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Strategic Planning by Definition

Submitted by Mitch Seigel on Tue, 10/29/2013

Planning strategies for your company should be part of the fabric of doing business. If you cringe at the thought of a strategy session, you should take yourself out of the ownership role. In years past planning strategies took place once a year just prior to setting up budgets for the following year. Today business changes too fast to wait a full year. Strategy sessions are taking place on a regular basis throughout the year in order to stay in touch with the market and ahead of the competition.

Planning strategies is essentially setting goals and tactics of how you are going to market with your products or services. You know the old axiom, ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’-it is paramount you plan in order to reach your goals or that of your company. Operations, sales, marketing, human resources, IT, personnel, production, as well as any other departments you have in your business, should be part of the planning process.

Strategic planning sessions should have a leader, someone to facilitate the process and keep the meeting flowing. The flow will determine the amount of ideas that are developed. Lethargic meetings produce limited results. Moderate to up-tempo meetings tend to produce far superior results. I make it sound much easier than it is. Once you and your company get in the rhythm of doing planning sessions, they will become easier and easier to complete.

What are your challenges when it comes to strategic planning? I look forward to hearing your

comments. Until next time…