Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is a fundamental activity that all businesses must undertake to achieve success.

Strategic Goal Management helps business owners and leaders with strategic planning to deliver strategically focused goals.

We guide you through business best practices for strategic planning, creating a vision and values, goal setting and risk management.

Our strategic planning services

The fundamentals of a strong business over the long term are built on well-thought-out strategic plans. We help you grow from strong foundations with a rigorous strategic approach risk management, finances, people, processes, and products/services.

Strategic Planning

Strategic Goals in Business

The importance of strategic business goals cannot be overstated; without them, employees will not understand what they are working towards.

Managing Business Risks

Business risk management is an essential part of organisational governance and should be conducted with rigour strategically and operationally.

Organisational Culture

There are hundreds of scholarly definitions for organisational culture, which can make the subject confusing to understand. However, I have tried to simplify the concept of corporate culture for this concise summary.

Competitor Analysis

Competitor Analysis is vital if you want to beat the competition in your industry or sector. It is important that you can identify when a competitor has products or services that are better than yours.

Mission, Vision & Values

Mission, vision and values should be crafted at the start-up stage of the company. The formation of these statements can aid in developing long-term strategic plans based on their business goals.

Business Coaching

Business coaching can significantly enhance individual and business performance by facilitating the development of business owners and senior leaders.

What is
Strategic Planning?

Top strategy development company

There are several definitions from scholars for strategic planning. However, put simply, strategic planning is the process of making leadership decisions that will help a company achieve their strategic organisational goals.

The process should consider factors such as the current economic climate, the political situation and the current strengths and weaknesses of the company. Two models that are very helpful for strategic planning are linked below:

PESTLE Analysis SWOT Analysis

What is PESTLE Analysis?

PESTLE analysis is used to understand the external factors that could impact your organisation in the wider macro environment. PESTLE analysis is broken down in more detail below:

Political

Current political factors could include the war in Ukraine and its impact on the global supply chain and gas prices. Moreover, the uncertainty over the current government’s fiscal policies and the pound’s value could impact your business.

Another example could include how the UK COVID-19 policies impacted businesses and their customers.

Economic

The current rate of inflation and the subsequent increases in the cost of living is likely impacting your business, your customers, and your staff.

Sociological

The culture of your business is an important factor; demotivated staff are unlikely to perform to their maximum potential. Do you have just culture or a blame culture? Is working from home becoming a problem for your business?

Remember the sociological impact that COVID-19 had on potential customers.

Technological

How will changes in technology impact your business?
Is technology a risk, and will your services or products remain viable due to technological advancements?

For example, think of the impact that Airbnb has had on hotels and bed and breakfasts since its launch. Or the demise of the combustion engine in car production.

Legal

Some examples could be the legal changes such as the introduction of IR35, the Construction Industry Scheme and leaving the European Union.

Compliance with the law is a legal requirement; if any of your processes or company actions break the law, you could be liable under corporate liability.

Environmental

Environmental factors that impact business are becoming increasingly prevalent with such a strong emphasis in the media. Moreover, political groups such as Just Stop Oil have taken ever-increasing extreme measures to disrupt the UK.

Another example of environmental scope creep can be seen in nearly all public sector tender submittals, where companies are scored on their environmental policies. This could include the need for an ISO14001 Environmental management system as a tender requirement.

What is SWOT Analysis?

SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool that can be used to ascertain business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It can be used to help the decision-making processes, and it effectively captures the status of a business. When used in conjunction with PESTLE, the analysis can be very helpful to business leaders.

An important part of the strategic planning process is to ensure that business risks are identified so that they can be categorised and mitigated. Risk management is a necessity if strategic plans are to be successful.

The table below is a guide based on our fictional Company X. (Click to enlarge)