Strategic planning is a process that helps organizations define their goals and objectives, and develop a plan to achieve them. It involves creating specific business strategies, implementing them, and evaluating the results of executing the plan, in regard to a companys overall long-term goals or desires . The process of strategic planning requires considerable thought and planning on the part of a companys 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 companys management will, hopefully, settle on a strategy that is most likely to produce positive results (usually defined as improving the companys 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 2. Strategy Implementation 3. Strategy Evaluation . Strategic planning is important for businesses because it helps prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organizations goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning .
If you are interested in learning more about strategic planning, you can check out the following resources:
– [Corporate Finance Institute](https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/management/strategic-planning/)
– [HBS Online](https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/why-is-strategic-planning-important)
– [Indeed](https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/what-is-strategic-planning-a-definition)
– [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning)
– [Asana](https://asana.com/resources/strategic-planning)