what is strategic and business planning

Strategic Planning

The art of formulating business strategies, implementing them, and evaluating their impact based on organizational objectives

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the art of creating specific business strategies, implementing them, and evaluating the results of executing the plan, in regard to a company’s overall long-term goals or desires. It is a concept that focuses on integrating various departments (such as accounting and finance, marketing, and human resources) within a company to accomplish its strategic goals. The term strategic planning is essentially synonymous with strategic management.

The concept of strategic planning originally became popular in the 1950s and 1960s, and enjoyed favor in the corporate world up until the 1980s, when it somewhat fell out of favor. However, enthusiasm for strategic business planning was revived in the 1990s and strategic planning remains relevant in modern business.

CFI’s Course on Corporate & Business Strategy is an elective course for the FMVA Program.

Strategic Planning Process

The strategic planning process requires considerable thought and planning on the part of a company’s upper-level management. Before settling on a plan of action and then determining how to strategically implement it, executives may consider many possible options. In the end, a company’s management will, hopefully, settle on a strategy that is most likely to produce positive results (usually defined as improving the company’s bottom line) and that can be executed in a cost-efficient manner with a high likelihood of success, while avoiding undue financial risk.

The development and execution of strategic planning are typically viewed as consisting of being performed in three critical steps:

1. Strategy Formulation

In the process of formulating a strategy, a company will first assess its current situation by performing an internal and external audit. The purpose of this is to help identify the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities and threats ( SWOT Analysis ). As a result of the analysis, managers decide on which plans or markets they should focus on or abandon, how to best allocate the company’s resources, and whether to take actions such as expanding operations through a joint venture or merger.

Business strategies have long-term effects on organizational success. Only upper management executives are usually authorized to assign the resources necessary for their implementation.

2. Strategy Implementation

After a strategy is formulated, the company needs to establish specific targets or goals related to putting the strategy into action, and allocate resources for the strategy’s execution. The success of the implementation stage is often determined by how good a job upper management does in regard to clearly communicating the chosen strategy throughout the company and getting all of its employees to “buy into” the desire to put the strategy into action.

Effective strategy implementation involves developing a solid structure, or framework, for implementing the strategy, maximizing the utilization of relevant resources, and redirecting marketing efforts in line with the strategy’s goals and objectives.

3. Strategy Evaluation

Any savvy business person knows that success today does not guarantee success tomorrow. As such, it is important for managers to evaluate the performance of a chosen strategy after the implementation phase.

Strategy evaluation involves three crucial activities: reviewing the internal and external factors affecting the implementation of the strategy, measuring performance, and taking corrective steps to make the strategy more effective. For example, after implementing a strategy to improve customer service, a company may discover that it needs to adopt a new customer relationship management (CRM) software program in order to attain the desired improvements in customer relations.

All three steps in strategic planning occur within three hierarchical levels: upper management, middle management, and operational levels. Thus, it is imperative to foster communication and interaction among employees and managers at all levels, so as to help the firm to operate as a more functional and effective team.

Benefits of Strategic Planning

The volatility of the business environment causes many firms to adopt reactive strategies rather than proactive ones. However, reactive strategies are typically only viable for the short-term, even though they may require spending a significant amount of resources and time to execute. Strategic planning helps firms prepare proactively and address issues with a more long-term view. They enable a company to initiate influence instead of just responding to situations.

Among the primary benefits derived from strategic planning are the following:

1. Helps formulate better strategies using a logical, systematic approach

This is often the most important benefit. Some studies show that the strategic planning process itself makes a significant contribution to improving a company’s overall performance, regardless of the success of a specific strategy.

2. Enhanced communication between employers and employees

Communication is crucial to the success of the strategic planning process. It is initiated through participation and dialogue among the managers and employees, which shows their commitment to achieving organizational goals.

Strategic planning also helps managers and employees show commitment to the organization’s goals. This is because they know what the company is doing and the reasons behind it. Strategic planning makes organizational goals and objectives real, and employees can more readily understand the relationship between their performance, the company’s success, and compensation. As a result, both employees and managers tend to become more innovative and creative, which fosters further growth of the company.

3. Empowers individuals working in the organization

The increased dialogue and communication across all stages of the process strengthens employees’ sense of effectiveness and importance in the company’s overall success. For this reason, it is important for companies to decentralize the strategic planning process by involving lower-level managers and employees throughout the organization. A good example is that of the Walt Disney Co., which dissolved its separate strategic planning department, in favor of assigning the planning roles to individual Disney business divisions.

An increasing number of companies use strategic planning to formulate and implement effective decisions. While planning requires a significant amount of time, effort, and money, a well-thought-out strategic plan efficiently fosters company growth, goal achievement, and employee satisfaction.

Additional Resources

Thank you for reading CFI’s guide to Strategic Planning. To keep learning and advancing your career, the additional CFI resources below will be useful:

• Broad Factors Analysis
• Scalability
• Systems Thinking
• See all management & strategy resources
• Share this article

Create a free account to unlock this Template

Access and download collection of free Templates to help power your productivity and performance.

Already have an account? Log in

Supercharge your skills with Premium Templates

Take your learning and productivity to the next level with our Premium Templates.

Upgrading to a paid membership gives you access to our extensive collection of plug-and-play Templates designed to power your performance—as well as CFI's full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs.

Already have a Self-Study or Full-Immersion membership? Log in

Access Exclusive Templates

Gain unlimited access to more than 250 productivity Templates, CFI's full course catalog and accredited Certification Programs, hundreds of resources, expert reviews and support, the chance to work with real-world finance and research tools, and more.

Already have a Full-Immersion membership? Log in

• Product overview
• All features
• Latest feature release
• App integrations

CAPABILITIES

• project icon Project management
• Project views
• Custom fields
• Status updates
• goal icon Goals and reporting
• Reporting dashboards
• workflow icon Workflows and automation
• portfolio icon Resource management
• Capacity planning
• Time tracking
• my-task icon Admin and security
• Admin console
• asana-intelligence icon Asana AI
• list icon Personal
• premium icon Starter
• briefcase icon Advanced
• Goal management
• Organizational planning
• Campaign management
• Creative production
• Content calendars
• Marketing strategic planning
• Resource planning
• Project intake
• Product launches
• Employee onboarding
• View all uses arrow-right icon
• Project plans
• Team goals & objectives
• Team continuity
• Meeting agenda
• View all templates arrow-right icon
• Work management resources Discover best practices, watch webinars, get insights
• Customer stories See how the world's best organizations drive work innovation with Asana
• Help Center Get lots of tips, tricks, and advice to get the most from Asana
• Asana Academy Sign up for interactive courses and webinars to learn Asana
• Developers Learn more about building apps on the Asana platform
• Community programs Connect with and learn from Asana customers around the world
• Events Find out about upcoming events near you
• Partners Learn more about our partner programs
• Asana for nonprofits Get more information on our nonprofit discount program, and apply.

Featured Reads

• Business strategy |
• What is strategic planning? A 5-step gu ...

What is strategic planning? A 5-step guide

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. In this article, we'll guide you through the strategic planning process, including why it's important, the benefits and best practices, and five steps to get you from beginning to end.

Strategic planning is a process through which business leaders map out their vision for their organization’s growth and how they’re going to get there. The strategic planning process informs your organization’s decisions, growth, and goals.

Strategic planning helps you clearly define your company’s long-term objectives—and maps how your short-term goals and work will help you achieve them. This, in turn, gives you a clear sense of where your organization is going and allows you to ensure your teams are working on projects that make the most impact. Think of it this way—if your goals and objectives are your destination on a map, your strategic plan is your navigation system.

In this article, we walk you through the 5-step strategic planning process and show you how to get started developing your own strategic plan.

How to build an organizational strategy

Get our free ebook and learn how to bridge the gap between mission, strategic goals, and work at your organization.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a business process that helps you define and share the direction your company will take in the next three to five years. During the strategic planning process, stakeholders review and define the organization’s mission and goals, conduct competitive assessments, and identify company goals and objectives. The product of the planning cycle is a strategic plan, which is shared throughout the company.

What is a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is the end result of the strategic planning process. At its most basic, it’s a tool used to define your organization’s goals and what actions you’ll take to achieve them.

Typically, your strategic plan should include: 

Your company’s mission statement

Your organizational goals, including your long-term goals and short-term, yearly objectives

Any plan of action, tactics, or approaches you plan to take to meet those goals

What are the benefits of strategic planning?

Strategic planning can help with goal setting and decision-making by allowing you to map out how your company will move toward your organization’s vision and mission statements in the next three to five years. Let’s circle back to our map metaphor. If you think of your company trajectory as a line on a map, a strategic plan can help you better quantify how you’ll get from point A (where you are now) to point B (where you want to be in a few years).

When you create and share a clear strategic plan with your team, you can:

Build a strong organizational culture by clearly defining and aligning on your organization’s mission, vision, and goals.

Align everyone around a shared purpose and ensure all departments and teams are working toward a common objective.

Proactively set objectives to help you get where you want to go and achieve desired outcomes.

Promote a long-term vision for your company rather than focusing primarily on short-term gains.

Ensure resources are allocated around the most high-impact priorities.

Define long-term goals and set shorter-term goals to support them.

Assess your current situation and identify any opportunities—or threats—allowing your organization to mitigate potential risks.

Create a proactive business culture that enables your organization to respond more swiftly to emerging market changes and opportunities.

What are the 5 steps in strategic planning?

The strategic planning process involves a structured methodology that guides the organization from vision to implementation. The strategic planning process starts with assembling a small, dedicated team of key strategic planners—typically five to 10 members—who will form the strategic planning, or management, committee. This team is responsible for gathering crucial information, guiding the development of the plan, and overseeing strategy execution.

Once you’ve established your management committee, you can get to work on the planning process. 

Step 1: Assess your current business strategy and business environment

Before you can define where you’re going, you first need to define where you are. Understanding the external environment, including market trends and competitive landscape, is crucial in the initial assessment phase of strategic planning.

To do this, your management committee should collect a variety of information from additional stakeholders, like employees and customers. In particular, plan to gather:

Relevant industry and market data to inform any market opportunities, as well as any potential upcoming threats in the near future.

Customer insights to understand what your customers want from your company—like product improvements or additional services.

Employee feedback that needs to be addressed—whether about the product, business practices, or the day-to-day company culture.

Consider different types of strategic planning tools and analytical techniques to gather this information, such as:

A balanced scorecard to help you evaluate four major elements of a business: learning and growth, business processes, customer satisfaction, and financial performance.

A SWOT analysis to help you assess both current and future potential for the business (you’ll return to this analysis periodically during the strategic planning process). 

To fill out each letter in the SWOT acronym, your management committee will answer a series of questions:

What does your organization currently do well?

What separates you from your competitors?

What are your most valuable internal resources?

What tangible assets do you have?

What is your biggest strength? 

Weaknesses:

What does your organization do poorly?

What do you currently lack (whether that’s a product, resource, or process)?

What do your competitors do better than you?

What, if any, limitations are holding your organization back?

What processes or products need improvement? 

Opportunities:

What opportunities does your organization have?

How can you leverage your unique company strengths?

Are there any trends that you can take advantage of?

How can you capitalize on marketing or press opportunities?

Is there an emerging need for your product or service? 

What emerging competitors should you keep an eye on?

Are there any weaknesses that expose your organization to risk?

Have you or could you experience negative press that could reduce market share?

Is there a chance of changing customer attitudes towards your company? 

Step 2: Identify your company’s goals and objectives

To begin strategy development, take into account your current position, which is where you are now. Then, draw inspiration from your vision, mission, and current position to identify and define your goals—these are your final destination. 

To develop your strategy, you’re essentially pulling out your compass and asking, “Where are we going next?” “What’s the ideal future state of this company?” This can help you figure out which path you need to take to get there.

During this phase of the planning process, take inspiration from important company documents, such as:

Your mission statement, to understand how you can continue moving towards your organization’s core purpose.

Your vision statement, to clarify how your strategic plan fits into your long-term vision.

Your company values, to guide you towards what matters most towards your company.

Your competitive advantages, to understand what unique benefit you offer to the market.

Your long-term goals, to track where you want to be in five or 10 years.

Your financial forecast and projection, to understand where you expect your financials to be in the next three years, what your expected cash flow is, and what new opportunities you will likely be able to invest in.

Step 3: Develop your strategic plan and determine performance metrics

Now that you understand where you are and where you want to go, it’s time to put pen to paper. Take your current business position and strategy into account, as well as your organization’s goals and objectives, and build out a strategic plan for the next three to five years. Keep in mind that even though you’re creating a long-term plan, parts of your plan should be created or revisited as the quarters and years go on.

As you build your strategic plan, you should define:

Company priorities for the next three to five years, based on your SWOT analysis and strategy.

Yearly objectives for the first year. You don’t need to define your objectives for every year of the strategic plan. As the years go on, create new yearly objectives that connect back to your overall strategic goals . 

Related key results and KPIs. Some of these should be set by the management committee, and some should be set by specific teams that are closer to the work. Make sure your key results and KPIs are measurable and actionable. These KPIs will help you track progress and ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

Budget for the next year or few years. This should be based on your financial forecast as well as your direction. Do you need to spend aggressively to develop your product? Build your team? Make a dent with marketing? Clarify your most important initiatives and how you’ll budget for those.

A high-level project roadmap . A project roadmap is a tool in project management that helps you visualize the timeline of a complex initiative, but you can also create a very high-level project roadmap for your strategic plan. Outline what you expect to be working on in certain quarters or years to make the plan more actionable and understandable.

Step 4: Implement and share your plan

Now it’s time to put your plan into action. Strategy implementation involves clear communication across your entire organization to make sure everyone knows their responsibilities and how to measure the plan’s success. 

Make sure your team (especially senior leadership) has access to the strategic plan, so they can understand how their work contributes to company priorities and the overall strategy map. We recommend sharing your plan in the same tool you use to manage and track work, so you can more easily connect high-level objectives to daily work. If you don’t already, consider using a work management platform .  

A few tips to make sure your plan will be executed without a hitch: 

Communicate clearly to your entire organization throughout the implementation process, to ensure all team members understand the strategic plan and how to implement it effectively. 

Define what “success” looks like by mapping your strategic plan to key performance indicators.

Ensure that the actions outlined in the strategic plan are integrated into the daily operations of the organization, so that every team member's daily activities are aligned with the broader strategic objectives.

Utilize tools and software—like a work management platform—that can aid in implementing and tracking the progress of your plan.

Regularly monitor and share the progress of the strategic plan with the entire organization, to keep everyone informed and reinforce the importance of the plan.

Establish regular check-ins to monitor the progress of your strategic plan and make adjustments as needed. 

Step 5: Revise and restructure as needed

Once you’ve created and implemented your new strategic framework, the final step of the planning process is to monitor and manage your plan.

Remember, your strategic plan isn’t set in stone. You’ll need to revisit and update the plan if your company changes directions or makes new investments. As new market opportunities and threats come up, you’ll likely want to tweak your strategic plan. Make sure to review your plan regularly—meaning quarterly and annually—to ensure it’s still aligned with your organization’s vision and goals.

Keep in mind that your plan won’t last forever, even if you do update it frequently. A successful strategic plan evolves with your company’s long-term goals. When you’ve achieved most of your strategic goals, or if your strategy has evolved significantly since you first made your plan, it might be time to create a new one.

Build a smarter strategic plan with a work management platform

To turn your company strategy into a plan—and ultimately, impact—make sure you’re proactively connecting company objectives to daily work. When you can clarify this connection, you’re giving your team members the context they need to get their best work done. 

A work management platform plays a pivotal role in this process. It acts as a central hub for your strategic plan, ensuring that every task and project is directly tied to your broader company goals. This alignment is crucial for visibility and coordination, allowing team members to see how their individual efforts contribute to the company’s success. 

By leveraging such a platform, you not only streamline workflow and enhance team productivity but also align every action with your strategic objectives—allowing teams to drive greater impact and helping your company move toward goals more effectively. 

Strategic planning FAQs

Still have questions about strategic planning? We have answers.

Why do I need a strategic plan?

A strategic plan is one of many tools you can use to plan and hit your goals. It helps map out strategic objectives and growth metrics that will help your company be successful.

When should I create a strategic plan?

You should aim to create a strategic plan every three to five years, depending on your organization’s growth speed.

Since the point of a strategic plan is to map out your long-term goals and how you’ll get there, you should create a strategic plan when you’ve met most or all of them. You should also create a strategic plan any time you’re going to make a large pivot in your organization’s mission or enter new markets. 

What is a strategic planning template?

A strategic planning template is a tool organizations can use to map out their strategic plan and track progress. Typically, a strategic planning template houses all the components needed to build out a strategic plan, including your company’s vision and mission statements, information from any competitive analyses or SWOT assessments, and relevant KPIs.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. business plan?

A business plan can help you document your strategy as you’re getting started so every team member is on the same page about your core business priorities and goals. This tool can help you document and share your strategy with key investors or stakeholders as you get your business up and running.

You should create a business plan when you’re: 

Just starting your business

Significantly restructuring your business

If your business is already established, you should create a strategic plan instead of a business plan. Even if you’re working at a relatively young company, your strategic plan can build on your business plan to help you move in the right direction. During the strategic planning process, you’ll draw from a lot of the fundamental business elements you built early on to establish your strategy for the next three to five years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. mission and vision statements?

Your strategic plan, mission statement, and vision statements are all closely connected. In fact, during the strategic planning process, you will take inspiration from your mission and vision statements in order to build out your strategic plan.

Simply put: 

A mission statement summarizes your company’s purpose.

A vision statement broadly explains how you’ll reach your company’s purpose.

A strategic plan pulls in inspiration from your mission and vision statements and outlines what actions you’re going to take to move in the right direction. 

For example, if your company produces pet safety equipment, here’s how your mission statement, vision statement, and strategic plan might shake out:

Mission statement: “To ensure the safety of the world’s animals.” 

Vision statement: “To create pet safety and tracking products that are effortless to use.” 

Your strategic plan would outline the steps you’re going to take in the next few years to bring your company closer to your mission and vision. For example, you develop a new pet tracking smart collar or improve the microchipping experience for pet owners. 

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. company objectives?

Company objectives are broad goals. You should set these on a yearly or quarterly basis (if your organization moves quickly). These objectives give your team a clear sense of what you intend to accomplish for a set period of time. 

Your strategic plan is more forward-thinking than your company goals, and it should cover more than one year of work. Think of it this way: your company objectives will move the needle towards your overall strategy—but your strategic plan should be bigger than company objectives because it spans multiple years.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a business case?

A business case is a document to help you pitch a significant investment or initiative for your company. When you create a business case, you’re outlining why this investment is a good idea, and how this large-scale project will positively impact the business. 

You might end up building business cases for things on your strategic plan’s roadmap—but your strategic plan should be bigger than that. This tool should encompass multiple years of your roadmap, across your entire company—not just one initiative.

What’s the difference between a strategic plan vs. a project plan?

A strategic plan is a company-wide, multi-year plan of what you want to accomplish in the next three to five years and how you plan to accomplish that. A project plan, on the other hand, outlines how you’re going to accomplish a specific project. This project could be one of many initiatives that contribute to a specific company objective which, in turn, is one of many objectives that contribute to your strategic plan. 

What’s the difference between strategic management vs. strategic planning?

A strategic plan is a tool to define where your organization wants to go and what actions you need to take to achieve those goals. Strategic planning is the process of creating a plan in order to hit your strategic objectives.

Strategic management includes the strategic planning process, but also goes beyond it. In addition to planning how you will achieve your big-picture goals, strategic management also helps you organize your resources and figure out the best action plans for success. 

Related resources

15 creative elevator pitch examples for every scenario

How Asana streamlines strategic planning with work management

How to create a CRM strategy: 6 steps (with examples)

What is management by objectives (MBO)?

Looking for AI in local government? See our newest product, Madison AI.

More Like this

What is the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan.

It is not uncommon that the terms ‘strategic plan’ and ‘business plan’ get confused in the business world. While a strategic plan is a type of business plan, there are several important distinctions between the two types that are worth noting. Before beginning your strategic planning process or strategy implementation, look at the article below to learn the key difference between a business vs strategic plan and how each are important to your organization.

Definition of a business plan vs. a strategic plan

A strategic plan is essential for already established organizations looking for a way to manage and implement their strategic direction and future growth. Strategic planning is future-focused and serves as a roadmap to outline where the organization is going over the next 3-5 years (or more) and the steps it will take to get there.

Get the Free Guide for Setting OKRs that Work (with 100 examples!)

A strategic plan serves 6 functions for an organization that is striving to reach the next level of their growth:.

• Defines the purpose of the organization.
• Builds on an organization’s competitive advantages.
• Communicates the strategy to the staff.
• Prioritizes the financial needs of the organization.
• Directs the team to move from plan to action.
• Creates long-term sustainability and growth impact

Alternatively, a business plan is used by new businesses or organizations trying to get off the ground. The fundamentals of a business plan focus on setting the foundation for the business or organization. While it looks towards the future, the focus is set more on the immediate future (>1 year). Some of the functions of a business plan may overlap with a strategic plan. However, the focus and intentions diverge in a few key areas.

A business plan for new businesses, projects, or organizations serves these 5 functions:

• Simplifies or explains the objectives and goals of your organization.
• Coordinates human resource management and determines operational requirements.
• Secures funding for your organization.
• Evaluates potential business prospects.
• Creates a framework for conceptualizing ideas.

In other words, a strategic plan is utilized to direct the momentum and growth of an established company or organization. In contrast, a business plan is meant to set the foundation of a newly (or not quite) developed company by setting up its operational teams, strategizing ways to enter a new market, and obtaining funding.

A strategic plan focuses on long-term growth and the organization’s impact on the market and its customers. Meanwhile, a business plan must focus more on the short-term, day-to-day operational functions. Often, new businesses don’t have the capacity or resources to create a strategic plan, though developing a business plan with strategy elements is never a bad idea.

Business and strategic plans ultimately differ in several key areas–timeframe, target audience, focus, resource allocation, nature, and scalability.

While both a strategic and business plan is forward-facing and focused on future success, a business plan is focused on the more immediate future. A business plan normally looks ahead no further than one year. A business plan is set up to measure success within a 3- to 12-month timeframe and determines what steps a business owner needs to take now to succeed.

A strategic plan generally covers the organizational plan over 3 to 5+ years. It is set with future expansion and development in mind and sets up roadmaps for how the organization will reach its desired future state.

Pro Tip: While a vision statement could benefit a business plan, it is essential to a strategic plan.

Target Audience

A strategic plan is for established companies, businesses, organizations, and owners serious about growing their organizations. A strategic plan communicates the organization’s direction to the staff and stakeholders. The strategic plan is communicated to the essential change makers in the organization who will have a hand in making the progress happen.

A business plan could be for new businesses and entrepreneurs who are start-ups. The target audience for the business plan could also be stakeholders, partners, or investors. However, a business plan generally presents the entrepreneur’s ideas to a bank. It is meant to get the necessary people onboard to obtain the funding needed for the project.

A strategic plan provides focus, direction, and action to move the organization from where they are now to where they want to go. A strategic plan may consist of several months of studies, analyses, and other processes to gauge an organization’s current state. The strategy officers may conduct an internal and external analysis, determine competitive advantages, and create a strategy roadmap. They may take the time to redefine their mission, vision, and values statements.

Alternatively, a business plan provides a structure for ideas to define the business initially. It maps out the more tactical beginning stages of the plan.

Pro Tip: A mission statement is useful for business and strategic plans as it helps further define the enterprise’s value and purpose. If an organization never set its mission statement at the beginning stages of its business plan, it can create one for its strategic plan.

A strategic plan is critical to prioritizing resources (time, money, and people) to grow the revenue and increase the return on investment. The strategic plan may start with reallocating current financial resources already being utilized more strategically.

A business plan will focus on the resources the business still needs to obtain, such as vendors, investors, staff, and funding. A business plan is critical if new companies seek funding from banks or investors. It will add accountability and transparency for the organization and tell the funding channels how they plan to grow their business operations and ROI in the first year of the business.

The scalability of a business plan vs. strategic plan

Another way to grasp the difference is by understanding the difference in ‘scale’ between strategic and business plans. Larger organizations with multiple business units and a wide variety of products frequently start their annual planning process with a corporate-driven strategic plan. It is often followed by departmental and marketing plans that work from the Strategic Plan.

Smaller and start-up companies typically use only a business plan to develop all aspects of operations of the business on paper, obtain funding and then start the business.

Why understanding the differences between a business plan vs a strategic plan matters

It is important to know the key differences between the two terms, despite often being used interchangeably. But here’s a simple final explanation:

A business plan explains how a new business will get off the ground. A strategic plan answers where an established organization is going in the future and how they intend to reach that future state.

A strategic plan also focuses on building a sustainable competitive advantage and is futuristic. A business plan is used to assess the viability of a business opportunity and is more tactical.

10 Comments

I agree with your analysis about small companies, but they should do a strategic plan. Just check out how many of the INC 500 companies have an active strategic planning process and they started small. Its about 78%,

Strategic management is a key role of any organization even if belong to small business. it help in growth and also to steam line your values. im agree with kristin.

I agree with what you said, without strategic planning no organization can survive whether it is big or small. Without a clear strategic plan, it is like walking in the darkness.. Best Regards..

Vision, Mission in Business Plan VS Strategic Plan ?

you made a good analysis on strategic plan and Business plan the difference is quite clear now. But on the other hand, it seems that strategic plan and strategic management are similar which I think not correct. Please can you tell us the difference between these two?. Thanks

Thank you. I get points to work on it

super answer Thanking you

Hi. I went through all the discussions, comments and replies. Thanks! I got a very preliminary idea about functions and necessity of Strategic Planning in Business. But currently I am looking for a brief nice, flowery, juicy definition of “Business Strategic Planning” as a whole, which will give anyone a fun and interesting way to understand. Can anyone help me out please? Awaiting replies…… 🙂

that was easy to understand,

Developing a strategic plan either big or small company or organization mostly can’t achieve its goal. A strategic plan or formulation is the first stage of the strategic management plan, therefore, we should be encouraged to develop a strategic management plan. We can develop the best strategic plan but without a clear plan of implementation and evaluation, it will be difficult to achieve goals.

Comments Cancel

Join 60,000 other leaders engaged in transforming their organizations., subscribe to get the latest agile strategy best practices, free guides, case studies, and videos in your inbox every week..

Leading strategy? Join our FREE community.

Become a member of the chief strategy officer collaborative..

Free monthly sessions and exclusive content.

Do you want to 2x your impact.

• Pricing Customers Get a Demo
• Platform Data Reporting Analytics Collaboration Security Integrations
• Solutions Strategic Planning Organizational Alignment Business Reporting Dashboards OKRs Project Management
• Industries Local Government Healthcare Banking & Finance Utilities & Energy Higher Education Enterprise

Why is Strategic Planning Important? & 4 Benefits

Kate Gregory

Kate manages the BDR team to drive business growth and achieve personal & company quotas.

Discover why strategic planning is crucial for your business, the benefits it brings, and how it can drive growth, innovation, and long-term success.

Table of Contents

Strategic planning is the cornerstone of any successful business. It's the process that provides direction, outlines measurable goals, and can be a significant factor in the long-term success of an organization.

Keep reading to explore the importance and benefits of strategic planning, highlight a few companies that excel in the arena, and learn how ClearPoint Strategy sets itself apart in the industry.

ClearPoint Strategy enhances the strategic planning process by offering a comprehensive platform that simplifies the creation, tracking, and management of strategic plans. With ClearPoint , organizations can ensure alignment, improve decision-making, and increase operational efficiency.

See ClearPoint Strategy in action! Click here to watch a quick DEMO on the software

Why is strategic planning important.

Strategic planning is a systematic process that helps an organization set priorities, focus energy and resources, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, and assess and adjust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment.

But why is it so crucial?

• Direction: Strategic planning offers a sense of direction and outlines measurable goals. It's a tool that's useful for guiding day-to-day decisions and also for evaluating progress and changing approaches when moving forward.
• Future Focus: Strategic planning allows organizations to anticipate and respond to changes in the business environment. It also helps to forecast potential opportunities and threats, which is crucial for surviving in today's dynamic business world.
• Operational Efficiency: Strategic planning provides the basis for all management decisions, reducing the potential for wasted resources, missteps, and inefficiencies.
• Competitive Advantage: A strategic plan allows organizations to foresee their future and to prepare accordingly. Organizations that plan strategically are better equipped to predict the market, anticipate changes, understand competitors, and make decisions that keep them ahead.

Claim your FREE eBook on 8 effective strategic planning templates here

The benefits of strategic planning.

Strategic planning offers a plethora of benefits that can significantly contribute to an organization's success.

• Improved Decision Making: Strategic planning helps organizations make decisions that align with their mission, vision, and strategic objectives . It ensures that all actions and initiatives are driving the organization towards its defined goals.
• Better Resource Management: Through strategic planning, organizations can better allocate their resources and prioritize their efforts, focusing on the activities that will have the most significant impact on achieving their strategic goals.
• Increased Operational Efficiency: Strategic planning improves operational efficiency by providing a roadmap for all activities. It reduces ambiguity, promotes alignment, and ensures that all efforts are coordinated and pointed in the same direction.
• Enhanced Market Responsiveness: Strategic planning allows organizations to be proactive rather than reactive. They can anticipate changes in the market, adapt quickly, and seize opportunities as they arise.

Interact with our AI Assistant - simply answer a few questions about your organization

3 companies that excel in strategic planning.

Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have long been recognized as leaders in strategic planning.

Apple consistently demonstrates the value of a robust strategic plan. With its focus on design and user experience, Apple has managed to create a unique position in the market that is hard for competitors to emulate.

Amazon has excelled through its strategic planning based on customer obsession, a long-term orientation, and a willingness to experiment and innovate. Amazon’s ability to foresee and capitalize on internet commerce has placed it as a dominant player in multiple markets.

Google stands out with its strategic planning, particularly in its ability to innovate, experiment, and rapidly adjust to changes. Google's strategic planning process allows it to stay ahead of market trends and maintain its position as a global technology leader.

ClearPoint Strategy Software is A Leader in Strategic Planning

ClearPoint Strategy , a leading performance management software, stands out in its ability to streamline and enhance the strategic planning process. ClearPoint provides a comprehensive solution that aids in the creation, tracking, and management of strategic plans, making it an invaluable tool for any organization.

ClearPoint's cutting-edge AI Assistant takes strategic planning to the next level. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, the AI Assistant can provide insights and automate tasks that would otherwise be time-consuming. This includes everything from monitoring performance metrics, sending reminders for updates, to providing data analysis for informed decision making.

Watch our video to learn about ClearPoint Strategy's proven Success Framework

However, the benefits of ClearPoint Strategy go beyond its AI Assistant. Here's how ClearPoint can help in the implementation and management of a strategic plan:

• Streamlined Management: ClearPoint allows for the easy management of strategic plans, projects, and key performance indicators (KPIs) all in one place. This centralization of information makes it easier to monitor and track progress against strategic objectives.
• Enhanced Collaboration: ClearPoint fosters collaboration by allowing team members to share updates, comment on progress, and communicate more effectively. This ensures everyone is aligned and working towards the same goals.
• Automated Reporting: One of ClearPoint's standout features is its ability to automate reporting. This not only saves significant time but also increases accuracy and allows for real-time updates.
• Integration Capabilities: ClearPoint seamlessly integrates with other software platforms, meaning data can be easily imported and exported, enhancing data accuracy and reducing the potential for errors.
• Customizable Dashboards: ClearPoint offers customizable dashboards that allow users to view the most relevant and critical information at a glance. This empowers decision-makers with the right information at the right time.

Strategic planning is an essential tool for any organization aiming to secure long-term success. It provides direction, enhances decision-making, improves resource management, and increases operational efficiency. Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google stand as testaments to the power of effective strategic planning.

ClearPoint Strategy serves as a powerful ally in the strategic planning process. By streamlining the creation, management, and tracking of strategic plans, it allows organizations to focus more on execution and less on administration, ultimately leading to more effective strategy implementation and better results. ClearPoint Strategy is not just a tool; it's a strategic partner that can drive your organization towards success.

Schedule a customized demo to see the software's comprehensive features and new AI Assistant in action!

Book your FREE 1-on-1 DEMO with ClearPoint Strategy

What are the different features of clearpoint strategy software.

ClearPoint Strategy software offers various features, including:

- Scorecard Management: Allows for the creation and management of balanced scorecards to track strategic performance. - Reporting Automation: Automates the generation of performance reports and dashboards. - Goal Setting and Tracking: Facilitates setting, tracking, and managing strategic goals and objectives. - Data Integration: Integrates with various data sources to streamline data collection and analysis. - Customizable Dashboards: Provides customizable dashboards for visualizing key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics. - Collaboration Tools: Includes tools for team collaboration, such as shared comments, tasks, and notifications. - Strategic Alignment: Ensures alignment of projects and initiatives with organizational strategy. - Performance Analysis: Offers tools for in-depth analysis of performance data to support decision-making.

How can strategic planning improve decision-making?

Strategic planning improves decision-making by:

- Providing Clarity: Clarifies organizational goals and objectives, guiding decision-makers. - Offering a Framework: Provides a structured framework for evaluating options and making informed decisions. - Enhancing Focus: Ensures that decisions align with long-term strategic goals. -Enabling Data-Driven Decisions: Utilizes performance metrics and data analysis to inform decisions. - Identifying Risks and Opportunities: Helps identify potential risks and opportunities, allowing for proactive decision-making.

How can strategic planning be used to improve the performance of an organization?

Strategic planning can improve organizational performance by:

-Aligning Efforts: Ensures all organizational activities are aligned with strategic goals. - Setting Clear Objectives: Defines clear, measurable objectives to guide actions and measure success. - Optimizing Resource Allocation: Allocates resources efficiently to priority areas. - Monitoring Progress: Regularly tracks progress towards strategic goals and makes necessary adjustments. - Encouraging Continuous Improvement: Promotes a culture of continuous improvement through regular review and adaptation.

What are the different types of strategic planning?

Different types of strategic planning include:

- Corporate Strategy: Focuses on the overall scope and direction of the organization. - Business Strategy: Concentrates on how to compete successfully in specific markets. - Functional Strategy: Involves strategies for specific departments or functions within the organization. - Operational Strategy: Focuses on the day-to-day operations and processes that support functional and business strategies. - Growth Strategy: Aims at increasing the organization’s market share and expanding its operations.

What are the different tools and techniques that can be used for strategic planning?

Different tools and techniques for strategic planning include:

- SWOT Analysis: Identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. - PEST Analysis: Analyzes political, economic, social, and technological factors affecting the organization. - Balanced Scorecard: Measures performance across multiple perspectives. - Porter’s Five Forces: Examines the competitive forces within an industry. - Scenario Planning: Develops and analyzes potential future scenarios to guide strategic decisions. - Gap Analysis : Compares current performance with desired performance to identify gaps. - Growth-Share Matrix: Assesses the potential of different business units or products.

Latest posts

Streamlining Strategic Planning with AI

Top 5 Change Management Challenges & How to Navigate Them Successfully

Strategic Planning in Times of Change: A Roadmap to Success

• Search Search Please fill out this field.

Making a Business Plan

Using goal-based planning, making time, promoting communication, following up.

• Strategic Planning FAQs

The Bottom Line

• Business Essentials

The Importance of Strategic Planning

Every successful business has a plan and knows where it is heading in the future. Setting a plan with goals, target dates, and a purpose should be finalized before embarking on a business. Taking the time on an ongoing basis to review the company's past performance, and predict its future performance, gives it a road map to follow.

Without strategic planning , which is knowing the current state of your business and where you want it to go, most businesses will fail. A strategic plan allows you to see what is important, how to get there, the pitfalls to avoid, and the noise to ignore. Below we discuss some of the reasons why strategic planning is important and how to implement it.

Key Takeaways

• Strategic planning is crucial for a business as it creates a map for a business to follow and course correct when need be.
• The first part of a strategic plan is the business plan, which outlines the purpose of the business, budgets, goals, and the mission statement.
• Making time to evaluate your business on an ongoing basis will allow you to determine how well your results are adhering to your plan. This will allow you to make adjustments or double-down on how the business is being run.
• Communicating your strategic plan to your employees is critical so that everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goals.
• Reviewing and following up on your business will highlight strengths and weaknesses in your business so that you can continue with what works well and eliminate what is hindering the growth of your business.

The very first strategic planning most businesses do is a business plan . When you first start your business, you will likely have prepared a mission statement , a budget, and a marketing and promotion plan. The business plan is a good first step, but it needs to be reviewed and updated as the business continues and grows. If you shove it in a drawer and let dust gather on it, it won't serve as the foundation of your business, as it was meant to.

A business plan serves as the blueprint for a company's success, providing a comprehensive roadmap that outlines its objectives, strategies, and tactics for achieving growth and profitability. In some cases, a business plan is also necessary for attracting external funding and support from an outside investor or bank.

How you go about conducting strategic planning will depend on many variables, including the size of your business, the time frame included, and your personal preferences. The most common style of plan is goals-based. In this type of plan, you set goals for the business (financial and non-financial) and map out the steps needed to meet those goals.

For example, if your goal is to have $100,000 in revenues next year, the steps to get there might include bringing in five new clients a month and attending three trade shows. Whatever the goals you set for your business, they should be concrete and measurable so that you know when you reach them. Another method of strategic planning is mission-based.

When you first started your business, you likely developed a mission or values statement, outlining the purpose of your company and its overall reason for being. A mission-based strategic plan ties each part of the plan into the mission, to ensure that the company is always operating in the service of that mission.

For example, if your mission statement is to be recognized as a leader in the financial services sector and to help families become financially independent, your strategic plans should address how you will meet those goals.

It can be difficult to find the time to plan your business. Other, more pressing priorities, like trying to bring in revenue , may grab your attention; however, carving out time regularly will help you keep on top of your business.

Blocking off a few hours a day or week to focus on your plan should be part of your business operations. During that time, you can examine the prior week's financial performance and update any marketing initiatives to make sure that your business is on track with your initial plan. If it's not, then you'll need to make adjustments to get back on track.

Regardless of how often you plan, make sure that you set it in stone in your day planner. Block off the time and don't let anything else get in the way. Turn off your cell phone and, if at all possible, go somewhere away from your office to plan in order to minimize distractions.

As a business owner, you will most likely have employees. It is critical to inform them of your strategic plan so that they are on the same page and working towards the same goal as you.

Including your staff in your strategic plan will instill a feeling of responsibility in their jobs that will help ensure productivity.

For example, if you have a sales team and your strategic plan involves bringing in five new clients a month, your sales team needs to be aware of this so that they know the goal to achieve. If they don't, perhaps they would be under the assumption that bringing in two new clients a month is excellent, when in actuality, it is only 40% of your goal. Without clear communication to your employees, your business will be a boat set adrift without any course to follow.

A critical part of the planning process is reviewing your previous plan and comparing it to your actual results. Were you able to bring in five new clients last month? If not, why not? Tweak the plan going forward to account for changes in your business or the general economic climate. The more experience you get with the planning process and with the operational side of your business, the more accurately you will be able to plan.

Once you have had your business running for a while and block out time to follow up on your strategic plan, you will be able to determine where the strengths and weaknesses in your business lie. This would allow you to correct course, perhaps changing your business plan and goals slightly to focus on your strengths, while allowing you to eliminate your weakness, making your business stronger and increasing the likelihood of achieving your goals.

Why Is Strategic Planning Important for Businesses?

Strategic planning is crucial for businesses because it provides a roadmap for achieving long-term objectives, identifying opportunities, and mitigating risks. It helps align organizational resources, activities, and goals, ensuring that everyone is working towards a common vision.

What Are the Key Benefits of Strategic Planning?

The key benefits of strategic planning include improved decision-making, enhanced resource allocation, increased organizational alignment, better risk management, and the ability to seize opportunities for growth and innovation.

What Are the Risks of Not Having a Strategic Plan in Place?

Without a strategic plan, organizations may struggle to maintain focus, allocate resources efficiently, or adapt to changing circumstances. They may miss opportunities for growth or become vulnerable to competitive threats. Companies with a strategy may be more likely to face challenges in sustaining long-term success.

What Are Some Best Practices for Effective Strategic Planning?

Best practices for effective strategic planning include involving key stakeholders in the process and conducting thorough environmental scans to fully understand all aspects of a company that will be impacted. This can be done through a SWOT analysis. Once your strategy is in place, set clear and measurable objectives, regularly monitor progress, and don't be afraid to realign the strategy with new information as it comes available.

Planning out the future of your business is the best way to ensure success. Creating an initial plan and communicating that plan to your employees will ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.

Taking out time to review your business's results and comparing them to your plan will help ensure that the right policies and procedures continue whereas those that are not benefiting the company will be removed. It may seem awkward and difficult at first to create a strategic plan, but with practice, you will be able to move your business in the right direction.

• Terms of Service
• Editorial Policy
• Privacy Policy

• CIO strategy

strategic planning

• Katie Terrell Hanna
• Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor
• Mary K. Pratt

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is a process in which an organization's leaders define their vision for the future and identify their organization's goals and objectives. The process includes establishing the sequence in which those goals should be realized so the organization can reach its stated vision.

Strategic planning is forward looking. It differs from traditional business planning, which typically focuses on short-term, tactical goals, such as how a budget is divided up. The time covered by a business plan can range from several months to several years.

The product of strategic planning is a strategic plan. It is often reflected in a plan document or other media. These plans can be easily shared, understood and followed by various people including employees, customers, business partners and investors.

Organizations conduct strategic planning periodically to consider the effect of changing business, industry, and legal and regulatory conditions . A strategic plan may be updated and revised at that time to reflect any strategic changes.

Why is strategic planning important?

Businesses need direction and organizational goals to work toward. Strategic planning offers that type of guidance. Essentially, a strategic plan is a roadmap to get to business goals . Without such guidance, there is no way to tell whether a business is on track to reach its goals.

The following four aspects of strategy development are worth attention:

• The mission. Strategic planning starts with a mission that offers a company a sense of purpose and direction. The organization's mission statement describes who it is, what it does and where it wants to go. Missions are typically broad but actionable. For example, a business in the education industry might seek to be a leader in online virtual educational tools and services.
• The goals. Strategic planning involves selecting goals. Most planning uses SMART goals -- specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound -- or other objectively measurable goals. Measurable goals are important because they enable business leaders to determine how well the business is performing against goals and the overall mission. Goal setting for the fictitious educational business might include releasing the first version of a virtual classroom platform within two years or increasing sales of an existing tool by 30% in the next year.
• Alignment with short-term goals. Strategic planning relates directly to short-term, tactical business planning and can help business leaders with everyday decision-making that better aligns with business strategy. For the fictitious educational business, leaders might choose to make strategic investments in communication and collaboration technologies , such as virtual classroom software and services but decline opportunities to establish physical classroom facilities.
• Evaluation and revision. Strategic planning helps business leaders periodically evaluate progress against the plan and make changes or adjustments in response to changing conditions. For example, a business may seek a global presence, but legal and regulatory restrictions could emerge that affect its ability to operate in certain geographic regions. As a result, business leaders might have to revise the strategic plan to redefine objectives or change progress metrics.

Modern considerations for strategic planning

While strategic planning has been a cornerstone of organizational management for decades, the landscape of strategic planning has undergone significant shifts in recent years.

Innovations in technology and socioeconomic upheavals, most notably the COVID-19 pandemic, have fundamentally altered the calculus of strategic planning. These modern considerations underscore the evolving nature of strategic planning in today's world.

The importance of strategic planning in an evolving society

The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has starkly highlighted the importance of flexibility and resilience in strategic planning. Organizations worldwide have faced the stark reality that the ability to pivot quickly in response to rapidly changing external conditions is not just advantageous but essential for survival.

This period has reinforced the concept that strategic plans must be living documents -- adaptable, dynamic and responsive to unforeseen challenges and opportunities. The traditional view of strategic planning as a set of fixed guidelines has given way to an understanding of strategic plans as fluid frameworks that guide organizational response to a volatile environment.

Embracing digital transformation

The swift pace of technological evolution has made the incorporation of digital transformation strategies a critical component of strategic planning.

Digital capabilities are now at the heart of operational success and competitive differentiation. Organizations can integrate data analytics and AI into strategic planning processes to help them innovate, boost efficiency, enhance customer experiences and maintain a competitive edge .

Agility and adaptability

Modern strategic planning is characterized by an emphasis on agility and the capacity for rapid adaptation. In an era marked by constant change, organizations must be prepared to navigate through a sea of change, adjusting their course in response to market dynamics and environmental shifts.

This necessitates a continuous reassessment of the strategic plan and a willingness to recalibrate goals and tactics in alignment with the evolving external landscape. The agility to adapt strategic priorities swiftly is now a critical competency for organizational resilience and long-term success.

Sustainability and social responsibility

Sustainability and social responsibility have emerged as central considerations in strategic planning. As societal expectations evolve, there is an increasing demand for organizations to align their strategies with environmental, social and governance ( ESG ) criteria.

This alignment reflects a broader commitment to sustainable development and responsible corporate citizenship . Incorporating sustainability and social responsibility into strategic planning not only meets regulatory and societal expectations but also opens new avenues for innovation and connects organizations with eco-conscious consumers and stakeholders .

Cultivating organizational culture and employee engagement

A strategic plan that resonates with an organization's culture and actively engages employees is more likely to succeed. Cultivating a supportive culture that aligns with the strategic vision is crucial for fostering organizational alignment and buy-in.

Engaging employees in the strategic planning process instills a sense of ownership and commitment to the organization's goals , thereby driving collective effort toward their realization. Modern strategic planning recognizes the value of employee engagement and organizational culture as foundational elements that underpin the successful implementation of strategic objectives.

What are the steps in the strategic planning process?

There are myriad different ways to approach strategic planning depending on the type of business and the granularity required. Most strategic planning cycles can be summarized in these five steps:

Identify. A strategic planning cycle starts with the determination of a business's current strategic position. This is where stakeholders use the existing strategic plan -- including the mission statement and long-term strategic goals -- to perform assessments of the business and its environment. These assessments can include a needs assessment or a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis) to understand the state of the business and the path ahead.

Prioritize. Next, strategic planners set objectives and initiatives that line up with the company mission and goals and will move the business toward achieving its goals. There may be many potential goals, so planning prioritizes the most important, relevant and urgent ones. Goals may include a consideration of resource requirements -- such as budgets and equipment -- and they often involve a timeline and business metrics or KPIs for measuring progress.

Develop. This is the main thrust of strategic planning in which stakeholders collaborate to formulate the steps or tactics necessary to attain a stated strategic objective. This may involve creating numerous short-term tactical business plans that fit into the overarching strategy. Stakeholders involved in plan development use various tools such as a strategy map to help visualize and tweak the plan. Developing the plan may involve cost and opportunity tradeoffs that reflect business priorities. Developers may reject some initiatives if they don't support the long-term strategy.

Implement. Once the strategic plan is developed, it's time to put it in motion. This requires clear communication across the organization to set responsibilities, make investments, adjust policies and processes , and establish measurement and reporting. Implementation typically includes strategic management with regular strategic reviews to ensure that plans stay on track.

Update. A strategic plan is periodically reviewed and revised to adjust priorities and reevaluate goals as business conditions change and new opportunities emerge. Quick reviews of metrics can happen quarterly, and adjustments to the strategic plan can occur annually. Stakeholders may use balanced scorecards and other tools to assess performance against goals.

Who does the strategic planning in a business?

A committee typically leads the strategic planning process. Planning experts recommend the committee include representatives from all areas within the enterprise and work in an open and transparent way where information is documented from start to finish.

The committee researches and gathers the information needed to understand the organization's status and factors that will affect it in the future. The committee should solicit input and feedback to validate or challenge its assessment of the information.

The committee can opt to use one of many methodologies or strategic frameworks that have been developed to guide leaders through this process. These methodologies take the committee through a series of steps that include an analysis or assessment, strategy formulation, and the articulation and communication of the actions needed to move the organization toward its strategic vision.

The committee creates benchmarks that will enable the organization to determine how well it is performing against its goals as it implements the strategic plan. The planning process should also identify which executives are accountable for ensuring that benchmarking activities take place at planned times and that specific objectives are met.

How often should strategic planning be done?

There are no uniform requirements to dictate the frequency of a strategic planning cycle. However, there are common approaches.

• Quarterly reviews. Once per quarter is usually a convenient time frame to revisit assumptions made in the planning process and gauge progress by checking metrics against the plan.
• Annual reviews. A yearly review lets business leaders assess metrics for the previous four quarters and make informed adjustments to the plan.

Timetables are always subject to change. Timing should be flexible and tailored to the needs of a company. For example, a startup in a dynamic industry might revisit its strategic plan monthly. A mature business in a well-established industry might opt to revisit the plan less frequently.

Types of strategic plans

Strategic planning activities typically focus on three areas: business, corporate or functional. They break out as follows:

• Business. A business-centric strategic plan focuses on the competitive aspects of the organization -- creating competitive advantages and opportunities for growth. These plans adopt a mission evaluating the external business environment, setting goals, and allocating financial, human and technological resources to meet those goals. This is the typical strategic plan and the main focus of this article.
• Corporate . A corporate-centric plan defines how the company works. It focuses on organizing and aligning the structure of the business, its policies and processes and its senior leadership to meet desired goals. For example, the management of a research and development skunkworks might be structured to function dynamically and on an ad hoc basis. It would look different from the management team in finance or HR.
• Functional. Function-centric strategic plans fit within corporate-level strategies and provide a granular examination of specific departments or segments such as marketing, HR, finance and development. Functional plans focus on policy and process -- such as security and compliance -- while setting budgets and resource allocations .

In most cases, a strategic plan will involve elements of all three focus areas. But the plan may lean toward one focus area depending on the needs and type of business.

What is strategic management?

Organizations that are best at aligning their actions with their strategic plans engage in strategic management. A strategic management process establishes ongoing practices to ensure that an organization's processes and resources support the strategic plan's mission and vision statement .

In simple terms, strategic management is the implementation of the strategy . As such, strategic management is sometimes referred to as strategy execution. Strategy execution involves identifying benchmarks, allocating financial and human resources and providing leadership to realize established goals.

Strategic management may involve a prescriptive or descriptive approach . A prescriptive approach focuses on how strategies should be created. It often uses an analytical approach -- such as SWOT or balanced scorecards -- to account for risks and opportunities. A descriptive approach focuses on how strategies should be implemented and typically relies on general guidelines or principles.

Given the similarities between strategic planning and strategic management, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.

What is a strategy map?

A strategy map is a planning tool or template used to help stakeholders visualize the complete strategy of a business as one interrelated graphic. These visualizations offer a powerful way for understanding and reviewing the cause-and-effect relationships among the elements of a business strategy.

While a map can be drawn in a number of ways, all strategy maps focus on four major business areas or categories: financial, customer, internal business processes, and learning and growth. Goals sort into those four areas, and relationships or dependencies among those goals can be established.

For example, a strategy map might include a financial goal of reducing costs and a business process goal to improve operational efficiency . These two goals are related and can help stakeholders understand that tasks such as improving operational workflows can reduce company costs and meet two elements of the strategic plan.

A strategy map can help translate overarching goals into an action plan and goals that can be aligned and implemented.

Strategy mapping can also help to identify strategic challenges that might not be obvious. For example, one learning and growth goal may be to increase employee expertise but that may expose unexpected challenges in employee retention and compensation, which affects cost reduction goals.

Benefits of strategic planning

Effective strategic planning has many benefits. It forces organizations to be aware of the future state of opportunities and challenges. It also forces them to anticipate risks and understand what resources will be needed to seize opportunities and overcome strategic issues.

Strategic planning also gives individuals a sense of direction and marshals them around a common mission. It creates standards and accountability. Strategic planning can enhance operational plans and efficiency. It also helps organizations limit time spent on crisis management , where they're reacting to unexpected changes that they failed to anticipate and prepare for.

Information technology is a key part of developing an effective strategic plan. Look at these eight free IT strategic planning templates that can help make IT a driving force in a business. Learn how to assess an organization's needs and implement a technology strategy and see how to set business goals in these step-by-step guides.

Continue Reading About strategic planning

• What is IT-business alignment and why is it important?
• The evolving CIO role: From IT operator to business strategist
• How to create a great strategy in a digital age
• What is digital transformation strategy? Everything you need to know
• ESG benefits for businesses

Related Terms

Dig deeper on cio strategy.

corporate division

strategic management

chief strategy officer (CSO)

supplier relationship management (SRM)

HPE is buying Morpheus Data, its second hybrid cloud management acquisition for GreenLake in less than two years following the ...

The better your cloud-native development process is, the more efficient and reliable your application is likely to be. Follow ...

The different types of private cloud offer varying levels of control, customization and convenience. These factors affect the ...

To keep corporate and user data safe, IT must continuously ensure mobile app security. Mobile application security audits are a ...

Dell continues to cut its workforce to become 'leaner,' as it repositions for changes in the enterprise PC market that are ...

Tap to Pay makes it possible to accept customer payments from an iPhone with no additional hardware. Find out the best use cases ...

Data center modernization offers a competitive advantage to organizations, along with maximizing hyperscale infrastructure. ...

Configuration files are vital for system deployment and management. Consider improving file management with proper planning, ...

Broadcom shutters the VMware IT Academy and Academic Software Licensing programs on Aug. 15, leaving universities and trade ...

Many events, trends and actions have influenced the development of corporate ESG strategies and ESG investing approaches. These ...

Digital tech can potentially help companies follow the circular economy model, but critics point out possible issues as well, ...

As more companies are judged on their sustainability profile, ESG data has become critical. Learn what it is -- including ...

The 5 steps of the strategic planning process

Start collaborating with Mural today

Starting a project without a strategy is like trying to bake a cake without a recipe — you might have all the ingredients you need, but without a plan for how to combine them, or a vision for what the finished product will look like, you’re likely to end up with a mess. This is especially true when working with a team — it’s crucial to have a shared plan that can serve as a map on the pathway to success.

Creating a strategic plan not only provides a useful document for the future, but also helps you define what you have right now, and think through and outline all of the steps and considerations you’ll need to succeed.

What is strategic planning?

While there is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, most approaches can be boiled down to five overarching steps:

• Define your vision
• Assess where you are
• Determine your priorities and objectives
• Define responsibilities
• Measure and evaluate results

Each step requires close collaboration as you build a shared vision, strategy for implementation, and system for understanding performance.

Related: Learn how to hold an effective strategic planning meeting

Why do I need a strategic plan?

Building a strategic plan is the best way to ensure that your whole team is on the same page, from the initial vision and the metrics for success to evaluating outcomes and adjusting (if necessary) for the future. Even if you’re an expert baker, working with a team to bake a cake means having a collaborative approach and clearly defined steps so that the result reflects the strategic goals you laid out at the beginning.

The benefits of strategic planning also permeate into the general efficiency and productivity of your organization as a whole. They include: 

• Greater attention to potential biases or flaws, improving decision-making 
• Clear direction and focus, motivating and engaging employees
• Better resource management, improving project outcomes 
• Improved employee performance, increasing profitability
• Enhanced communication and collaboration, fostering team efficiency 

Next, let’s dive into how to build and structure your strategic plan, complete with templates and assets to help you along the way.

Before you begin: Pick a brainstorming method

There are many brainstorming methods you can use to come up with, outline, and rank your priorities. When it comes to strategy planning, it’s important to get everyone’s thoughts and ideas out before committing to any one strategy. With the right facilitation , brainstorming helps make this process fair and transparent for everyone involved.  

First, decide if you want to run a real-time rapid ideation session or a structured brainstorming . In a rapid ideation session, you encourage sharing half-baked or silly ideas, typically within a set time frame. The key is to just get out all your ideas quickly and then edit the best ones. Examples of rapid ideation methods include round robin , brainwriting , mind mapping , and crazy eights . 

In a structured brainstorming session, you allow for more time to prepare and edit your thoughts before getting together to share and discuss those more polished ideas. This might involve brainstorming methods that entail unconventional ways of thinking, such as reverse brainstorming or rolestorming . 

Using a platform like Mural, you can easily capture and organize your team’s ideas through sticky notes, diagrams, text, or even images and videos. These features allow you to build actionable next steps immediately (and in the same place) through color coding and tagging. 

Whichever method you choose, the ideal outcome is that you avoid groupthink by giving everyone a voice and a say. Once you’ve reached a consensus on your top priorities, add specific objectives tied to each of those priorities.

Related: Brainstorming and ideation template

1. Define your vision

Whether it’s for your business as a whole, or a specific initiative, successful strategic planning involves alignment with a vision for success. You can think of it as a project-specific mission statement or a north star to guide employees toward fulfilling organizational goals. 

To create a vision statement that explicitly states the ideal results of your project or company transformation, follow these four key steps: 

• Engage and involve the entire team . Inclusivity like this helps bring diverse perspectives to the table. 
• Align the vision with your core values and purpose . This will make it familiar and easy to follow through. 
• Stay grounded . The vision should be ambitious enough to motivate and inspire yet grounded enough to be achievable and relevant.
• Think long-term flexibility . Consider future trends and how your vision can be flexible in the face of challenges or opportunities. 

For example, say your vision is to revolutionize customer success by streamlining and optimizing your process for handling support tickets. It’s important to have a strategy map that allows stakeholders (like the support team, marketing team, and engineering team) to know the overall objective and understand the roles they will play in realizing the goals. 

This can be done in real time or asynchronously , whether in person, hybrid, or remote. By leveraging a shared digital space , everyone has a voice in the process and room to add their thoughts, comments, and feedback. 

Related: Vision board template

2. Assess where you are

The next step in creating a strategic plan is to conduct an assessment of where you stand in terms of your own initiatives, as well as the greater marketplace. Start by conducting a resource assessment. Figure out which financial, human, and/or technological resources you have available and if there are any limitations. You can do this using a SWOT analysis.

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is an exercise where you define:

• Strengths: What are your unique strengths for this initiative or this product? In what ways are you a leader?
• Weaknesses: What weaknesses can you identify in your offering? How does your product compare to others in the marketplace?
• Opportunities: Are there areas for improvement that'd help differentiate your business?
• Threats: Beyond weaknesses, are there existing potential threats to your idea that could limit or prevent its success? How can those be anticipated?

For example, say you have an eco-friendly tech company and your vision is to launch a new service in the next year. Here’s what the SWOT analysis might look like: 

• Strengths : Strong brand reputation, loyal customer base, and a talented team focused on innovation
• Weaknesses : Limited bandwidth to work on new projects, which might impact the scope of its strategy formulation 
• Opportunities : How to leverage and experiment with existing customers when goal-setting
• Threats : Factors in the external environment out of its control, like the state of the economy and supply chain shortages

This SWOT analysis will guide the company in setting strategic objectives and formulating a robust plan to navigate the challenges it might face. 

Related: SWOT analysis template

3. Determine your priorities and objectives

Once you've identified your organization’s mission and current standing, start a preliminary plan document that outlines your priorities and their corresponding objectives. Priorities and objectives should be set based on what is achievable with your available resources. The SMART framework is a great way to ensure you set effective goals . It looks like this:  

• Specific: Set clear objectives, leaving no room for ambiguity about the desired outcomes.
• Measurable : Choose quantifiable criteria to make it easier to track progress.
• Achievable : Ensure it is realistic and attainable within the constraints of your resources and environment.
• Relevant : Develop objectives that are relevant to the direction your organization seeks to move.
• Time-bound : Set a clear timeline for achieving each objective to maintain a sense of urgency and focus.

For instance, going back to the eco-friendly tech company, the SMART goals might be: 

• Specific : Target residential customers and small businesses to increase the sales of its solar-powered device line by 25%. 
• Measurable : Track monthly sales and monitor customer feedback and reviews. 
• Achievable : Allocate more resources to the marketing, sales, and customer service departments. 
• Relevant : Supports the company's growth goals in a growing market of eco-conscious consumers. 
• Time-bound : Conduct quarterly reviews and achieve this 25% increase in sales over the next 12 months.

With strategic objectives like this, you’ll be ready to put the work into action. 

Related: Project kickoff template

4. Define tactics and responsibilities

In this stage, individuals or units within your team can get granular about how to achieve your goals and who'll be accountable for each step. For example, the senior leadership team might be in charge of assigning specific tasks to their team members, while human resources works on recruiting new talent. 

It’s important to note that everyone’s responsibilities may shift over time as you launch and gather initial data about your project. For this reason, it’s key to define responsibilities with clear short-term metrics for success. This way, you can make sure that your plan is adaptable to changing circumstances. 

One of the more common ways to define tactics and metrics is to use the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method. By outlining your OKRs, you’ll know exactly what key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and have a framework for analyzing the results once you begin to accumulate relevant data. 

For instance, if our eco-friendly tech company has a goal of increasing sales, one objective might be to expand market reach for its solar-powered products. The sales team lead would be in charge of developing an outreach strategy. The key result would be to successfully launch its products in two new regions by Q2. The KPI would be a 60% conversation rate in those targeted markets.  

Related: OKR planning template  

5. Manage, measure, and evaluate

Once your plan is set into motion, it’s important to actively manage (and measure) progress. Before launching your plan, settle on a management process that allows you to measure success or failure. In this way, everyone is aligned on progress and can come together to evaluate your strategy execution at regular intervals.

Determine the milestones at which you’ll come together and go over results — this can take place weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the nature of the project.

One of the best ways to evaluate progress is through agile retrospectives (or retros) , which can be done in real time or asynchronously. During this process, gather and organize feedback about the key elements that played a role in your strategy. 

Related: Retrospective radar template

Retrospectives are typically divided into three parts:

• What went well.
• What didn’t go well.
• New opportunities for improvement.

This structure is also sometimes called the “ rose, thorn, bud ” framework. By using this approach, team members can collectively brainstorm and categorize their feedback, making the next steps clear and actionable. Creating an action plan during a post-mortem meeting is a crucial step in ensuring that lessons learned from past projects or events are effectively translated into tangible improvements. 

Another method for reviewing progress is the quarterly business review (QBR). Like the agile retrospective, it allows you to collect feedback and adjust accordingly. In the case of QBRs, however, we recommend dividing your feedback into four categories:

• Start (what new items should be launched?).
• Stop (what items need to be paused?).
• Continue (what is going well?).
• Change (what could be modified to perform better?).

Strategic planners know that planning activities continue even after a project is complete. There’s always room for improvement and an action plan waiting to be implemented. Using the above approaches, your team can make room for new ideas within the existing strategic framework in order to track better to your long-term goals.

Related: Quarterly business review template

Conclusions

The beauty of the strategic plan is that it can be applied from the campaign level all the way up to organizational vision. Using the strategic planning framework, you build buy-in , trust, and transparency by collaboratively creating a vision for success, and mapping out the steps together on the road to your goals.

Also, in so doing, you build in an ability to adapt effectively on the fly in response to data through measurement and evaluation, making your plan both flexible and resilient.

Related: 5 Tips for Holding Effective Post-mortems

Why Mural for strategic planning

Mural unlocks collaborative strategic planning through a shared digital space with an intuitive interface, a library of pre-fab templates, and methodologies based on design thinking principles.

Outline goals, identify key metrics, and track progress with a platform built for any enterprise.

Learn more about strategic planning with Mural.

Related blog posts

How to hold effective strategic planning meetings

Tactical vs. strategic planning: Why you need both

5 effective strategic planning models for your business

Related blog posts.

How to use reverse brainstorming with your team

What is a flowchart? Examples, tips, and templates

Time blocking best practices: How to boost your productivity

What is strategic planning & why is it important?

Planning is an important part of most people’s days. Even if you’re the most driven person alive, it’s easy to get sidetracked if you don’t have an action plan. 

Maybe you need to train for a marathon and sort the mail, but you binge-watch a new TV show instead. The next day, you’re behind on your training and an important bill goes unread – stalling your health goals and financial plans. And once you’re behind, it’s harder to get ahead. 

The same scenario applies to business. Without strategic planning, it’s very difficult to meet long-term goals. 

The strategic planning process helps you break your organization’s vision for the future into strategic objectives. You’ll prioritize which strategic goals to focus on, when they should happen, and how you’ll achieve them. This strategic framework drives your operational planning (how you’ll execute this strategic framework). 

If you want to know how to apply strategic planning in your business, you’re in the right place. This roadmap will cover the benefits of strategic planning, the strategic planning process, the steps involved, and, most importantly, how to make the long-term goals of your strategic framework a reality.

What are the benefits of strategic planning for your organization?

When should you create a strategic plan, top 6 elements of a strategic plan, how do you adapt strategic planning for your organization’s needs, what is the strategic planning process, how do you chart your strategic path to success.

Successful strategic planning results in a structured business in which your team is united in implementing the strategy execution of your desired outcomes. Here’s how the process helps an organization:

Creates cost-effective day-to-day operations

Your strategic framework will ensure that your day-to-day operations bring you closer to your long-term goals. Clarity regarding the strategic goals you want to achieve can help you identify what will (and won’t) help you achieve them.

Strategic planning also helps you better allocate your resources, thanks to a thorough understanding of your organization’s strengths and weaknesses. The process involves analyzing your business processes to find inefficiencies, so you can find ways to streamline workflows and save time, labor, and money.

Gives you a competitive advantage

Strategic planning gives your organization a competitive advantage since it involves thoroughly analyzing your internal strengths and weaknesses. It also considers new opportunities and external threats, helping you identify unique capabilities and areas where the organization can outperform competitors. Moreover, you can anticipate market trends and adapt to changing circumstances more easily. 

Helps you track progress and communicate success

Identifying and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) shows exactly how far you’ve progressed in achieving your organization’s goals. These metrics let you measure your organization’s performance against the specific objectives and goals set in your strategic plan.

Tracking your progress using KPIs can also help you communicate where your company is achieving success and how well. Stakeholders want to know these things, and marketing them can make your company a magnet for high-achieving talent.

Keeps bias out of your organization

Strategic planning fosters a systematic and objective decision-making process based on data and evidence – not personal opinions. This prevents cognitive biases from hindering your organization’s growth. Strategic planning encourages a balanced and inclusive decision-making approach by focusing on long-term goals and considering the broader impact of decisions on a diverse set of stakeholders. 

No matter what stage of growth your organization is in, successful strategic planning targets your development toward your desired outcomes. 

Strategic planning typically captures your vision for your organization’s next three to five years. However, businesses experiencing rapid growth (like small businesses and startups) might need a new strategic plan more frequently, like every two years. 

Strategic planning is a continual process. After all, if you don’t adapt to a changing world, you’ll be left behind.  Stay on top of changing markets and organizational needs by constantly reevaluating your business strategy, especially when making large organizational changes. You’ll also want to reevaluate your strategic plan once you’ve achieved the initial goals and desired outcomes from your original plan document.

There are six key elements of a good strategic plan:

• Mission statement: Your mission statement is the north star of your strategic planning. It’s a concise, declarative statement that defines your organization’s core purpose and primary objectives. It explains the motivations, or the why, behind your plan, which motivates team members and stakeholders to work toward your organization’s goals. For example, a tech company’s mission statement could read: “Our mission is to empower people through innovative technologies, creating a more connected and sustainable world.”
• Vision statement: A vision statement outlines how you’ll achieve your organization’s driving motivation. It can also help employees solve problems based on organizational guidelines since your vision statement reflects your organization’s strategic plan in broad terms. To continue from the above example, a vision statement example might read: “Our vision is to be a global leader in driving transformative technological advancements that shape the future and enrich lives.”
• Organizational goals : Organizational goals are specific and measurable objectives an organization sets to achieve its mission and fulfill its long-term vision. These are realistic, attainable goals (e.g., performance expectations, KPI objectives, and specific deadlines). For example, short-term goals might include yearly or quarterly objectives for individuals, departments, or the entire organization (e.g., employee performance, turnover rate, or sales goals). Meanwhile, long-term goals might stretch these goals beyond one year.
• SWOT analysis : A SWOT analysis aims to create situational awareness about your organization’s position within your industry. The acronym stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This strategic management tool is a comprehensive assessment that helps you make informed business decisions.
• Action plan : Your action plan is the part of your strategic planning process that lays out exactly how you will achieve your goals and priorities. It captures your strategic initiatives and, specifically, how you will execute them.
• Key performance indicators ( KPIs ): Key performance indicators are measurable metrics that help you evaluate your progress toward your desired outcomes. KPIs include profit margins, sales data, customer satisfaction, and employee retention. These hard data help you track progress within your set time frame.

While these key elements sound similar to a business plan, some crucial differences exist.

A strategic plan outlines your organization’s overall direction, including its vision, mission, long-term goals, and strategies to achieve them. On the other hand, a business plan focuses on specific operational aspects, such as products or services, target markets, and competition, communicating goal-setting and priorities to team members, investors, and key stakeholders. Companies primarily use business plans for management and clarity, especially during the startup phase or when restructuring.

A new organization could create a business plan and use it as a building block of the strategic planning process once it’s more established.

All businesses can reap the benefits of strategic planning at some point in their development. However, the strategic planning process will apply differently depending on your business type. 

Below, we’ll go into how to make a strategic plan work depending on the organization type.

The strategic plan’s end result is a roadmap for your organization’s future development. For this reason, startups can especially benefit from the strategic planning process, as they have a large growth potential. Setting long-term goals, metrics, and strategic initiatives keeps startups focused on their desired outcomes and prevents them from being overwhelmed by an undefined future. 

But because startups have so much potential, they’ll likely need to adjust their strategic objectives as they make pivots. Many startups have a small team, so they may need to revisit their strategic plan more often than the standard three to five years as they redefine the needs of their organization. 

Nonprofit organizations

A well-crafted strategic plan offers unique benefits to nonprofits, benefitting those using the nonprofit’s services and the business itself. For one, it enhances donor and stakeholder engagement by showcasing transparency, accountability, and a clear roadmap for achieving impact and fostering trust, confidence, and increased support for the organization’s mission. Secondly, a strategic plan can improve a nonprofit’s resource allocation and efficiency, helping prioritize the initiatives and projects that align with its mission to create maximum impact with limited resources.

Finally, a strategic plan helps nonprofits measure their impact and adapt to changing circumstances. Nonprofits can set measurable objectives and KPIs to track progress and assess initiatives’ effectiveness. This makes it easier to respond to emerging needs and challenges, remain committed to long-term goals, and ensure sustained relevance and success in mission-driven endeavors.

Project management

Strategic planning is also useful when embarking on a complex, lengthy project that could take months – or even years – to achieve. When setting long-term goals during the strategic planning process, you’ll likely have some ambitious projects to achieve as a part of your overall business strategy. 

A strategic project plan outlines the initiative or project timeline and gives an overview of its desired outcomes. This is especially helpful for long-term project management, where it can be easy to lose sight of your objectives amidst all the moving parts and multiple deadlines. 

Also, a clear plan document for your project can help delegate responsibilities as your team changes (for instance, when team members retire or take leaves of absence and when new teammates are hired).

Now that you have an overview of the elements that go into strategic planning, let’s get into the step-by-step methodology needed to make it happen. 

• Analysis of current position: First, gain an understanding of your organization’s current position and how it fits into the broader industry. This is when you’ll complete a SWOT analysis, conduct research, survey your clients, and gather employee feedback. 
• Strategy formulation: Now that you know where your organization stands, determine the direction you’d like to head and strategize how to get there. First, define your mission statement, vision statement, and organizational goals. Then, prioritize your strategic initiatives .

While a select leadership group (e.g., a handful of executives) usually completes the strategic planning process, incorporating stakeholder feedback in your decision-making is essential to ensure you’re on the right track.

Strategy development involves creating documentation that communicates your goals. One example is a strategy map , a flowchart of your strategic objectives, and an explanation of how one leads into the next. You can also create a roadmap to provide an overview of your plan’s execution timeline.

You should have a clear action plan with KPIs to measure your desired outcomes before moving into strategy execution. Remember, you can’t move forward without knowing where you’re going and how you’re getting there. 

• Strategy execution : You’ve done the dreaming; now it’s time for the doing. Use your action plan, KPIs, and metrics to guide your strategy execution. Additionally, maintain clear communication with team members so everyone understands their individual roles in achieving the desired outcomes and how you’ll measure their performance. 
• Evaluation: Track your progress to ensure successful strategic planning and to confirm you’re meeting your KPIs and metrics for success. Use strategic management tools like a balanced scorecard , which helps visualize the impact of your initiatives across the sectors of development, business processes, finance, and customers.

Also, evaluate whether your results align with your organization’s mission. Revise your strategic plan as needed to meet your organization’s changing needs and any updated timeframes. 

Keep detailed notes of the challenges, setbacks, and successes you experience during your strategic plan’s time frame. This will improve your execution when it’s time to start the strategic planning process again. 

Understanding the mechanics of strategic planning, how it links day-to-day operations to immediate and future objectives— is an important step in achieving your organization’s desired results. Not only will it enable you to manage your resources more effectively, but it will also ensure that your aspirations aren’t left to chance.

However, knowledge is only half the journey. Applying these strategic concepts in a way that aligns with your organization’s unique mission, vision and goals can be a challenge in itself. And that’s where IMD comes in and provide the knowledge and tools needed to help your business create a foundation for secure, long-term success. 

Your path to strategic mastery begins here »

Subscribe for more great strategic content 💌

Subscribe now for exclusive content from imd.

Strategic planning aligns the organization with a common understanding of what they want to achieve and how they will get there with daily operations. It’s taking a company’s vision and breaking it into mid-term and long-term goals. In contrast to strategic planning, business planning focuses on short-term goals. But a strategic plan sets priorities to […]

Ever stood at the crossroads of business decisions, the winds of uncertainty howling around you? Illuminate your path with the beacon of SWOT analysis. This revered compass, trusted by entrepreneurs and seasoned executives alike, unveils the landscape of opportunities and hurdles that lie ahead, waiting to be conquered.  A SWOT analysis is a powerful tool […]

Planning is an important part of most people’s days. Even if you’re the most driven person alive, it’s easy to get sidetracked if you don’t have an action plan.  Maybe you need to train for a marathon and sort the mail, but you binge-watch a new TV show instead. The next day, you’re behind on […]

When it comes to investing in the most valuable services, the customer is always right. After all, if customers spend their hard-earned income on a product or service, they want the best bang for their buck. Like customer needs, those of stakeholders are equally important. Of course, you can’t forget to prioritize your company’s interests, […]

• Business Essentials
• Leadership & Management
• Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
• Entrepreneurship & Innovation
• Digital Transformation
• Finance & Accounting
• Business in Society
• For Organizations
• Support Portal
• Media Coverage
• Founding Donors
• Leadership Team

• Harvard Business School →
• HBS Online →
• Business Insights →

Business Insights

Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

• Career Development
• Communication
• Decision-Making
• Earning Your MBA
• Negotiation
• News & Events
• Productivity
• Staff Spotlight
• Student Profiles
• Work-Life Balance
• AI Essentials for Business
• Alternative Investments
• Business Analytics
• Business Strategy
• Business and Climate Change
• Creating Brand Value
• Design Thinking and Innovation
• Digital Marketing Strategy
• Disruptive Strategy
• Economics for Managers
• Entrepreneurship Essentials
• Financial Accounting
• Global Business
• Launching Tech Ventures
• Leadership Principles
• Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
• Leading Change and Organizational Renewal
• Leading with Finance
• Management Essentials
• Negotiation Mastery
• Organizational Leadership
• Power and Influence for Positive Impact
• Strategy Execution
• Sustainable Business Strategy
• Sustainable Investing
• Winning with Digital Platforms

How to Set Strategic Planning Goals

• 29 Oct 2020

In an ever-changing business world, it’s imperative to have strategic goals and a plan to guide organizational efforts. Yet, crafting strategic goals can be a daunting task. How do you decide which goals are vital to your company? Which ones are actionable and measurable? Which goals to prioritize?

To help you answer these questions, here’s a breakdown of what strategic planning is, what characterizes strategic goals, and how to select organizational goals to pursue.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business's intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees, and ensure organizational goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.

Research in the Harvard Business Review cautions against getting locked into your strategic plan and forgetting that strategy involves inherent risk and discomfort. A good strategic plan evolves and shifts as opportunities and threats arise.

“Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works,” says Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in the online course Disruptive Strategy . “When we run into unanticipated opportunities and threats, we have to respond. Sometimes we respond successfully; sometimes we don’t. But most strategies develop through this process. More often than not, the strategy that leads to success emerges through a process that’s at work 24/7 in almost every industry."

Related: 5 Tips for Formulating a Successful Strategy

4 Characteristics of Strategic Goals

To craft a strategic plan for your organization, you first need to determine the goals you’re trying to reach. Strategic goals are an organization’s measurable objectives that are indicative of its long-term vision.

Here are four characteristics of strategic goals to keep in mind when setting them for your organization.

1. Purpose-Driven

The starting point for crafting strategic goals is asking yourself what your company’s purpose and values are . What are you striving for, and why is it important to set these objectives? Let the answers to these questions guide the development of your organization’s strategic goals.

“You don’t have to leave your values at the door when you come to work,” says HBS Professor Rebecca Henderson in the online course Sustainable Business Strategy .

Henderson, whose work focuses on reimagining capitalism for a just and sustainable world, also explains that leading with purpose can drive business performance.

“Adopting a purpose will not hurt your performance if you do it authentically and well,” Henderson says in a lecture streamed via Facebook Live . “If you’re able to link your purpose to the strategic vision of the company in a way that really gets people aligned and facing in the right direction, then you have the possibility of outperforming your competitors.”

Related: 5 Examples of Successful Sustainability Initiatives

2. Long-Term and Forward-Focused

While strategic goals are the long-term objectives of your organization, operational goals are the daily milestones that need to be reached to achieve them. When setting strategic goals, think of your company’s values and long-term vision, and ensure you’re not confusing strategic and operational goals.

For instance, your organization’s goal could be to create a new marketing strategy; however, this is an operational goal in service of a long-term vision. The strategic goal, in this case, could be breaking into a new market segment, to which the creation of a new marketing strategy would contribute.

Keep a forward-focused vision to ensure you’re setting challenging objectives that can have a lasting impact on your organization.

3. Actionable

Strong strategic goals are not only long-term and forward-focused—they’re actionable. If there aren’t operational goals that your team can complete to reach the strategic goal, your organization is better off spending time and resources elsewhere.

When formulating strategic goals, think about the operational goals that fall under them. Do they make up an action plan your team can take to achieve your organization’s objective? If so, the goal could be a worthwhile endeavor for your business.

4. Measurable

When crafting strategic goals, it’s important to define how progress and success will be measured.

According to the online course Strategy Execution , an effective tool you can use to create measurable goals is a balanced scorecard —a tool to help you track and measure non-financial variables.

“The balanced scorecard combines the traditional financial perspective with additional perspectives that focus on customers, internal business processes, and learning and development,” says HBS Professor Robert Simons in the online course Strategy Execution . “These additional perspectives help businesses measure all the activities essential to creating value.”

The four perspectives are:

• Internal business processes
• Learning and growth

The most important element of a balanced scorecard is its alignment with your business strategy.

“Ask yourself,” Simons says, “‘If I picked up a scorecard and examined the measures on it, could I infer what the business's strategy was? If you've designed measures well, the answer should be yes.”

Related: A Manager’s Guide to Successful Strategy Implementation

Strategic Goal Examples

Whatever your business goals and objectives , they must have all four of the characteristics listed above.

For instance, the goal “become a household name” is valid but vague. Consider the intended timeframe to reach this goal and how you’ll operationally define “a household name.” The method of obtaining data must also be taken into account.

An appropriate revision to the original goal could be: “Increase brand recognition by 80 percent among surveyed Americans by 2030.” By setting a more specific goal, you can better equip your organization to reach it and ensure that employees and shareholders have a clear definition of success and how it will be measured.

If your organization is focused on becoming more sustainable and eco-conscious, you may need to assess your strategic goals. For example, you may have a goal of becoming a carbon neutral company, but without defining a realistic timeline and baseline for this initiative, the probability of failure is much higher.

A stronger goal might be: “Implement a comprehensive carbon neutrality strategy by 2030.” From there, you can determine the operational goals that will make this strategic goal possible.

No matter what goal you choose to pursue, it’s important to avoid those that lack clarity, detail, specific targets or timeframes, or clear parameters for success. Without these specific elements in place, you’ll have a difficult time making your goals actionable and measurable.

Prioritizing Strategic Goals

Once you’ve identified several strategic goals, determine which are worth pursuing. This can be a lengthy process, especially if other decision-makers have differing priorities and opinions.

To set the stage, ensure everyone is aware of the purpose behind each strategic goal. This calls back to Henderson’s point that employees’ alignment on purpose can set your organization up to outperform its competitors.

Calculate Anticipated ROI

Next, calculate the estimated return on investment (ROI) of the operational goals tied to each strategic objective. For example, if the strategic goal is “reach carbon-neutral status by 2030,” you need to break that down into actionable sub-tasks—such as “determine how much CO2 our company produces each year” and “craft a marketing and public relations strategy”—and calculate the expected cost and return for each.

The ROI formula is typically written as:

ROI = (Net Profit / Cost of Investment) x 100

In project management, the formula uses slightly different terms:

ROI = [(Financial Value - Project Cost) / Project Cost] x 100

An estimate can be a valuable piece of information when deciding which goals to pursue. Although not all strategic goals need to yield a high return on investment, it’s in your best interest to calculate each objective's anticipated ROI so you can compare them.

Consider Current Events

Finally, when deciding which strategic goal to prioritize, the importance of the present moment can’t be overlooked. What’s happening in the world that could impact the timeliness of each goal?

For example, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and the ever-intensifying climate change crisis have impacted many organizations’ strategic goals in 2020. Often, the goals that are timely and pressing are those that earn priority.

Learn to Plan Strategic Goals

As you set and prioritize strategic goals, remember that your strategy should always be evolving. As circumstances and challenges shift, so must your organizational strategy.

If you lead with purpose, a measurable and actionable vision, and an awareness of current events, you can set strategic goals worth striving for.

Do you want to learn more about strategic planning? Explore our online strategy courses and download our free flowchart to determine which is right for you and your goals.

This post was updated on November 16, 2023. It was originally published on October 29, 2020.

About the Author

Become an Implementer | Implementer Directory | Log In

• EOS Mastery Strong in Six

What is Strategic Planning?

• by Mark O'Donnell

Does your company have a strategic plan? Has your leadership team sat down to map out how they plan to accomplish their goals? Have you seen it? And most importantly, what is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is the process of creating the roadmap for your company. A strong strategic plan identifies company goals and prioritizes them.

Table of Contents

The strategic planning process, when to do your strategic planning.

• How to Implement a Business Strategic Plan

How Companies Benefit from Strategic Planning

• What Causes Strategic Plans to Fail

Sometimes to see something clearly, you have to take a step back and change the angle of your approach. Business is no different. Day-to-day business operations can cloud a leader’s perspective. When in the trenches putting out fires, they can lose sight of the bigger picture and the ability to see things objectively.

Before beginning the strategic planning process, business leaders need to take a step away to work on the business itself.

The Four Steps of Strategic Planning

First, take a step back and reframe your perspective. Ideally, you’ve taken a Clarity Break™ and arranged to host your leadership team in a separate location. Now you can begin the strategic planning process using these four steps:

• Determine your current market position
• Plan out the desired direction
• Execute the plan
• Review and revise regularly

How do you decide the best route to your destination? You have to start with where you are now. The critical path between here and there begins with knowing your starting point.

In strategic planning, it all begins with determining your position in the market.

1. Determine Your Current Market Position

Identifying where your business is positioned with regard to your competitors and customers can take a few different shapes.

One tool, the SWOT analysis , can help highlight your business’s current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Categorizing where each of the following fits into your SWOT analysis can help identify potential areas for growth and your company’s core values.

• Product Benefit
• Product Use
• Competition

Another tool for determining your market positioning is the PEST analysis. The PEST analysis measures your position according to political, economic, social, and technological markers and can also provide some valuable insights.

While working through your market positioning, keep these three essential priorities:

• Customer Insights – Customer feedback can help inform you of consumer behaviors and preferences. These insights can also show how target audiences respond to your products.
• Current Demand – You can assess current demand by referencing multiple data sources such as historical data, market share data, and environmental factors such as inflation and unemployment rates.
• Market Trends – Extrapolating market trends can give you a look into future demand. Anticipating evolutions in technology, the economy, and customer perceptions can help you capitalize on shifting market dynamics.

2. Plan Out Your Desired Direction

With a clearer understanding of your current place in the market, you can start to lay out the path to your long- and short-term goals. The key is having a clear vision of where you want to be in the distant future and breaking it down into more manageable steps.

Great planning is the product of SMART goal setting. Any goal you set for your company should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Without consideration for each of these pre-conditions, you’ll be met with frustration, confusion, misdirection, and, ultimately, wasted time.

Setting carefully considered goals serves as the cornerstone of planning. Below we provide a closer look at long- and short-term goals.

Long-Term Goals

Where do you want your business to be a decade from now? Great long-term goals can serve as incredibly powerful motivators. They can inspire, assemble teams of passionate people, and act as a north star when things get tough. But long-term goals can also often have lofty expectations disconnected from the work your people do every day.

To meet these challenges, you’ll have to stay mindful of them and ensure they follow the SMART goal layout. Remind your people of your long-term goals frequently to keep the fire burning. Then break those goals down into manageable steps so you and your employees can see the progress firsthand.

Short-Term Goals

Short-term goals act like checkpoints. They’re the things your people get done every week that drive you closer and closer to your long-term goals. While people doing the work can more easily understand these goals, they also need to connect to something bigger. Without linking them to the bigger picture, you can’t harness the momentum you need to propel your business forward.

Break down your long-term goals into smaller short-term goals. Take the lofty, decade-from-now vision and mark a checkpoint three years from now, then one year from now. Planning out your goals into smaller increments brings them closer to becoming the step-by-step game plan to making it all within reach.

3. Execute the Plan

Executing your plans for market domination won’t get done in one swoop. It’ll take the collaboration of lots of moving parts and the participation of a dedicated team that wants to be a part of something amazing.

Execution begins by breaking your yearly goals into something that can start right now. Take those annual goals and distill them down into quarterly goals.

Prioritize the three to seven things for each person so you don’t overwhelm your team. Watch the impact this has. Remember to keep each quarterly goal assigned to a single person, or you may run into another problem: accountability.

Check-in on your team’s quarterly goals regularly and verify everyone is on track by measuring and analyzing results. Pretty soon, you’ll be well on your way.

4. Review and Revise Regularly

Markets change, customer expectations change, and so will what you must do to succeed. No strategic business plan should be set in stone. Your competitors can launch new products, the economy may shift, or you may achieve milestones ahead of schedule. Whatever the case, you should adapt your strategic plan to respond accordingly.

Your team should meet regularly to review progress on their goals and to set priorities for the next quarter. Your leadership team should also conduct an in-depth plan review once a year to adjust to market fluctuations.

Evaluation Process

The tools and standards you use to evaluate and review your strategic plan need to remain consistent. During your evaluation process, make sure your leadership team addresses important questions like:

• Do our vision, core values, long-term goals, and business strategy remain relevant? If not, what needs to change to stay on track?
• Do our KPIs still accurately measure progress toward our goals? If not, what needs to change?
• How much progress did we make toward achieving our 1-year, 3-year, and 10-year goals?
• Did we meet our annual goals on budget and within our set timeline?
• What went right? What lessons can we apply to achieve new goals?
• What went wrong? What issues do we need to address? What lessons did we learn?
• What goals should we focus on next quarter or next year?
• Do we have an adequate budget to continue executing our strategic plan?

If you’ve yet to put together a strategic plan for your business, now is a great time to start. Work with your leadership team to mark out a date and time to start. Begin by exploring and implementing the strategies discussed in this guide. We recommend hosting your strategic planning session in a location away from your business. This way, the distractions of your usual day-to-day responsibilities don’t derail your planning.

Once you have a strategic plan, you should regularly follow up with additional review sessions. Ideally, your strategic planning sessions take place every quarter so that you can revisit your plan and stay agile.

No strong strategic plan should be immovable. As new innovations roll out or new competitors enter the market, you should be poised to capitalize on new opportunities.

How to Implement a Strategic Business Plan

A strategic plan focuses a team on a single path forward. To create a successful plan, it needs to harness team energy in one direction so you can capture momentum.

As you begin implementing your strategic business plan, ensure your leadership team aligns around it. Every leadership team member should be dedicated and 100% behind your company’s vision and goals. This way, the plan you’ve worked to create together can be followed and executed across the business.

The next step in a truly successful rollout means bringing in employees from every level of the company. Your leadership team will take the plan down to their direct reports, who will share it with their teams. Every employee should be familiar with and have access to the company’s vision. They need to see how their role contributes to the organization’s success and begin executing it.

Strategic planning brings the owner’s entrepreneurial visions to the rest of the company. They have ideas swirling around in their mind about where they see the company 10 years from now. A strategic plan puts them in black and white – explored, prioritized, and shared with the other members of the organization.

Companies benefit from this kind of documentation because a strategic plan ensures everyone is on the same page. Strategic plans bring everyone into alignment and work toward the same goals.

Once everyone speaks the same language and understands their part in creating their organization’s vision, you’ll also see more accountability for tasks. People will know their role and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. They’ll own the outcomes expected of them and feel inspired to contribute.

What Causes Strategic Planning to Fail?

According to Harvard Business Review , 85% of leadership teams dedicate less than one hour per month to discussing their business strategy. Another 50% spend no time at all. This same study found that 95% of employees don’t understand a company’s business strategy.

Why Do Strategic Plans Fail?

Miscommunication.

• Dysfunctional goal setting
• Lack of accountability
• Lack of documented processes
• Dissension on the leadership team

Failing to communicate messages to everyone in the company can cause a strategic plan to fail. Organizations are collections of people working toward a common goal. When 95% of those people don’t know or understand the goal, they’re left to their own devices. Teams with this problem have energy moving in a million directions and cannot collaborate successfully.

Dysfunctional Goal Setting

Other organizations don’t set SMART goals. Organizations can’t declare success with vague goals that are non-specific, immeasurable, unattainable, or irrelevant or that lack a timeline. These issues create a strategic plan that lands flat on its face. There’s no way to tell if you’re gaining traction or to gauge your progress.

Lack of Accountability

Strategic plans can also fail due to a lack of accountability. Without clear and properly established roles, team members lose sight of their role, cross into another role, or end up sharing a role that no one really “owns.” Accountability issues can lead to finger-pointing, toppling all the work that went into a strategic plan.

Lack of Documented Processes

Few things are worse than reinventing the wheel every time a task needs completing. This frustration leads teams to waste time on routine tasks instead of focusing on the bigger-picture items that move the company forward. By outlining the essential steps of predictable work, your team can streamline those things and work on creating your vision. Insert proper training and equip your team with the easy-to-use tools they need to do the job.

Dissension on the Leadership Team

Nothing kills a strategic plan faster than dissension on the leadership team. Commitment to executing the company’s goals starts at the top. If a leadership team doesn’t buy into the laid-out plan, they’ll be slow to implement those plans with their team. And then the strategic plan is as good as dead.

Implementing a strong strategic plan begins with hearing out your leadership team. Listen to everyone, consider their input, and make the strategic planning process collaborative. As you work through the steps, you’ll likely notice the people around you who don’t share your same values. If this happens, then it may be time to surround yourself with leaders that do, and that’s okay too.

Related Posts

Becoming a Manager

So you want to be a manager (or think you do)? You need to understand what “becoming a manager” really means. 

The Gift of Success in Another Organization

One of the foundational disciplines of EOS® is getting the right people in the right seats. While it’s an elegantly simple concept, it can be painful to execute sometimes.

EOS® and Turnover

One of the toughest battles is keeping your best people. EOS tools and disciplines can help you avoid the perils of turnover and retain key staff. 

ONE VISION. ONE SYSTEM. ONE TEAM.™

Begin your 30-day free trial of the simple-to-use, all-in-one software for getting more of what you want from your business.

Exclusively from the makers of EOS.

Subscribe to the EOS Blog

YOUR PRIVACY CHOICES

• 1-877-367-1877 (USA)
• +1-248-278-8220 (Worldwide)
• EOS Toolbox™
• EOS Model ®
• EOS Process ®
• The EOS Life ®
• EOS ONE™ SOFTWARE
• EOS Implementer Directory
• Self-Implementation
• Rocket Fuel University
• Integrator™ Directory
• EOS Franchising
• EOS Conference
• Organizational Checkup™
• Book a Speaker
• History & Team
• Cookie Policy
• Terms of Use
• TRADEMARK & BRAND COMPLIANCE
• EOS Trademarks

©2024 EOS WORLDWIDE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Subscribe to the eos blog:, client portal, organizational checkup, search the eos worldwide blog, change location, find awesome listings near you.

• Certifications
• Associate Business Strategy Professional
• Senior Business Strategy Professional
• Examination
• Partnership
• For Academic Affiliation
• For Training Companies
• For Corporates
• Help Center
• Associate Business Strategy Professional (ABSP™)
• Senior Business Strategy Professional (SBSP™)
• Certification Process
• TSI Certification Examination
• Get your Institution TSI Affiliated
• Become a Corporate Education Partner
• Become a Strategy Educator
• Frequently Asked Questions

Business plan vs Strategic Plan - What You Must Know

Like everything else in life, the nature of business needs a plan in place to follow and measure. Crafting a strategic roadmap isn't just a suggestion—it's a necessity.

This is one of the key elements of a startup or even a business division within an organization that is expanding or diversifying. It has every resource element and needs to be mapped out for the business, including projected milestones for the future.

However, every business strategist needs to know that there are some subtle differences between what constitutes a business plan, and the several differences it has with a strategic plan. Let’s walk through the different elements that comprise each and understand the outcome each aims to achieve.

Introducing The Business Plan

A business plan is exactly what the name suggests— a plan to start and run a business or a new entity of an existing business; usually either an expansion in a newer region or a diversification into a new market. Business plans are mainly created for internal reference purposes or external funding purposes, with the latter being the common usage. They form the basis of all business strategies and decisions made at the ownership level in an organization. The most essential components of a business plan include:

Organizational Plan - This is the core of a business plan, and it includes the mission and vision statement, along with the market in which the company plans to operate. This plan also encompasses thorough market research to gauge the potential of the business, crucial for securing funding or sponsorship. It articulates the rationale behind the business's growth trajectory, outlining clear timelines for achieving milestones along the way.

Financial Plan - A robust financial plan is the bedrock of any successful business venture, where cash flow reigns supreme, and a meticulously crafted balance sheet serves as the ultimate scorecard. A financial plan includes some of the most important elements of the entire business plan and includes elements like projected cash flow statements, capital requirements, a summary of projected overheads, a projected balance sheet including assets and liabilities, and income and expense statements.

Remember to regard this as the central nervous system, for it permeates and influences almost every aspiration the enterprise hopes to attain.

Sales and Marketing Plan - We mentioned “almost” everything above for this very reason. Sales and marketing form the other significant component of the business plan. These include sales forecasts and overheads, marketing and brand management summaries, and market share projections that the business hopes to achieve within a time frame.

Business plans are indeed comprehensive and all-encompassing. They form the basis of the business's existence or the rationale for investments in it. But what about translating these plans into action? How do we ensure that the sky-high goals set forth are actually achievable?

The Actionables- A Strategic Plan

Strategic plans constitute the basis of operations and responsibilities within the business. These plans lay the paths out for each member of the organization to follow and define the functional outline and the key outcomes for every project and process within the business. A strategic plan goes on to define the operations and their outcomes within the organization, its departments, and its employees. The single thread connecting strategic planning with the business plan is the vision of the organization, and for obvious reasons— vision serves as the guiding light for strategy formation, which, in turn, directs the day-to-day operations of the business.

Why A Strategic Plan is Crucial to The Organization

In a word— synchronization. A robust and well-laid-out strategic plan establishes the much-needed sync between teams and their objectives. Not only that, it also provides a guide for daily operations alongside the focus and direction that teams often need to get the job done, on time and within budget. When all these components are integrated into a cohesive network, the true value of a strategic plan emerges—a seamless and grand orchestration of departments, teams, and individuals using the resources allocated to them to achieve the key performance indicator that they are responsible for.

Elements to Consider in a Strategic Plan

When tasked with creating a strategic plan for your business, you will need to incorporate certain components that will ensure that the stakeholders are aligned completely with the organization’s goals and objectives. These include:

Vision and Values - The vision statement is the most important component of the strategic plan and the most overarching. It propels the organization towards established goals and the values that every employee and stakeholder must incorporate.

Goals - These are short, medium, or long-term, depending on the scope of the strategic plan. They provide the much-needed context for the organization to undertake initiatives that meet the vision while maintaining the values.

Guiding Principles - Often, organizations face crossroads where they must decide which steps to take next, to reach their vision. Principles are included in strategic plans to align teams towards the vision when faced with a dilemma and form a critical part of strategic planning.

Action Plans - A sum of key initiatives, processes, and projects that are required to be performed on a pre-determined periodic basis for the goal to be accomplished. These also include the time frames for each stakeholder responsible for each option. They usually follow the DACI format for each action (Driver, Approver, Contributor, Informed)

SWOT Analysis - The quintessential component, the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats analysis of the strategic plan lends context to all business actions vis-a-vis the external environment. This includes competitors, market forces and conditions, identification of internal and external threats, and several other factors.

Read This - SWOT Analysis: How to Strengthen Your Business Plan

Here’s a table highlighting the main differences between a Business Plan and a Strategic Plan with a focus on the key components of each—

Learning All About Strategic Planning

In all businesses, a strategic plan serves as the foundational blueprint, akin to a meticulously drawn map for a general. It provides the essential guidance and direction needed for the entire organization to navigate toward success. It is crucial, therefore, to acquire the necessary skills and certifications for employment as a business strategist who would be entrusted with creating it. Know more about how to become a successful and sought-after business strategist today!

Recent Posts

How Data Analytics Can Revolutionize Your Business - A Strategist's Guide

Download this Strategist's Guide to empower yourself with resourceful insights:

• Roadblocks to Data Usage
• Advantages that Data Analytics offer for businesses
• Elements of a Data Analytics Strategy
• Top reasons why businesses must adopt a Data Analytics Strategy
• Case studies, Scenarios, and more

CredBadge™ is a proprietary, secure, digital badging platform that provides for seamless authentication and verification of credentials across digital media worldwide.

CredBadge™ powered credentials ensure that professionals can showcase and verify their qualifications and credentials across all digital platforms, and at any time, across the planet.

Verify A Credential

Please enter the License Number/Unique Credential Code of the certificant. Results will be displayed if the person holds an active credential from TSI.

Stay Informed!

Keep yourself informed on the latest updates and information about business strategy by subscribing to our newsletter.

Start Your Journey with The Strategy Institute by Creating Your myTSI Account Today.

• Manage your professional profile conveniently.
• Manage your credentials anytime.
• Share your experiences and ideas with The Strategy Institute.

Account Login

• Remember Password
• Forgot Password?

Forgot Password

More From Forbes

The seven keys to successful strategic planning.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Strategic planning is a critical business practice for positioning an organization for success, aligning leaders to a common plan, and guiding management decisions. Most companies conduct some form of strategic planning event before starting a new year. However, most strategic planning processes fail to deliver real value due to some common pitfalls.

All too often, leaders view strategic planning as an event, not an annual process. This results in strategic plans that are not fully implemented since, once they are done, they are seldom reviewed throughout the year. Managers who seemed to support the strategic plan may not be fully aligned to the organization’s goals and priorities, undermining execution. In addition, it is common that without a proper assessment of the industry and the organization’s capabilities, the plan lacks true strategic thinking, and becomes more of a projection of past performance into the next year.

To address these concerns, the following seven steps will guide the creation of a successful strategic planning process.

1. Assess your industry, competitors and market trends.

The initial step in creating an effective strategic plan is to assess the external forces shaping your industry, understanding the competitive and regulatory landscape and identifying market trends. If data is not already available, conduct an efficient external assessment before the strategic planning event to provide insights and valid data to inform decisions and test assumptions. This results in more strategic conversations during the event.

2. Identify opportunities and threats by conducting a SWOT analysis.

In conjunction with an external market assessment, an internal organizational review will ground the strategy and set a baseline for the organization’s culture and capabilities. A SWOT analysis will reveal the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. With this information, leaders will be able to draw a set of offensive and defensive strategies that capitalize on opportunities and offset the risks of potential threats.

3. Review your organization’s mission and vision.

One of the values of a successful strategic event is to inspire leaders to achieve meaningful goals. Reviewing the organization’s mission and vision is an important step at the start of the strategic planning event. An engaging envisioning session helps leaders collaborate in creating a shared story of success. This activity unites and inspires the leaders and ultimately everyone to embrace the organization’s greater purpose.

4. Set business goals and priorities.

Leveraging the external and internal assessments and guided by a compelling vision, it is important to focus on the specific goals and priorities to achieve that vision. This is a critical stage for decision making. It is where leaders engage in rich decision-making conversations that define the big plays that will move the organization forward towards its goals. Having an objective, skilled facilitator can be useful at this point to help bring up, clarify, test and harmonize leadership's views.

5. Define functional objectives and key initiatives.

With a clear set of business goals and priorities, the next step is to define the specific objectives and initiatives that activate the strategic plan. This is best done at the functional level to enable alignment and increase ownership. It is important to keep the number of initiatives per function to what can be realistically done in a year. It is also important that these initiatives truly align and help deliver on the business goals.

6. Determine staffing, budgets and financing needs.

The strategic plan is operationalized by assigning sponsors, champions and resources behind the plan. Senior leaders act as the sponsors of specific initiatives, managing their budgets and staff. At this point, it may be necessary to identify and deploy strategic activation teams representing the various functions charged to tackle cross-functional strategic initiatives.

7. Identify and track success measures monthly and quarterly.

Tracking progress on strategic goals and objectives on a regular basis is key to ensuring that the plan is being implemented and to making course corrections as needed. The discipline to make progress and report on success measures on a regular basis ensures accountability and follow-through. It may be helpful to assign a person responsible for collecting, tracking and reporting progress on the strategic plan using scorecards and dashboards. A quarterly business review includes a status report on strategy implementation through key performance indicators.

These seven steps will ensure that your strategic planning process is successful, and more importantly, that your organization is on the right track. Making the right strategic choices will accelerate your organization to the next level.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Here is what Ukraine probably wants from its wild assault on Russian territory

• Ukraine's attack on Russia's Kursk region was a shock move in a mostly static war.
• Experts are analyzing why Ukraine made the move, which caught Russia off guard but may be hard to sustain.
• It could be meant to stretch Russia's resources, signal strength, or test Vladimir Putin's limits.

Ukraine has surprised the world with its attack on Kursk, a rare ground invasion of Russian soil.

Most onlookers "didn't think they had the forces up their sleeves spare to do this," Patrick Bury, a military analyst at the UK's University of Bath, told Business Insider.

As of Monday, the Kremlin announced that Ukrainian troops had advanced almost 19 miles into the western Russian region.

In a public meeting that afternoon, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his military to purge Ukrainian troops from Kursk. The attack would not go unanswered, he said.

The extent of the advance is still unclear — as is Ukraine's calculus in making the high-risk attack.

One anonymous top official, speaking to Agence France-Presse , gave three rationales.

"The aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilize the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border," he said.

But there may be more at play.

Experts who spoke to BI stressed that their assessments of Ukraine's actions were still speculative given the lack of firm information.

"We're not sitting inside a bunker in Kyiv," as Matthew Ford, a war expert and lecturer in international relations at the UK's University of Sussex, put it.

But with those limitations, they proposed several goals that Ukraine may well have in mind while attacking Kursk.

Straining Russia's ability to hold other territory

Echoing the Ukrainian official, experts suggested Ukraine was seeking to stretch Russia's resources along its main front lines within Ukraine.

"If the Russians are moving reserves from the South, then the Ukrainians may well be relieving pressure across their frontline," Ford said.

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the London-based Royal United Services Institute, assessed on Monday that some Russian troops had been moved from within Ukraine, but the scale is unclear.

Related stories

But, Ford pointed out, Ukraine could well be thinning out its own lines to do this.

Savill also suggested that the attack may be connected to other undeclared efforts, either as a diversion or as a supporting fight.

For example, it could be intended to weaken the supply lines supporting the remains of the Russian forces left over from Russia's fumbled attack on Kharkiv earlier this year, he wrote in an assessment seen by BI.

A message to the West

Ford pointed to Western onlookers — some of whose governments are wavering on supporting Ukraine — as a possible audience for the attack.

"A lot of analysts were talking at the beginning of the year about how Russia would have a lot of advantages," he told BI.

Ukraine started 2024 in a deep bind : its largest military supporter, the US, stalled for months on sending more aid. Ukraine's own parliament dithered over conscription, leaving few new troops for the front.

That picture was top of mind for many international commentators for months.

"So this operation looks like a good two fingers up against any of the Western analysts who were saying, 'well, Russia's going to come out on top,'" Ford said.

He said this would likely only be incidental to Ukraine's main strategic goal in the Kursk attack.

Kyiv may intend to send "a signal to international backers that Ukraine is still in the fight, especially ahead of US elections," according to Savill.

But Bury believes this may indeed be central to Ukraine's thinking.

An attack like this would need lengthy planning, he said — suggesting it was first conceived back in a time when the Pentagon was urging caution, and a second Trump presidency looked the likeliest it's ever been.

"So therefore you can see the Ukrainians thinking this is high stakes," he said, saying they were possibly thinking: "'Now we've got to do something if we're going to be potentially forced to the table.'"

A morale boost for a weary force

Ukrainian forces have, for much of the year, withstood relentless assault along a 600-mile front line with almost no opportunity to move forward.

Savill said the attack could be "about boosting Ukrainian morale after months on the defensive."

The country's most notable blows this year — hits on Russian oil facilities , or naval drone strikes in the Black Sea — have all been hundreds of miles away from those fighting on the ground.

With the main defense so heavily dependent on Western support, grabbing the initiative on Ukraine's own terms like this is only going to help morale, Ford said.

"You need some way of making everyone actually feel like they've got some control over their own future rather than just reliant on whatever the West wants to do," he said.

Ford added, though, that it "could easily turn if they take losses which are hard to replace."

Producing bargaining chips

Experts also remarked that Ukraine has opened up — even if only temporarily — the opportunity to grab leverage in both human and territorial form.

It could be an opportunity to capture prisoners of war for prisoner exchanges, Savill wrote.

On August 8, Ukraine released video that it said showed dozens of Russian soldiers surrendering in Kursk , in footage that BI couldn't independently verify.

If Ukraine dug in and managed to hold onto some of the region, the land itself could also become a bargaining chip in negotiations down the line.

"It's high risk, high reward — take some Russian territory and then use that as leverage to try and get some of its territory back if it was forced into negotiations," said Bury.

"I think that is the most likely strategic aim."

Putin, in his Monday remarks, also suggested that Ukraine's actions were to strengthen its hand in a future negotiation.

Ford, though, had some doubts that Putin would anyway respond amenably to possible territory exchanges.

"Putin has a long history of being quite willing to destroy things rather than allow his adversary to have it," he said.

"His track record is not one where he makes deals easily," he added.

Infuriating Putin — and testing his limits

This fight could also be a nerve-racking test of Putin's own red lines.

"It is already clear that Ukraine's decision to invade Russia has succeeded in making a complete mockery of Vladimir Putin's red lines and the West's fears of escalation," UkraineAlert editor Peter Dickinson wrote in an Atlantic Council piece published Sunday.

Putin has said that he would use nuclear weapons if there were a threat to the existence of the Russian state.

"The further the Ukrainians push into Russia, and the less resistance that they get from Russian armed forces, the more I worry that Putin would want to use a nuclear bomb," said Ford.

It's clear that at the very least, the attack is a humiliation for Putin and a radical reminder of the war's reality in Kursk — even if Putin's own power is unlikely to be much undermined.

Anonymous officials talking to Moscow Times have said that Putin has taken it "like a slap in the face."

Watch: What's next for the war in Ukraine?

• Main content

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

AI Won’t Give You a New Sustainable Advantage

• Jay B. Barney
• Martin Reeves

Generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) has the potential to radically alter how business is conducted, and there’s no doubt that it will create a lot of value. Companies have used it to identify entirely new product opportunities and business models; to automate routine decisions, freeing humans to focus on decisions that involve ethical trade-offs, empathy, or imagination; to deliver customized professional services formerly available only to the wealthy; and to develop and communicate product and other recommendations to customers faster, more cheaply, and more informatively than was possible with human-driven processes.

But, the authors ask, will companies be able to leverage gen AI to build a competitive advantage? The answer, they argue in this article, is no—unless you already have a competitive advantage that rivals cannot replicate using AI. Then the technology may serve to amplify the value you derive from that advantage.

But using it may amplify the ones you already have.

Idea in Brief

Early adopters of gen AI can eclipse rivals by using it to identify entirely new product opportunities, automate routine decisions and processes, deliver customized professional services, and communicate with customers more quickly and cheaply than was possible with human-driven processes.

The Reality

Far from being a source of advantage, even in sectors where its impact will be profound, gen AI will be more likely to erode a competitive advantage than to confer one, because its very nature makes new insights and data patterns almost immediately transparent to anyone using gen AI tools.

The Silver Lining

If you already have a competitive advantage that rivals can’t replicate using gen AI, the technology may amplify the value you derive from that advantage.

History has shown that technological innovation can profoundly change how business is conducted. The steam engine in the 1700s, the electric motor in the 1800s, the personal computer in the 1970s—each transformed many sectors of the economy, unlocking enormous value in the process. But relatively few of these and other technologies went on to become direct sources of sustained competitive advantage for the companies that deployed them, precisely because their effects were so profound and so widespread that virtually every enterprise was compelled to adopt them. Moreover, in many cases they eliminated the advantages that incumbents had enjoyed, allowing new competitors to enter previously stable markets.

• JB Jay B. Barney is a Presidential Professor of Strategic Management and the Lassonde Chair of Social Entrepreneurship at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. He is a coauthor, with Manoel Amorim and Carlos Júlio, of The Secret of Culture Change .
• Martin Reeves is the chairman of Boston Consulting Group’s BCG Henderson Institute. He is a coauthor, with Jack Fuller, of The Imagination Machine (Harvard Business Review Press, 2021) and a coauthor, with Bob Goodson, of Like: The Button That Changed the World (Harvard Business Review Press, April 2025).

Partner Center

US plans to slowly replenish Strategic Petroleum Reserve into 2025

• Medium Text

WHAT IS THE SPR?

How much spr oil was sold in 2022, what price does the us want to buy spr oil , how much is coming back, current spr level.

Sign up here.

Reporting by Timothy Gardner; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab

Thomson Reuters

Timothy reports on energy and environment policy and is based in Washington, D.C. His coverage ranges from the latest in nuclear power, to environment regulations, to U.S. sanctions and geopolitics. He has been a member of three teams in the past two years that have won Reuters best journalism of the year awards. As a cyclist he is happiest outside.

J&J to buy medical device maker V-Wave for up to $1.1 bln

Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday it would buy medical device maker V-Wave for up to $1.1 billion, the latest in a string of acquisitions aimed at driving growth once its blockbuster drug Stelara loses patent protection.

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

https://www.nist.gov/mep/successstories/2024/west-rivers-strategic-planning-leadership-transition-genedge

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

West river's strategic planning / leadership transition with genedge, with the help of: genedge.

West River of Oakwood, Virginia, is a leader in custom-built, custom-designed conveyor systems and terminal group packages. The company provides engineered and pre-engineered conveyor terminal packages including belt drives, take up units, tail sections, discharge/transfer stations, belt starters, and other unique fabrications. West River also offers a wide range of conveyor components, such as motors, reducers, fluid couplings, belt rollers, pulleys, bearings, heavy conveyor sprockets, bull gears, backstops, chains, and more.

The Challenge

West River faced a challenge as they were planning their future long term growth strategies and recognized a need for a plan to transition leadership to ensure sustainability and business continuity over the long term. The objectives were to visualize strategic execution deliverables, define the total level of effort, schedule, and costs over the strategic execution period, and unify leadership by communicating essential organizational dependencies in a quantitative, fact based, and logical manner. To achieve these goals, West River partnered with GENEDGE, part of the MEP National Network™, for facilitation of business growth planning and strategic transformation.

Working with GENEDGE helped our management group reinforce our commitment to sustainability and long-term growth. Bringing everyone together to develop a plan helped us mitigate our risks and work towards the identified necessary activities that must be done in order to grow our business. Sam and Mike were wonderful in helping facilitate the difficult conversations and we are appreciative of our time with, and knowledge gained from GENEDGE. — Jessica Savage , Chief Strategic Officer

MEP's Role

Over a two-day period, a GENEDGE subject matter expert engaged with West River's leadership team to dissect and refine their strategic objectives. The process involved extracting actionable blocks of activity necessary to achieve the company's goals, distinguishing operational tasks from strategic investments, and challenging leadership to pinpoint where resources should be invested or divested to focus on strategic endeavors over operational activities. This effort resulted in the development of a strategic roadmap to ensure organizational alignment and long-term viability.

Throughout the facilitation, a running risk register documented market, technical, schedule, cost, and quality gaps, while a resource allocation table and cost estimates were calculated quarterly for financial planning purposes. Despite the inherent uncertainty in strategy, the content was created with a 70 to 80% confidence level, acknowledging an acceptable error rate in cost and revenue forecasting. As successive projects unfolded, the error rate diminished as facts became clearer. The project successfully helped to establish West River plans for future growth and enabled confidence to execute transition from one leadership structure to another, enabling the owner to begin the retirement process.

Philadelphia Phillies

Business analyst.

• Share via Email
• Share via Facebook
• Share via X
• Share via LinkedIn
• Learn the day-to-day operations and functions of internal business units that are regular stakeholders of the BA team and develop practices that integrate data literacy in that context.
• Assist in maintaining and growing the department’s offerings of predictive and prescriptive analytics with a focus on artificial intelligence as it relates to data to accelerate methods that add business value.
• Using data to drive revenue, solve business challenges, and optimize business outcomes will be key aspects of this role.
• Perform advanced data analysis on large datasets to prescribe data driven actions relative to business operations.
• Collaborate as part of the Business Analytics team on a variety of analytical projects that span the landscape of the organization.
• Provide a fresh, unique look at current business practices and identify potential areas of growth.
• Create new data-driven initiatives.
• Assist in the operational aspect of supporting BA functions during Phillies events.
• Other duties and projects as assigned.
• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Analytics, Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Artificial Intelligence or a related field. Advanced Degree preferred.
• 0-2 years of relevant work experience preferred.
• Proficiency in SQL, Python, and R is a requirement.
• Strong ability to work well with co-workers in a team environment and work cross-functionally both inside and outside the department.
• Experience with Microsoft Azure, SAP, and Google Cloud Platform is a plus.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Demonstrate ability to exercise sound decision-making skills.
• Ability to mentor and teach other staff members.
• Ability to multi-task and meet strict deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• Must be able to work flexible hours to include holidays, weekends, and evenings as needed.

Job Questions:

What is your desired salary range?

Cookies on GOV.UK

We use some essential cookies to make this website work.

We’d like to set additional cookies to understand how you use GOV.UK, remember your settings and improve government services.

We also use cookies set by other sites to help us deliver content from their services.

You have accepted additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

You have rejected additional cookies. You can change your cookie settings at any time.

• Government efficiency, transparency and accountability

Companies House business plan 2024 to 2025

• Companies House

Published 12 August 2024

© Crown copyright 2024

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: [email protected] .

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/companies-house-business-plan-2024-to-2025/companies-house-business-plan-2024-to-2025

Chair and chief executive’s foreword

As we begin the fifth and final year of delivering our 2020 to 2025 strategy, we are hugely excited to embark on the first stages of implementing the landmark Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023. It is without doubt one of the most significant moments for Companies House in our long history.

We have known for some time that UK companies have been misused by criminals to commit fraud, money laundering, and other forms of economic crime, and our thoughts have always been with those affected. With the legislation in place that has given the registrars new and enhanced powers, we will now be able to take unprecedented steps to crack down on fraudulent activities, help victims of identity fraud more quickly, and clean up the register by removing information we know to be incorrect or misleading.

These new and enhanced powers enable us to prevent further abuse of the register and to play an even greater role in the cross government approach in identifying, disrupting and preventing economic crime.

This will underpin our efforts to drive up the accuracy of the information held on the registers – improving the quality and reliability of our data which, in turn, will increase the value of the registers for businesses across the UK and beyond.

We will be focusing our attention this year on the highest priority areas of legislative reform and will be further ramping up our work in implementing the significant changes to our processes and systems. Our teams will be bringing in new ways of working and we will be testing, learning and evolving our skills and practices at pace to deliver on our new role.

Our ambition is clear – to act as quickly as possible in implementing the legislation and start to make a real difference. However, we have also been clear that we will continue to take a phased and prioritised approach to introducing these changes. Some changes will need a significant amount of secondary legislation, and some will require comprehensive change to our systems and processes – all of which will take time to achieve.

We also must ensure that while we’re implementing such a significant programme of change, we need to maintain our existing services for our customers, and continue to use our resources efficiently and effectively.

We are proud to be driving confidence in the economy by creating a transparent and accountable business environment. And that the use of our data informs business and consumer decisions, supports growth and helps disrupt economic crime. We remain confident that we can, and will continue to, balance the ease of doing business in the UK and effective regulation.

We are pleased to present Companies House’s corporate business plan for April 2024 to March 2025.

John Clarke - Chair of Companies House.

Louise Smyth - Chief Executive and Registrar of Companies for England and Wales.

About Companies House

Companies House is an executive agency of the UK Government, sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT). We hold the UK’s register of companies and the Register of Overseas Entities.

Through the accuracy and transparency of the information we make freely available about companies on the registers, we support and promote confidence and growth in the UK economy.

Over 1,400 people work for Companies House. We have offices in Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast. 

Louise Smyth is the Chief Executive of Companies House, the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales and the Regulator for Community Interest Companies. The Registrar of Companies for Scotland is Lisa Davis and Lynn Cooper is the Registrar of Companies for Northern Ireland.

Our main board consists of the chair, chief executive, executive directors and non-executive board members. The main board oversees all aspects of our organisation including performance, finances and strategic direction. The main board reports to the Department for Business and Trade on our governance, strategy, priorities and progress. 

Companies House is the home of company information. We:

• incorporate, maintain and dissolve companies
• publish company information to promote transparency and growth in the UK
• work in a cross government approach to disrupt and tackle economic crime

More than 5 million limited companies are registered in the UK, with over 500,000 new companies incorporated each year. We enable these businesses to fulfil their statutory obligations throughout a company’s ‘lifetime’ – from incorporation to dissolution.

We aim to make it as smooth as possible for legitimate businesses to set up and run a company. In exchange for granting limited liability, we publish valuable information about companies. This provides corporate transparency and deters those who would use the registers for fraudulent purposes.   

We publish company information which is easily accessible and available free of charge. There were over 14 billion searches of our information last year by a wide range of people including businesses, researchers, government and many public bodies, as well as the general public.

Companies House also holds and maintains the Register of Overseas Entities. Owners of land or property in the UK who are based overseas must register their beneficial owners or managing officers with Companies House.

We set up the Register of Overseas Entities in August 2022. Over 30,000 overseas entities are now registered, providing transparency about who owns land or property in the UK. This makes it more difficult for those thinking of using UK property to hide illicit wealth. The information on this register has been searched just under 1 million times so far.

We play a key role in the cross government approach to identifying and disrupting economic crime. This means we:

• carry out intelligence and analysis on the data we hold
• proactively share information with trusted external partners to aid investigations
• where appropriate, provide crucial evidence to tackle economic crime and other criminal activity

Companies House also has a good reputation globally. We collaborate and share best practice with many other business registries around the world. We continue to play an active role in the Corporate Registers Forum (CRF) and European Business Registry Association (EBRA), two of the leading international associations of business registries.

Our purpose, vision and strategy

In 2020 we set out an ambitious 5 year corporate strategy with a clear purpose and vision for Companies House.

Our purpose

Our purpose is to drive confidence in the UK economy.

Our vision is to be the most innovative, open and trusted register in the world – with brilliant services delivered by brilliant people.

Our strategy

Our strategy contains 6 strategic goals that reflect our vision for Companies House. Each goal has a set of strategic outcome statements that describe what we aim to achieve by the end of March 2025.

Strategic goal 1: Registers and data that inspire trust and confidence

The strategic outcomes for this goal are that:

• we are clear with our customers about their statutory duties
• using our new powers has improved the quality of the data on our registers
• trust in the value of the data on our registers has increased

Strategic goal 2: Maximising the value of our registers to the UK economy

The strategic outcome for this goal is that the value of our registers to the UK economy has increased.

Strategic goal 3: Combatting economic crime through active use of analysis and intelligence

The strategic outcomes for this goal are that we:

• have an intelligence hub and are proactively identifying and investigating suspicious activity and misuse of our registers
• pursue those who misuse our registers
• authorise corporate service providers and proactively investigate and report those who facilitate the misuse of the registers

Strategic goal 4: Brilliant services that give a great user experience

• external user satisfaction with our digital services is high
• we will commence digital communications with companies, as first choice
• our digital services are easy to use and accessible, enabling users to file and get information right first time, and minimising avoidable contact and complaints

Strategic goal 5: Our culture enables our brilliant people to flourish

• our people embrace and facilitate our organisational changes and focus on building an inclusive positive culture to ensure a great user experience and service delivery for our customers
• our leaders and managers are equipped with the skills to build the culture and commitment we need to deliver our strategic goals and outcomes
• our diversity and inclusion activity is data driven, evidence led, and delivery focused
• our roles are aligned to civil service professions resulting in clearly defined career paths and development opportunities
• hybrid ways of working to support our strategy and transformation have been embedded​​​​​​​
• our strategic workforce plans ensure we have the right people in place at the right time, with the right skills to support our future strategic outcomes and objectives

Strategic goal 6: Delivering value through efficient use of resources

• a financial funding and fees model is established to deliver our services and strategy
• our investments deliver realised benefits and public value
• our functional standards are managed and maintained
• we have met our efficiency target
• internal controls and budgetary discipline are in place and are effective in enabling us to operate services within our budget allocation

Implementing new legislation to improve corporate transparency and tackle economic crime

The Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act (ECCT Act 2023) received Royal Assent in October 2023. The act introduces the biggest changes to Companies House since corporate registrations were established in 1844. We’ll have the power to play a far more significant role in tackling economic crime, supporting economic growth, and making sure the UK is one of the best places in the world to start and grow a business. 

The ECCT Act 2023 builds on the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022, which introduced the Register of Overseas Entities. Together, they are a major step forward in strengthening Companies House’s role as outlined in the economic crime plans 1 and 2, to work across government on tackling economic crime and improving corporate transparency. 

The ECCT Act 2023 sets out 4 new objectives for the registrars to promote:

• ensure any person who is required to deliver a document to the register does so (and that the requirements for proper delivery are complied with)
• ensure information on the register is accurate and that the register contains everything it ought to contain
• ensure records kept by the registrar do not create a false or misleading impression to members of the public
• prevent companies and others from carrying out unlawful activities or facilitating the carrying out by others of unlawful activities

Delivering to these new objectives underpins our implementation of the ECCT Act 2023.

We have already begun to inform companies, and those submitting information on their behalf, of the changes to UK company law and their legal obligations. Throughout this year, as changes are rolled out, we will be continuing our information campaigns to ensure that the requirements for proper delivery are complied with. Alongside this we are making our systems and services easy to use and digital first, ensuring that our customers can do the right thing independently and easily.

We have already begun using our enhanced powers which came into effect on 4 March 2024. We are now able to query, remove and reject inaccurate information.  

Operating within our new compliance framework, we will make optimal use of our resources by adopting a targeted and proportionate approach.

We will also have a clear enforcement strategy in place and will be able to prosecute a number of new criminal offences. We will prosecute some of these offences directly. We’ll also work to investigate and prosecute in partnership with the Insolvency Service (INSS). These new criminal offences will result in a range of sanctions including imprisonment for the most severe of offences.

We will also have new sanctions specific to authorised corporate service providers (ACSPs). Under certain circumstances, the registrars will be able to suspend and de-authorise an ACSP from filing on the public register.

Through continued gathering and analysing of our own intelligence, and more proactive sharing across trusted partners across government and law enforcement agencies, we will now play a much more significant role in the fight against economic crime.

Our intelligence focus will align to our strategic intelligence assessment and support implementation of the registrars’ objectives. We will work closely with partners to tackle threats that apply to all of us, called ‘cross cutting threats’, ensuring that we prioritise those that cause significant harm to the public. Our intelligence function will also support our enforcement colleagues in dealing with non compliant companies. 

Having these new powers, combined with our intelligence and enforcement regime will help us:

• maintain the accuracy of the information on the register
• protect the public
• disrupt criminal activity

What we plan to deliver from April 2024 to March 2025

Strategic goal 1: our registers and data inspire trust and confidence.

Increasing the integrity and accuracy of information on the registers is central to our corporate vision and a fundamental part of the UK’s corporate transparency framework.

How we’ll progress towards strategic goal 1

We’ll prioritise cleaning up the existing information on the registers by identifying and removing information that we know to be inaccurate.

We’ll require companies to provide us with a registered email address and an appropriate registered office address. We’ll also issue a requirement for companies to confirm that they are forming the company for a lawful purpose when they incorporate and confirm that continued lawful purpose annually.

We’ll proactively use our new powers to ensure companies on the register have a legitimate address, in particular taking action against identity and address theft. We will stop the use of Royal Mail PO Boxes and equivalent services as an appropriate registered office address by the end of March 2025. We’ll take action against companies that do not have an appropriate office address or are using an address that has been hijacked, in line with the new legislation.

We’ll use our new and enhanced powers to query and reject information submitted to us, where it’s clear information is false, misleading or suspicious. In some cases, we will also annotate information on the register, at an individual and corporate level.

We’ll expedite the process of striking off companies so that we can act more quickly than we previously could, where we have evidence of fraudulent information. This is particularly important where personal information has been used without consent, and we will conduct appropriate investigations where this has happened.

We’ll introduce a registration process for third party agents to become authorised corporate service providers (ACSPs). This will be an early first stage of authorisation to become recognised to transact with us on behalf of a company and an important pre-cursor to completing an identity verification check. Setting up third party agents as ACSPs is a key measure to ensure only those who are authorised will be permitted to complete transactions with Companies House on behalf of registered companies.

We’ll get ready for the introduction of identity verification which will become mandatory for anyone setting up, running, owning or controlling a company in the UK, and those who file on behalf of companies. This year we will be developing the significant changes to our systems and service integrations required to release this major initiative. By the end of March 2025, we will have introduced the technical capability to verify an individual’s identity. This will begin a transition process for a phased roll out from Spring 2025 and beyond.

We’ll begin development of process changes to impose limits on the use of corporate directors, subject to certain exemptions, as set out under the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015.

We’ll develop processes that enable the suppression of personal information from the register, including suppression of the company’s registered office address, if it is a person’s residential address. We will also enable changes that will allow people who are personally at risk, rather than at risk due to the activities of the company, to apply for protection of their information.

We’ll scale up data governance processes within our new and existing services and data quality metrics, with measures in place for our most critical data points.

Informing companies and those affected by the new legislation is an important duty and the first of the registrars’ objectives. We’ll continue our external communications campaign to ensure that our customers, their agents and key stakeholders are fully aware of when and how they will be impacted by the changes and are confident about what they need do and by when.

Strategic goal 2: We maximise the value of our registers to the UK economy

The information we publish is used to support millions of business decisions, with its transparency contributing to the UK being regarded as a world leading place to do business. Research commissioned and published in 2019 estimated the value of the register to the UK economy to be worth over £1 to 3 billion per year.

We are confident that our work to improve the quality and availability of company information over the past 4 years of our strategy period, combined with the commitments we’re making this year, will:

• encourage greater confidence in the registers
• result in even greater use of the information on the registers
• contribute to maximising the value of our registers to the UK economy

As outlined throughout this business plan, the focus across the organisation this year will be on delivering the new legislation and enhanced powers and ensuring the promotion of the registrars’ new objectives.

All of the activities outlined under strategic goal 1 to clean up the register will improve the quality of the information we use and share, and as a result, will continue to increase confidence, trust and use of it.

In this way, we anticipate that the value of the information will continue to grow as we implement the reforms under the ECCT Act 2023. We plan to replicate the previous study we undertook to measure the value at a later date, when these changes have had time to embed.

We have also recently commissioned new research to understand the value of the information and intelligence we share with law enforcement partners and anti-money laundering regulated businesses. We will be working through and acting upon the findings and recommendations of this research throughout this financial year.

Strategic goal 3: We combat economic crime through active use of analysis and intelligence

With the ECCT Act 2023 in place, we can now:

• gather, analyse and proactively share more intelligence than ever before
• request data from other partners
• pursue collaborative working opportunities across government and with law enforcement organisations to disrupt and take action against criminal activity

We will develop a strategic intelligence assessment, alongside partners, to identify and assess strategic threats posed to the UK through misuse of corporate structures. We will also continually develop our understanding of how third party agents can be used to hide the identities of those seeking to abuse Companies House processes and the ways in which the true control of limited companies is obscured.  

Our strategic intelligence assessment will be followed by a control strategy and series of action plans to detail how we, working in collaboration with our partners, will focus our activities to take action related to each of those threats.

We have been onboarded to cross government intelligence sharing systems already.This, together with other data sets, will be used to take forward a multi agency disruption approach through proactive sharing of intelligence and analysis.

In addition, we have been receiving and scrutinising money laundering reports from entities required to carry out due diligence checks under the Money Laundering Regulations, called ‘obliged entities’ .

We already share data through European Union’s anti-money laundering regulations. We will continue building on this essential collaborative working this year and will pursue further partnerships that build on our cross working approach.

In addition, the economic crime plan 2 sets out an additional range of actions for us and our partners in this area. We will be taking these forward throughout the coming year.

To build our capability across all of our work in this new regulatory space we will be continually learning, testing and refining our approach, building in more checks to adapt to emerging integrity issues, and ensuring we continually make effective and consistent decisions that are proportionate to the problem.

How we’ll progress towards strategic goal 3

We’ll establish further relationships and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with a range of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to share data and intelligence to enable a multi-agency disruption approach to tackling economic crime.

We’ll work with the Insolvency Service (INSS) to identify and take action in prosecution cases, with up to 250 cases referred to INSS each year.

We’ll increase data insights for intelligence and enforcement teams, required for identifying and analysing trends, taking action against non-compliance and pursuing enforcement action to tackle economic crime.

We’ll develop a strategic intelligence assessment, followed by a control strategy and series of action plans to take action, together with partners, against identified threats.

We’ll have an enforcement framework in place and take action in accordance with this for companies that are non-compliant We’ll ensure a process of continual learning, testing and refining our approach to compliance and enforcement.

We’ll build the systems, processes and capability to deliver a robust, joined up scrutiny process for onboarding ACSPs. We will undertake ongoing compliance, monitoring and enforcement where necessary, linking with anti-money laundering supervisors and the wider economic crime eco-system.

We’ll begin development of services that will enable the wide-ranging limited partnerships reforms which will bring legal requirements for limited partnerships in line with the requirements for limited companies. This will include the need for identify verification, increased transparency of data and invoking new powers to remove dormant partnerships.

Now that we have over 30,000 entities registered on the Register of Overseas Entities, our focus will switch to scrutinising the information on the register and understanding it’s impact. We will work with overseas company registers and UK Land Registry to identify those that have failed to comply with their obligations. We will actively follow up on information supplied and not updated, and use our querying powers to maintain and improve the accuracy of the information supplied, targeting individuals who attempt to avoid transparency.

We’ll work proactively, alongside our law enforcement colleagues, to disrupt the use of UK property to hide illicit wealth.

Strategic goal 4: Our brilliant services give a great user experience

Our corporate strategy set out our ambitions to become a digital first organisation where our digital services are designed to be easy to use and intuitive, so that our customers can do the right thing, first time.

We have achieved high levels of digital adoption of services already and are continuing to encourage customers to choose digital first. This is quicker for our customers, more efficient for us and saves costs for us all, while reducing our impact on the environment through reduced paper and post. 

We achieved consistently high digital service availability throughout 2023 to 2024 while managing a complex technology estate as well as innovating and responding rapidly to user needs. For example:

• 91% of over 14 million transactions per year are submitted and processed digitally
• 4.3 million advanced searches of the registers are made using advanced web functionality
• 99% of confirmation statements and incorporations are submitted digitally each year

This year we will maintain our existing infrastructure and aim to ensure that our digital services remain available for customers 99.5% of the time. 

Throughout this year we will be focusing on continuing the development and roll out of new services as we start to implement the changes brought about by the ECCT Act 2023. We will also be optimising our existing infrastructure to ensure we have reliable, secure and cost effective services that provide value for money.

How we’ll progress towards strategic goal 4

We’ll optimise our current IT services and infrastructure to ensure reliable, secure and cost-effective services that realise efficiencies and provide high performing, sustainable and accessible digital services for our customers and colleagues.

We’ll review and assess the future direction for an end to end service led model, consolidating our infrastructure, making it more flexible and adaptable to changing needs and leveraging new technologies including artificial intelligence (AI).

We are pleased with our audit report from the Welsh Language Commissioner in 2023 but are also committed to improving the bilingual services we offer from 2024.We’ll continue to build our Welsh language capability into our new digital services as they come on stream to comply with legal obligations. In addition we will take forward research with our service users, and prioritise our Welsh Language Scheme action plan.

We’ll continue to work with our customers and software vendors to help them prepare for future mandatory digital filing of financial accounts.

Strategic goal 5: Our culture enables our brilliant people to flourish and drives high performance

Our business plan could not be delivered without the commitment and dedication of our brilliant people. We continue to embrace and promote a positive and inclusive culture that supports everyone working at Companies House. We encourage everyone to bring their whole selves to work, celebrate diversity and provide opportunities for people at all levels to develop their skills. 

We are proud to have been recognised for the work we do to support our people through a Platinum Award by Investors in People (IIP). We’ve now received this award for the second time in a row, an accolade that only 5% of organisations across the world share.

This financial year brings huge opportunity and change to Companies House as we continue to transition to a more regulatory role, which is changing what we do and how we do it. Our fantastic people sit at the very heart of our transformation.

Over the year ahead our focus will be on ensuring we have the skills and capabilities we need to deliver on our new role. That will begin with phased recruitment, onboarding and training to new roles across the business.

As well as increasing our resource, we will ensure that we retain our excellent culture and build resilience at all levels by ensuring all our people feel involved, valued, engaged and heard. We will aim for our organisational behaviours and strong culture to be weaved through the fabric of our new role in society.

In 2023, our Edinburgh team moved to a new location within a Government Property Agency (GPA) hub. In 2024, our Northern Ireland office will change location. We will also be preparing for a potential move from our existing Cardiff office.

How we’ll progress towards strategic goal 5

We’ll continuously seek to innovate and improve our already strong employment brand and recruitment techniques. We will strengthen our outreach and employer brand campaigns to attract future talent and critical skills, particularly in digital and data. We will continue to build relationships with educational establishments and taking an innovative approach to attracting and developing our people by keeping abreast of the latest trends in industry.

We’ll continue to develop our workforce with a focus on building talent pipelines and career paths with the ongoing assessment and building of capability frameworks through Government Professions.

We’ll strive to build a true data culture at every level within the organisation through a commitment to delivering foundational data training to 90% of our people, new learning pathways for those roles responsible for data, and by growing our community of practice.

We’ll work collaboratively to drive high performance through increased levels of employee engagement and shared information. We’ll encourage an environment that embraces and facilitates change, celebrates success and is honest about our challenges. We’ll create opportunities for people’s voices to be heard and acted upon and championing our adaptable, bold and curious behaviours.

We’ll carry out the preparatory work for our confirmed and potential office moves. We’ll particularly focus on employee engagement and relations, maintaining our open and resilient culture, planning for effective use of space and place to enable new ways of working and high performance that is fit for the future.

Strategic goal 6: We deliver value through efficient use of resources

Companies House is committed to good governance and value for money.

Operating efficiently and effectively as part of central government is a core objective to achieve this strategic goal and underpins our work across Companies House. Working with others across government and more widely provides opportunities to be more efficient and effective within the resources available to us.

Throughout the coming year we focus on identifying and leveraging efficiencies through development and delivery of new and improved processes and systems that are needed to deliver our priorities.

We will continue to make evidence based decisions across all areas, including:

• how and when we prioritise our work
• identifying and implementing new ways of working that enable the most efficient use of our people
• looking for opportunities to invest to save where required
• outsourcing contracts where we can demonstrate it provides the best value for money

As technology continues to advance rapidly, we continue to explore opportunities and develop plans to achieve a digital infrastructure that is fit for the future. The government’s 2021 National AI Strategy highlighted the importance of using AI within the public sector and for the public good.

Following this, in March 2023 the Science and Technology Framework identified AI as one of the critical technologies for the UK to achieve its ambitions to be a science and technology superpower by 2030.

Throughout the coming year, we will continue to build our digital capabilities by seeking new and innovative ways to use technology to work smarter, increase automation, and gain efficiencies. This will include using machine learning and taking an incremental test and learn approach to the adoption of AI.

We will also continue to work across government to identify where shared services and joint working will support us to be able to deliver on our commitments and realise efficiencies.

How we’ll progress towards strategic goal 6

We’ll adopt the Government Efficiency Framework to support the delivery of efficiencies, by defining and categorising efficiency savings in line with government best practice.  

We’ll complete the move from our current office in Belfast to new premises and prepare for moving from our current Cardiff office, focusing on the efficient use of space and resource.

We’ll implement the Procurement Act 2023 which will involve updating our processes, guidance and documentation, and onboarding to the new central government portal for procurement, anticipated by autumn 2024.

We’ll achieve the Government Minimum Security Standards and reflect the expectations of the Government Security Group and National Technical Authorities in our policies and operations.

We’ll prepare a detailed AI adoption plan focused on improving productivity and delivery, and realising efficiencies.

Public targets

Our public targets for this year reflect the most significant commitments in our business plan for 2024 to 2025. These targets are agreed with the Minister of State, and published in both Houses of Parliament under their name.

Throughout the year we track and report progress against the delivery of these targets to our executive and main boards, and the Department for Business and Trade.

2024 public targets

1.Use our new powers to ensure companies on the register have a legitimate address - in particular, by taking action against identity and address theft:

• have been removed from the register;
• be pending removal; or,
• have been updated to an appropriate registered office address in accordance with the law
• eradicate the use of Royal Mail PO Boxes and equivalent services as a registered office address by companies on the register

2. Introduce the technical capability to verify an individual’s identity by March 2025: this will help ensure Companies House is prepared for the anticipated transition process whereby all new and existing company directors and persons of significant control will be required to verify their identity either directly through Companies House or through authorised third parties.

3. Develop a strategic intelligence assessment to identify the priority areas for action in the fight against economic crime, and act upon it.

4. Digital services are available for a minimum of 99.5% of the time.

5. All incoming calls into our contact centre are answered within an average of 4 minutes.

6. 80% of customers are satisfied with Companies House.

7. Manage expenditure within budgetary limits and utilise central government funding.

Monitoring and reporting

Companies House regularly monitors and reports progress against the commitments in this business plan throughout the year. In addition, Parliament and the public can review how Companies House is performing in our annual report and accounts .

More information can be found in Companies House official statistics and other public data sets.

Reports on the implementation and operation of parts 1 to 3 of the ECCT Act 2023 will be laid in Parliament in line with the statutory requirements.

Funding the plan

Companies House is funded through the Department for Business and Trade and through fees which are charged for services, as set out in legislation.

Fees are set on a cost recovery basis. This means that our fees must cover the cost of the services we deliver. We do not make a profit on our fees.  

In May 2024 we will increase our fees to cover the cost of the services we deliver and take future expenditure into account as we deliver the new powers and the wider package of reforms in the ECCT Act 2023. We will continue to review our fees every year to make sure they are set at the right level. 

Our transformation programme activity has benefited from financial support from the Department for Business and Trade following approval of our full business case in 2023 through to 31 March 2025.

Following a successful bid, we have secured additional funding via the Economic Crime (anti-money laundering) Levy (ECL) for a 3-year period, ending in March 2026. This funding will support our contribution to vision set out in the economic crime plan 2.

This table shows the Companies House budget delegations for 2024 to 2025.

Is this page useful?

• Yes this page is useful
• No this page is not useful

Help us improve GOV.UK

Don’t include personal or financial information like your National Insurance number or credit card details.

To help us improve GOV.UK, we’d like to know more about your visit today. Please fill in this survey (opens in a new tab) .