Strategic Thinking and Business Planning
Businesses are formed with specific, well established goals in mind. Business planning is an organized way for a firm to achieve short-term and long-term goals--determined through strategic thinking. Strategic thinking is the “how to” of getting things accomplished to realize goals. Strategy allows managers and other key personnel to plan business activities effectively, which translates into the realization of long-term goals.
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Basics of Strategy
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According to William J. Rothwell, Patrick E. Gerity and Elaine A. Gaertner in their book “Linking Training to Performance,” strategy is defined as a planned, systematic course of action that aligns an organization with its environment in such a way that can positively impact its future.
Strategic Thinking
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Strategic thinking involves fact and data collection, synthesis, creativity, intuition and seeing relationships and patterns in objects, structures and people in an organization's internal and external environment. It focuses on the long-term rather than the short-term. Strategic thinking involves utilizing resources at hand and deriving maximum potential from them. It is both a creative and an analytical process, allowing an organization to capture, assimilate and analyze data and input that information into creating or reinventing an organization's vision/goals.
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Business Planning
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A business plan, according to Peter McCann in his book “Strategy and Business Planning of Privately Held Companies,” sets out marketing, administrative and operations tasks. Business plan activities are short-term and specify a firm's activities for its first three or five years of operations. Business planning includes functional plans (finance and administration, people management, human resources and purchasing) for various departments of an organization.
Strategic Thinking and Business Planning : The Link
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Strategic thinking determines the business plan. Strategic thinking takes a broader view of the business, its roles and expectations, environmental impact and long-term vision. A business plan is narrower in scope and defines day-to-day operations that allow the organization to function. Strategic thinking is long-term and involves the president while business planning is short-term and involves the president along with senior management.
Strategic Business Planning
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Strategic business planning involves key personnel who decide among themselves what the organization aims to achieve and how it proposes to do so. According to the book “Linking Training to Performance,” successful strategic business planning must aim to address and clarify five points: the organization's mission, its vision, key environmental issues, organizational strategy, and the various monitoring and evaluating tools and techniques proposed to ensure that the organization's progress is monitored.
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References
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