Twenty One Aspects of Strategic Planning
INTRODUCTION This is a review of the 21 aspects presented by Brian Tracy as relevant for strategic planning. This review is based on what was presented by Tracy in the video, references on the different aspects and the writer’s reflections. ... Peter and Certo, 1991, state that organisations with good strategic management tend to increase their levels of profit and profitability. ... Strategic planning is essentially an activity lf aligning the organization with the environment. ... 3 Maximize Strengths and Opportunities In the previous section it was noted that strategic planning is an alignment exercise. ... 4 Action : Now In the absence of strategic planning and strategies, organizations stagnate. ... STRATEGIC PLANNING SIMPLIFIED This section gives four steps to be followed in strategic planning. ... The first step in strategic planning is to identify the current position of the organization. It is difficult to plan your future courses of action without knowing one’s current position. ... The historical analysis helps in part to identify what is known as the “planning gap”. In identifying the “planning gap” the organisation needs to examine the strategies it has been using in the past up to the present. ... The gap between the desired destination and the likely destination is called the “planning gap”. ... This step results in identifying the ‘desired destination’ in the identification of the ‘planning gap’. ... This step results in the actions that are selected to bridge the ‘planning gap’. However, many aspects should be considered when selecting these actions. ... Higgins and Vincze, 1986 further state that with the current trends of increased delegation of work and flatter organizations these line managers are increasingly engaged in making strategic decisions. Peter and Certo, 1991 quote George Grune on the importance of the line managers in strategy formulation as “Allowing others to participate in the strategic management process even to the extent of lower level line managers results in more realistic goals, objectives and strategies. ... Particularly in large organizations, when the activities involved in strategic planning get too extensive, many of them are delegated to a group of planners. ... “The planners role in most firms is not so much that of a planner but rather that of a planning coordinator and information provider” (Higgins and Vincze, 1986). ... In an increasingly volatile environment, the planners who have the knowledge of strategic tools such as asking ‘what if’ questions, computer simulations, and scenario planning can make a greater contribution to strategy formulation than before. ... Further, “it identifies how one business intends to achieve profit as opposed to how another similar firm might do so” (Higgins and Vincze, 1986). ... This is because identification with a market or technology or product/service is one dimension of defining one’s business. ... In strategic management terminology such key strengths are known as core competencies. Strategic management is an exercise of beating the competition. ... Comerford and Callaghan, 1985 state that “financial concerns are both directive and supportive in a strategic context” because they either enhance or constrain the contribution of all operations of the organisation to its overall performance. Thus an important strategic decision is how to employ those resources for best results. ... The strategic tool that can be used to do this is known as ‘scenario planning’. ... SBU (Strategic Business Units) This is a way of organising a company’s various businesses. ... COMPETITORS It was stated earlier that strategic management is an exercise of beating the competition. ... Tracy states that having identified who or what one’s competitor is, the competitor should be analysed in terms of price, market share, quality etc. Further, one’s strengths and weaknesses should be analysed in relation to the competitors. ... • What are the implications of competitors’ strategies on the market, industry and one’s own company? ... STRATEGIC VARIABLES These are the variables that determine the operational boundaries of a given strategy. ... In addition to analysing the most important variable of customers, other market aspects that affect the success of a strategy in a given market can be analysed by using the five-force model of competitiveness by Porter.