Strategic planning: reinventing your business

The world of business is a real war, and, as in all wars, that win best known neutralize the strength and movement of enemies (competitors), facilitating the movement of their forces (their salesman) and use the potential of their weapons (itheir technology), occupy the strategic areas (market) and undermine the battle front (its area of coverage) with their projects (their products). In many cases it is evident the need to rethink the company and take it to another position which takes into account different reality. The action of an organization, at any level, occurs in a particular area of coverage, which may be a neighborhood, a city, a state, a region or even one country or many countries in one or several continents. In these areas one should take into account the business environment that changes constantly. This environment involves, has the influence and interfere in a variety of aspects such as staff, customers, suppliers, competitors, technology, finance, government, legislation, environment, communities, etc.., whose interaction can not be ignored. In this scenario, with constant threats and opportunities, small decisions can influence large results. More than this, as the military war, take or not take a position today could influence, so positive or negative, in the performance of the organization in the near future or in five, ten, fifteen years. In this era of globalization, rapid changes and unexpected changes, do not get the first and only one strategy for competition, but, above all, a matter of survival.

NEEDS

It is here that the entrepreneur needs the formulation and implementation of strategic planning, with definition of objectives, policies and strategies. This will be fixed, for example, the focus of the organization, the objectives of short, medium and long term, the staff policy, pricing policy, trade policy, policy on relations with the community, investment policy, product policy, strategy competition, growth strategy, which their real product, which the essence of the business, and a number of means to achieve the goals of the organization, such as the tactical plans. For example, one company in commercial aviation can define your business as air passenger or air cargo, or passengers and cargo. You can also take a broader strategic vision and define your business as transport. Once it is placed in a wider range of opportunities, including the connection plane-truck, or truck-ship or plane-truck-ship, etc.. The opportunities are huge in any branch of business, but the accuracy organizations be prepared.

THE STRONG

According to Philip Kotler, "The strategic planning is a management methodology that allows for direction to be followed by the organization, to a greater degree of interaction with the environment." As direction, it is the establishment of the scope of work, the macropolitical, the functional policy, philosophy of action, the macrostrategy, the functional strategies, objectives and functional macro-objectives. The degree of interaction between the organization and the environment - which can be positive (favoring the organization), negative (prejudice to the organization) or neutral (does not help or hinder the organization) - and the dependent variable is that organizations want to grow and to develop - physically and economically - to a positive and profitable for the future. The process of growth and development, however, is not so simple because the environment of continuous change requires an organization's capacity for innovation and constant adaptation. The adoption of strategic planning requires a significant change in the philosophy and management practices of most organizations - public or private. Strategic planning is not likely to be deployed by simple changes in technical decision, making processes and instruments of the organization. It is, after all, a winning organization that begins at the conceptual changes of management, resulting in new forms of administrative behavior, and new techniques and practices of planning, control and evaluation. The process of strategic planning is, for many companies, the last way and the last door for survival. It is therefore the strategic plan, encompassing the entire organization: the tactical plans, which relate to the different areas (marketing, finance, production, human resources, etc.) and the operational plans (plan sales, plan investment, production plan, etc.), which are intended to operationalize the tactical plans. With this the company will be given a tool and a vision of leading it to be better situated in a highly competitive environment - often aggressive. The strategic positioning of the organization may be the great differential and a decisive step towards the leadership, whatever its size, its field of activities, its area of coverage and business environment. With the strategic vision and positioning, the company may set the direction of their actions, which define their projects and develop them. This is the procedure of successful organizations. With an appropriate strategic planning, the company will place better and increase its results more than the cost of services that are contracted. This is also a matter of strategy.