Erica Olsen

A strategic plan is essential for a successful business, and creating a strategic plan that you can actually use is key. Your plan should include certain elements, like mission, values, and vision statements. It should also avoid common pitfalls, like neglecting the specific needs of your organization, so it becomes your road map for success.

In strategic planning, benchmarks are surveys and assessments that help determine how well your company performs compared to other companies in your industry or business size. Following are just a handful of benchmarking tools available: BizStats: Visit the BizStats website for instant access to useful financial ratios, business statistics, and benchmarks.

In the past, collecting data on your competitors for the purposes of strategic planning was difficult. Today’s overabundance of information makes this important analysis much easier. Now you can collect data legally and ethically and through a plethora of sources available to you. Check out the following table for a list of sources.

Everyone wants to feel successful and recognized for a job well done, but human nature is to brush by achievements. By listing what you achieved last year as an organization, you help motivate and inspire your team to work smarter and harder in the coming year. Additionally, why not try to replicate what worked well last year?

Strategy means consciously choosing to be clear about your company’s direction in relation to what’s happening in the dynamic environment. With this knowledge, you’re in a much better position to respond proactively to the changing environment. The fine points of strategy are as follows: Establishes unique value proposition compared to your competitors Executed through operations that provide different and tailored value to customers Identifies clear tradeoffs and clarifies what not to do Focuses on activities that fit together and reinforce each other Drives continual improvement within the organization and moves it toward its vision Knowing what strategy is can also be explained by looking at what strategy isn’t.

Simply put, a strategic plan is the formalized road map that describes how your company executes the chosen strategy. A plan spells out where an organization is going over the next year or more and how it’s going to get there. Typically, the plan is organization-wide or focused on a major function, such as a division or a department.

The goal of creating target markets in a strategic plan is to target specific customers who have similar needs and wants with the same message, products, and pricing and through the same distribution channels. When done correctly, your target market responds similarly to your marketing efforts. Think about your market as though you’re someone who’s interested in buying your product or service.

Failure to monitor and address advances in technology may negatively impact your financial position in the market. Areas to watch include government spending on technology, big new discoveries or products, speed of technology transfer, and changes in business processes as a result of technology. Many people believe that the revolutionary impact technology has had on products, processes, and communication systems has just begun — think Twitter, Facebook, and video calls.

The purpose of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) is to help produce a good fit between your company’s resources and capabilities and your external environment. Your SWOT analysis is a balance sheet of your strategic position right now. In the analysis, you bring together all your internal factors, strengths, and weaknesses, as well as your external factors, opportunities, and threats.