, the process can be up to six times more effective! Only SmartDraw has the automation and ease of use to allow your entire team to quickly create ALL of the visuals required for smart and effective strategic planning. Start by Thinking Big The importance of grasping your companys big picture cannot be overstated. Start with the vision of your enterprise. This is a future-thinking concept of how you want the world to look. It may be emotive and should be long-term. A non-profit organization may have as its vision a world without poverty, for example. Part of GMs corporate vision is to lead the world in alternative fuel propulsion. Steve Jobs once laid out his vision of an Apple on every desk. Does a vision have to be achievable? Not at all. Its an ideal, but it should be one that motivates every member of the organization to act in its direction. Goals Propose a Mission With the vision in mind, a mission should be established. The mission is the companys reason for being. It connects where the company is today with a vision for the future. It should also help employees connect with customers, suppliers and each other. The best mission statement is simple, direct and clear. Any employee should be able to recite it at any time. The idea is that everything each employee does, it does with the purpose of advancing the company toward its mission. CVS Pharmacy, for example, has a very simple and clear mission: We will be the easiest pharmacy retailer for customers to use. Set Goals Tony Robbins said, Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. Goals, sometimes called targets, are something that your business will focus on achieving. They should be quantifiable and attainable. Examples of goals might be: To increase our subscriber base by 50% over the next five years. To increase our revenues by 20% per year over the next three years. To improve our customer retention rate from 40% to 60% by the end of next year. Just as a pilot must file a flight plan before setting out for his destination, a business should have a clear set of goals that are expressed as part of a written strategic plan. Perform an Environmental Scan What is an environmental scan? Its an analysis of issues - both internal and external to the organization - that impact your goals and how you will set objectives and tactics to achieve them. There are three basic parts of an environmental scan. Internal - a look at the companys current situation including critical issues, strengths and weaknesses. External - those issues outside the company such as competition, the economy and regulations that will affect its plans. Summary of these findings in a SWOT diagram. SWOT diagram Elements of the environmental scan can range from simple to complex. They could be just informal discussions focusing on the conditions existing within the company. Perhaps they could involve more formal, structured exercises. Or they could involve carrying out sophisticated analyses of the business environment and internal operating circumstances. The classic SWOT analysis (an assessment of external opportunities and threats as well as internal strengths and weaknesses) will summarize the results of the environmental scan, regardless of the complexity of your analysis. Develop a Strategy You now have a grasp of the situation at hand; your mission is defined, goals are set and analysis of internal and external issues is completed. Now you have to figure out how youre going to go about the strategy of achieving your goals. The key in developing a strategy, in fact the key to successful strategic planning overall, is to be brutally honest and realistic in all facets of the process. Good strategic planning What avenues are open to you for attaining the goals youve set? What kinds of actions and resources are required? Who does what, and when? Good strategic planning is an iterative process that may require reassessing internal and external scan information and adjusting goals accordingly. When complete, the result is a clear, concise and workable blueprint for your business to follow in pursuit of its stated goals. Keep it Simple Sometimes, people are overwhelmed by the seemingly complex nature of the strategic planning process. The bottom line is to keep it simple. The best way to do that is with visual strategic planning using SmartDraw. Why SmartDraw? One-Click Microsoft Office® Integration Insert visuals in Word®, Excel®, and PowerPoint® documents with one click. SmartDraw is also SharePoint® enabled and imports Visio® files. Office integration Automatic Formatting Click simple commands and SmartDraw builds your visual for you, automatically. Add or remove a shape and SmartDraw realigns and arranges all the elements so that everything looks great. You dont need to be able to draw to use SmartDraw. Quick-Start Templates Dozens of professionally-designed strategic planning examples make you instantly productive. Simply choose the applicable template and customize it to suit your needs.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 05:51:30 +0000
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