7 Tips for Making Good Strategic Planning

Good strategic planning is essential for success! It helps you define your next steps and what needs to be done so that your business or your goals continue to grow at the desired pace.

We've selected seven tips that will guide you on how to carry out your strategic planning:

1. Look to the near future

Anyone who doesn't yet have a lot of experience in planning should be clear that strategic planning shouldn't be thought of for the very distant future. This will only waste time and energy, as well as having no tangible results, which could demotivate you.

Concentrate on shorter periods, of one, three and five years, for example. That way you'll have more precise information to work with.

2. Put everything down on paper

It's essential that you document everything that's on your mind, so that it's easier to identify possible opportunities and risks.

Define the objectives to be achieved, set deadlines and indicate which actions are necessary and who will be responsible for achieving them.

Always keep your business's main mission in mind.

3. Let's go section by section

The objective is one, but each area has its own routines and activities. So think about every aspect of your business: marketing, sales, production, finance, etc. Set tangible targets for each of them.

4. Analyse the external environment

The external environment also influences your business. The rise in the price of raw materials, the interest rate on consumer loans, the growth or decline of competition - all of these can affect your business. Therefore, external elements cannot be left out of the equation when putting together a good strategic plan.

5. Evaluate the internal environment

The team and the business's internal procedures should also be a source of investigation. This will help you discover what qualities already exist and what needs to be improved.

6. Formulate the strategy

With all this data in hand, formulate the strategy that will be adopted from then on. And make your employees and/or partners aware of every step your business is going to take. Get them involved in implementing the strategies so that the objectives can be achieved more easily.

When employees feel part of the team, they work more happily and bring better results.

7. Understand that the process is dynamic

There's no point in all this planning if you leave the strategic plan in the drawer.

Another mistake is to think that what is written on paper cannot be changed. From time to time, preferably not for too long, you need to analyse and measure the results in order to make possible course corrections to your plan.