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Time to Update Your Strategic Plan

Written by: Larry Mandelberg

Article Overview: Feeling caught in a no win situation? Don't feel bad, no one anticipated the economic trauma we've recently gone through. The economy has changed, people aren't buying, you have opportunity but can't get credit to take advantage of it, and your existing client base is slowly melting away into retirement, bankruptcy or sale. If you’re in react mode, you'll never get ahead of the changes taking place - things are moving too fast. It's time to re-evaluate your opportunities and update your strategic plan.

Time to Update Your Strategic Plan

"O ye'll tak' the high road and I'll tak' the low road,

An' I'll be in Scotland afore ye.

But me and my true love will never meet again

On the bonnie, bonnie banks O' Loch Lomond."

Due respect to Paul Harvey, and now, the rest of the story.

The high road was closed for repairs due to a defective stretch of recently resurfaced roadway and the low road detoured around a rock slide and didn't end up in Scotland. Unfortunately our star crossed lovers were unaware and unprepared and neither made it to their destination.

These past 14 months have been the most turbulent times any business owner has ever had to navigate. Our world has changed, and if you haven't made time to reevaluate the environment your business is operating in, you've left yourself exposed and vulnerable. If you don't take the time to get refocused on what you have to change to ensure long term success, rest assured at least one of your competitors has. Do you really want to give them a competitive and strategic advantage by default?

Does your business have a strategic plan? Not something inside the your head, or something a few Board members think the company should do, but a written, well thought out plan that actually leverages the organizations strengths, steers around its weaknesses, and takes advantage of the current economic environment?

If not, how do you extract and capture an asset of massive value, the best thinking within your organization, when all you have to do is a little digging to get to it?

What is it?



Strategy creates purpose, instills the sense of need, provides a direction, focus, and clearly helps you know what's important. When you think strategy, think chess. Strategy is thinking multiple moves ahead, thinking about what someone else will do based on something you do and vice versa.

It's the action reaction scenario, it's about knowing what you should and shouldn't be doing, it's about not being surprised, and when you are, being prepared with an appropriate response or action.

A strategic plan is the ‘how-to' part. Michele Masterfano, Professor at Drexel University, describes a strategic plan as "...understanding the external environmental as well as the internal environment - the skills, capabilities, and resources of the company. The idea is to look at the external and internal environments and develop a way to grow the business."

The actionable component of a strategic plan is SMART objectives. SMART stands for Strategic, Measureable, Action oriented, Realistic and Time bound. Strategic plans often have three objectives with two to four year timelines.

No strategic plan = opportunity lost



Companies with a history of success through good times and bad are companies that plan. They make time to gather the best thinking in their organization and reflect on it. Then they put that knowledge to work identifying the goals they must achieve in the near term to be successful in the long run.

Companies operating without a strategic plan are operating under a reactionary philosophy. They react to market conditions, competition, internal limitations, and other external forces such as regulation instead of preparing for them and acting proactively to minimize any potential negative impacts. This allows those companies with strategic plans the luxury of shaping both internal and external forces in their benefit to the extent those forces can be shaped.

I asked two successful entrepreneurs why they thought having a strategic plan was important. Doug Worth, President & CEO of Worth Group, an architectural, construction and development organization said "I always felt strategic planning was the only way we would ever find a path to becoming a larger company. A strategic plan turns a game of poker into a game of chess."

And Jim Horan, President of One Page Business Plan said "It gets the owner, executives, managers, etc., to stop and think about their business, gather their thoughts, distill them, make decisions around them, and put them down on paper as a contract with themselves."

How do I get started?



The first step to creating or revising a strategic plan is to gather your leadership team, the people who understand your business intimately. As a group, you should meet and talk about what is going on in your organization. What are people's fears and concerns, and what do they see as bright spots on the horizon.

This process is often referred to as a SWOT analysis, which stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The discussion must be done away from the office to avoid the distractions and interruptions that are a part of every normal workday. Ideally it would be done out of town as well to avoid distractions from home.

I have two questions for you.

1. What does strategy and strategic planning for business mean to you and how would you describe it to someone with little or no experience with strategic thinking?

2. Is it important to have a strategic plan, and if so, why? What is the harm that can come from not having one, what are the benefits? In other words, as a business person, why should you invest either time or dollars into creating one?

I would love to hear from you and look forward to your ideas and thoughts.

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Article Tags: board members, bonnie banks, business owner, chess, chess strategy, due respect, economic environment, loch lomond, paul harvey, rest of the story, roadway, rock slide, scotland, star crossed lovers, steers, strategic advantage, strategic plan, term success, true love, turbulent times



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