Strategic Planning: A Necessity For Survival!
by Ken Klotz, JD, PGPi associate
When many owners of small to mid-sized businesses hear the
phrase "strategic planning", their eyes glaze over and they stop
listening. That's because many business
owners think strategic planning is something only the large corporations need
to do. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Smaller companies have an even
greater need in these tough economic times to design strategies to help them
grow - or in some cases, just to survive. Strategic
errors made by small and mid-sized companies are magnified because they lack
the deep pockets to recover from them.
So whether you call it strategic planning, growth planning, or survival
planning, the need is there.
Strategic planning usually involves a hard, honest look at
a company's internal strengths and weaknesses, to spot danger signs that
warrant correction. Examples include an
assessment of personnel, facilities and equipment, management capabilities, competitive
strengths and weaknesses, and financial resources. Additionally, strategic planning focuses on
examining the many external forces that affect a company in a positive or
negative manner. Factors to analyze
include industry growth rate and future outlook, strength of competitors, legal
or environmental threats, and supplier relationships.
Some of the largest
benefits of strategic planning include
-
forcing
management to question their assumptions and challenge their thinking
-
pointing
out inconsistencies in current strategy or direction
-
discovering
and adapting to factors that could blind-side the company
-
identifying
competitive strengths and strategies to maximize their effect
-
pinpointing
competitive weaknesses and ways to compensate for them
Regardless of a company's past successes, in today's
economic climate strategies must be continuously adapted in order to prosper. Market success is a moving target affected by
new competitors and technology, loss of key personnel, acquisition of funding,
market contraction, and shifting demographics.
Without a plan to adapt to these constant changes, a company has little
control over its own destiny.
Whether you are considering adding a new product or
service, critiquing sales and marketing efforts, or carving out a sustainable
competitive advantage, a strategic plan is the right tool for the job.
©2009 PGPi All
rights reserved
Ken Klotz, lawyer and small
business expert, is an associate of Performance Growth Partners Inc., a full
service organizational improvement firm specializing in strategic planning, conference
and meeting facilitation, HR audits, corporate outplacement services, customer
service assessments, customer service training, supervisory training, employee
surveys, employee handbooks, teambuilding programs and team training, on-call
and project based HR consulting services, outsourced HR services, employee
retention programs, performance improvement programs, executive coaching,
manufacturing process and operations improvement consulting, training and programs,
safety assessments, safety training, employee retention program, performance
improvement programs, interim executive placement, conference speaking, keynote
addresses, business turnaround consulting, healthcare consulting and a wide
range of other services. Contact PGPi toll-free at (877) 739-4747 or e-mail contactus@performtogrow.com
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