How to Create a Strategic Plan for Business and Not Screw Up

Updated on Feb. 07, 2020:  We’ve stopped support of Roadmap Planner but the Roadmap feature is now available in our new goal-oriented platform – Goals by KeepSolid. This business solution provides the same opportunities to plan and execute your strategies and even more. Check out Goals by KeepSolid and stay tuned for its updates!

According to the business dictionary, a strategic plan is a roadmap to achieving both short- and long-term goals of a company. As you can see, this definition doesn’t contain any big words like differentiation or synergy. However, some might think that the definition sounds a little vague. And when they actually move to creating their company strategic plan, they often find themselves with no clear understanding of what this plan should look like. You wouldn’t want to end up among them, would you?

Running your own business is an incredible journey. In order to cut losses and reach success(-es?), your roadmap has to be as clear and result-oriented as possible. That’s why Roadmap Planner team prepared this extensive guide on how to create your company strategic plan and which components you definitely shouldn’t miss. Check it out!

Guide on creating a strategic plan

To make it clear, such plan is not a gospel-truth document that can’t be altered. However, it has to become a control mechanism for implementing a company strategy. If a mechanism doesn’t work properly, you have to fix it and make necessary improvements. However, there exists a list of compulsory details that should be included in your mechanism. They include:

1.Introductory statement

This section has to contain a short description of the whole plan. You should include time period, other components of the plan, date of approval, and list of authors.   

2.Basic information about your company

This is more like an elevator pitch. Here you have to write a history of your organization, a description of your business, and other information that you deem necessary. This section is for the most part written for your newcomer top managers, supporting partners, and investors. It also helps your current workers to better understand what your business is.

3.Mission statement

We’ve already described the importance of this section and how to develop a mission statement previously. Mission is the main reason of your organization’s existence, it answers the question why. It is not the final objective but rather a direction in which your company wants to move. A mission statement also helps your workers to make the right decisions in their workplace.    

4.Vision

It is not the same as mission. Vision is how you see your company’s development. It is a dream of what you want to achieve some day, and a roadmap of your path towards this.

5.Values

This section should be based on your corporate culture. In a nutshell, values are philosophies and principles of your organization. This is actually a more detailed description of your mission statement. For instance, a core value of Apple inc. is commitment to innovation.

6.SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis has also been described on our blog recently. This technique will help you to analyze your strengths and opportunities in order to reduce weaknesses and avoid threats. This step in your company strategic plan is an important part of providing context for your future development.

7.Goals

It is great if you can create an objective tree. This is a method when you identify higher- (strategic 5-year goals), middle- (operational 1-year goals), and lower-level (tactical 1-month goals) of your company objectives. After that, you draw the tree that demonstrates a hierarchical relationship between them. Remember that your goals have to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Assignable, Realistic, and Time-related).

8.KPIs

This acronym stands for Key Performance Indicators. Thanks to this section, you will monitor the effectiveness of your strategic plan implementation. In other words, KPIs will become your method of evaluation. This could be total sales, number of blog subscribers, etc. These indicators will show when your mechanism needs to be fixed or when your roadmap is working right.

9.Market Analysis

In this section, you should analyze external and internal factors of your company environment. Among them we can mention such factors as economical situation, target audience, competitors, suppliers, and so on. This will help you to understand everything about your market share and determine new opportunities for growth.

10.Operations Plan

This is a plan on how to transform your goals into actions. Here you should map all of the projects and tasks among your teammates and visualize them. It will be perfect if you can do this in a Gantt Chart view in a sophisticated planning tool like Roadmap Planner. This way you’ll always know when your projects start, how they are going, and when they have to end.

11.Marketing Plan

What good is a company strategy without marketing, right? This section has to describe how you are going to attract your target audience, with a detailed plan of actions. The summary of the marketing plan can be taken from the document of the same name.

12.Financial Plan

One of the final sections of your strategic plan involves financial estimates. This step is essential, as you can’t translate your plan into actions without money. Here you also have to map your projections that will help you to understand, for instance, how many customers you need to attract this month.

13.Executive Summary

Last, but certainly not least, is the bottom line of your strategic plan. This section should summarize all the aforementioned components and emphasize on achieving your strategy.

Final Words

Thank you for reading! We hope that it will be helpful for your business and now you understand how to create your own perfect strategic plan. If you still have any questions, leave them in the comments below. We’ll be glad to discuss them with you.