Where is your company headed? And how are you going to get there?

Do you know where your company is

going? What will your business be like in

three years? Will you be a few steps closer

to realizing your vision?

No one can predict

the future. But if

you don't change

anything, will the

future be any different

than the past?

Probably not. But one sure-fire way to

impact your company's future (and profitability)

is to dust off an old tool the

Strategic Plan.

A company's strategic plan is the "game

plan" management has for positioning the

company in its chosen market arena, competing

successfully, satisfying customers,

and achieving good business performance.

Most business owners and executives have

a myriad of excuses for not having a formal

strategic plan. I've heard everything from

"We're too new," "We're not big enough,"

to "We've never had one, why start now?"

If these excuses sound familiar, here are a

few interesting facts: Studies indicate that

50 percent of new businesses fail within the

first 18 months due to a lack of direction

and roughly 90 percent of all businesses

lack a strategic plan.

If you are part of the 90 percent, ask

yourself: Could your company be more

focused? Could you be more effective?

Could your employees be more efficient?

And most of all, could your company be

more successful? Most of us would probably

answer "yes" to all of the above. Here's

how each part of a strategic plan will

change how you answer these questions.

Vision: It brings focus

You get what you focus on. Everyone

knows this, but most companies are busy

tending daily urgent problems, and not

focusing on long-term important aspects.

Unless your staff can focus on a common

vision, the company will go nowhere. A

strategic plan helps direct energy and

guide staff toward a shared goal in an

ever-changing world. Orit Gadiesh,

chairman, Bain & Co., sums up the

importance of focus: "In the current environment,

companies can't afford not to

have a set of guiding principles a

vision that communicates 'true north' to

the entire organization."

Mission, goals and objectives:

They empower employees

Vision is useless unless it can be channeled

in a way to empower your employees.

The mission statement, goals and

objectives are the road map in a strategic

plan to do this. A long way from being

just a paragraph on the wall and bullet

points in a memo, these are the primary

guidelines for leading the organization to

higher levels of performance. They provide

the framework for independent decisions

and actions initiated by departments,

managers, and employees into a

coordinated, company-wide game plan.

Strategy: It saves time and energy

Once the mission, goals and objectives are

clear you can establish how you are going

to achieve them. A strategy provides the

vehicle and answers the question "How are

we going to get there with the available

resources?" Strategy focuses on how to

achieve performance targets, how to outperform

your competition, how to achieve

sustainable competitive advantage, how to

grow, how to satisfy customers, and how to

respond to changing market conditions.

Basically, strategies keep your whole company

acting together while strengthening

the company's long-term competitive position

in the marketplace.

Execution and evaluation:

It ensures success

All the best missions and strategies in the

world are a waste of time if they are not

implemented. To be truly successful, the

plan cannot gather dust on the bookshelf.

Know what your end result looks like and

where your milestones should be. Plan

your near-term actions and evaluate every

quarter. Are you where you thought you'd

be if you had been on target? Or, if you're

off target, by how much? The course correction

to put you back on track becomes

your next action plan.

If done correctly, a strategic plan is a

living, dynamic document. Strategic planning

becomes a process that is ongoing

and never-ending, changing as the market

and your environment changes. A strategic

plan drives your business and must be

integrated into every fiber of an organization,

so every employee is helping to

move the company in the same direction.

When your company has a clear plan

and takes appropriate action, you get

"traction" to take you from where you are,

to where you want to go!

Erica Olsen (erica@m3planning.com) is a

business development and a strategic planning

consultant. She writes a monthly column

for Northern Nevada Business Weekly.