Strategic Planning

There is no Success Without a Map

A company that invests the time to prepare a Strategic Plan knows where it is going. It is a coordinated and systematic way to develop a course and direction for your company. By recording its values and vision, as well as its short- and medium-term goals, the company executives are able to create clear marching orders for themselves and their team. A Strategic Plan, designed and implemented correctly, will be a pivotal to your organization’s success and growth.

Not a Business Plan

A business plan answers ‘what do we want to do’, and includes the company’s organizational structure, marketing plan and financial objectives. Conversely, a Strategic Plan answers the question ‘how do I do it’. A well formulated Strategic Plan provides detailed action plan for the next several years, all aimed at achieving the company’s stated goals and objectives.

Success Test

Many companies want to know if they are successful. Without a definition of what success is, however, there is literally no way to gauge this. Your Strategic Plan should include a list of quantifiable metrics that will be tracked, broken down into milestones.  This allows the company on a monthly, quarterly, and annually basis to take an unbiased measurement of its performance against, these milestones, to determine if it is reaching the goals, milestones, and financial targets established. For any targets missed, an analysis must be done to determine if the shortfalls fall within the expected thresholds of the company’s current growth phase, or if they should raise a red flag as to one of the key market threats your plan has previously identified. As the saying goes “if you don’t know where you are going, you won’t know when you got there”. The Strategic Plan lets you know exactly where you are going, and lets you see not just when you arrived, but how close you are. It’s the answer to the age-old question “are we there yet”?  

Be Flexible, Don’t Go Off Course

Businesses change, because markets change. In today’s world of technology that is often obsolete 36 months after it’s announced, a company that is following a 5-year business plan with no changes is likely not on the same road as the rest of us anymore. Because your strategic plan sits above your business plan, it allows for, and provides guidance for, market shifts, industry trend changes, and changing consumer habits. While no strategic plan can anticipate every change coming down the road, it can provide a framework of decision making for when those changes come.  

We Can Help You

Our executive team can work with you to identify the key
SWOT components of your business
, develop a 12- and 24-month detailed budget, and a five-year financial plan. After our team and yours has completed a Strategic Plan, you will know you are following a map to success. We can also, if you desire, help you measure against this plan each quarter. We will review and discuss the relevant aspects of the Strategic Plan, measured against the previous quarter and YTD budget. The budget will then be updated where necessary to reflect the current situation of the company. We also review whether there is a requirement to update or re-cast the non-financial aspects of the business.

Included

A Strategic Plan will generally include:
  • An executive summary, which is usually written at the end of the process
  • A company description
  • The company’s mission, vision and value statements
  • A strategic analysis that can be in the form of a
    SWOT analysis
  • An explanation of your strategies and tactics
  • An action plan with specific benchmarks and timelines
  • Budget and operating plans
  • A comprehensive system to monitor and evaluate results

Costs

Every company’s situation is different, but generally we anticipate the initial plan costing between $4,000 – $7,000. Though offered as a separate and optional service, we highly recommend that you take advantage of our quarterly review service. We will do an independent analysis of the company’s performance each quarter and see additional information as needed to really understand how you have performed compared to your goals. This will culminate in a 4-5 hour meeting with your key executive staff (can be stretched over two days) to review the results that were achieved both from a financial and strategic aspect and compare them with the metrics that we developed with you during the planning phase. If the company achieved results below expectation we can help you analyze why. Finally, the projections and objectives are updated for the next quarter and three additional quarters. We charge a flat rate of $3,000 per quarter for this service.