Strategic Planning

“If you don’t have a plan for yourself,
you will be part of someone else’s.”

Proverb

Good strategy skills are highly prized in corporate leaders. In fact, recent surveys published in the Wall Street Journal, suggest that the most sought-after skill in an executive leader is strategic thinking. It is a skill that can make all the difference for a given organisation whatever its size.

There has been much progress in the art of strategic planning and strategic thinking in the past couple of decades. The methods have helped many successful businesses cope with the ever increasing demands of customers as well as dealing with increased competition in a largely global market.

Fortunately, much like creativity skills, strategic thinking is a skill that can be learned methodically. You can utilise a variety of tools that will help you collect data systematically, analyse them and obtain guidelines to make strategic decisions.

Many of such tools are commonly taught in business schools around the world. In this course, participants will learn about a series of most commonly used strategic planning tools and see how each can help them gain a new perspective on the operation and future of a given business. After each tool has been explored, the delegates will have the opportunity to practice it by going through relevant exercises.

This course is suitable for anyone who is in a leadership role or in a position where decisions must be made about the current state and future of a given endeavour.

Many of these tools are used in conjunction with each other. Delegates will learn how the results of each can be used as inputs for another or use several tools together to make an informed decision.

In this highly practical course participants will learn:

What is Strategic Planning?

• Where does strategic planning fit into the overall strategic management?
• What is the best approach to strategic planning?
• How does strategic planning compare to strategic thinking?
• How would you use a handy method to set objectives and popularise them?

Strategic Planning Process

• What are the five stages of strategic planning?
• What is logic model?

SWOT Analysis

• What is SWOT analysis?
• What are the 4 P’s of marketing and how can they help you while applying a SWOT analysis?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of carrying out a SWOT analysis?

Five Forces Analysis

• What is the Five Forces analysis?
• How can you identify threats in a given industry?
• PESTLE Analysis
• What is PEST, PESTLE or PESTEL analysis?
• How can you use PEST analysis to obtain a macro-environmental picture where a business operates and make strategic decisions based on that?

Growth Share Matrix

• What is the growth share matrix and why was it created?
• How can you evaluate business units in relation to each other and their market in order to make better strategic decisions?
• How can you monitor the progress of business units and plan ahead as products go through their product life cycle?

Balanced Scorecard

• What is a balanced scorecard?
• What are the three generations of the balanced scorecard and what was needed for the creation of each new generation?
• How can you carry out strategic mapping, set objectives and achieve them?

Audience: Anyone

Prerequisites: None

Course Duration: 1 Day

Course Level: Beginners & Intermediate 

By the end of this course the delegates will be able to:

• Use strategic planning to define the purpose and future goals of a business
• Apply the five-stage logic model to go from goals to results systematically
• Apply a SWOT analysis and learn how to relate areas to each other to form strategies
• Use the Five Forces analysis to learn about the attractiveness of a given market
• Apply the PESTLE Analysis to learn about the external environment a business operates in
• Apply the growth share matrix and analyse the profitability and usability of various business units
• Use a balanced scorecard to measure and keep track of performance and strategic objectives in relation to each other

This course is structured around the strategic planning tools. Its structured design makes it easy for trainers to use the material without much background on the subject. The course is fairly modular in that each tool is explored first, followed by guidelines, examples and an exercise where delegates can practice using the tool.

The exercises need to be scoped for the duration of the course. With larger number of delegates, exercises tend to take longer. The choice of a scenario of some of the exercises is also important. A full analysis of a business can take a significant amount of time, including data collection, meeting key staff and so on. The purpose of this course is not to carry out a full analysis using a given tool. Instead, the aim is to illustrate how each technique works, what the best practice guidelines are and what delegates can expect to get from each tool.

Strategic planning is not an exact science. It is largely a qualitative analysis and decision making that highly depends on the information collected and the scope of the analysis carried out. It also depends on the skill of the strategist. This course aims to provide the main tools so that the delegates can start practicing applying them and over time gain the necessary skills.