Strategic Planning

If you run a business, you simply cannot afford to ignore strategic planning.

It would be like having a driving licence and a car, but no idea of your destination, the direction to take, or how long the journey will last.

Or, to use a nautical image, it would be like owning a beautiful boat with perfect sails and a steady breeze, yet having no idea where to steer or point the bow.

Have you ever seen an airplane take off without knowing where it’s going?

Without strategic planning, the life of your company resembles a pleasant spring stroll through a maze of narrow, winding streets. Enjoyable, perhaps — but not particularly fulfilling. Especially in times like these, strategic planning helps you find the right direction, define the steps to take, and anticipate destinations, timing and results. And that’s no small thing.

What is the Strategic Planning

Together with people management, strategic planning is the only truly essential activity an entrepreneur should focus on — the top priority. In short, it means thinking about the future of the markets in which your company operates, your customers, sometimes your suppliers, and the products you offer.

It encompasses all the activities that give a company a clear, agreed and shared direction.

It means having clear ideas — ideally written down in a formal Strategic Business Plan — about what to produce and how, for whom, and how to sell within your current market or a new one. It means setting the course of your ship instead of letting the currents or other vessels decide it for you. Or, if you prefer the earlier metaphor, using your licence and your car to drive towards a known destination, arriving at a defined time and in good condition.

The decisions that arise from clarity about your company’s direction define your corporate and business strategy. More simply, they define the most important chapters of your business plan.

Strategic planning materialises in a document known as a strategic plan, consisting of an industrial plan, a business plan &nbspand a financial plan.

In very concise terms, strategic planning can be described as a sequence of steps:

1. Precisely defining measurable short, medium and long-term objectives (typically 1–3–5 years),
2. Analysing any existing strategy and the results it has produced
3. Studying market conditions, defining business models and action plans with related projects,
4. Building and analysing alternative scenarios and the most likely variations to the original strategic plan — an essential factor in a VUCA world

Et voilà.

Why you must focus on Strategic Planning

Because if you simply drive around aimlessly, you burn fuel and achieve nothing.

Because if you don’t point the bow in the direction, you want and adjust the lines, you will never reach a port.

And if you don’t decide your direction, someone else will — for their benefit, not yours. And they’ll be perfectly justified in doing so.

You can choose to live like that, shaped by the decisions of others for their advantage. There’s no judgement in that. But in that case, we probably don’t have much to discuss. If instead you want to give your company its own direction — for your benefit and for the people who live and work with you — then we’re aligned.

Strategic planning is the only way to reclaim the motivation you had at the beginning and truly take control of your core role as an entrepreneur. And the benefits don’t stop there.

When you create and share a strategic plan with your team, you can:

• align everyone towards a common goal;
• define short-term objectives proactively and measure results;
• structure long-term goals and support them with medium and short-term plans;
• valuate your current situation and identify opportunities and threats;
• make decisions with less doubt and procrastination;
• build a more durable company by thinking long term;
• increase motivation and engagement.

And honestly — isn’t that enough already?

Remember: if you don’t give your company a direction, others will. Suppliers, customers, sometimes even employees. But the investments are yours and so is the risk. It might be wiser for you to decide.

We’ll explore this and much more at the upcoming special event of White Academy on 16–17 June. If you’d like to go deeper into these topics with us, write to chiedi@whitening.life and we'll reply promptly.

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