Strategic Planning is a comprehensive process for determining what a business should become and how it can best achieve that goal. It appraises the full potential of a business and explicitly links the business’s objectives to the actions and resources required to achieve them. Strategic Planning offers a systematic process to ask and answer the most critical questions confronting a management team—especially large, irrevocable resource commitment decisions.

A successful Strategic Planning process should:

• Describe the organization’s mission, vision and fundamental values
• Target potential business arenas and explore each market for emerging threats and opportunities
• Understand the current and future priorities of targeted customer segments
• Analyse the company’s strengths and weaknesses relative to competitors and determine which elements of the value chain the company should make vs. buy
• Identify and evaluate alternative strategies
• Develop an advantageous business model that will profitably differentiate the company from its competitors.