Where is your business going? You need a plan

Where do you want your business to be in two, three or five years from now? There is an old saying that if you don't know where you are going any road will take you there. Many small businesses operate, day to day without knowing where they are going. Taking time to create a strategic plan is a way for all businesses to decide where they want to go/grow.

Simply put, strategic planning determines where an organization is going over the next year or more, how it's going to get there and how it'll know if it got there or not. The focus of a strategic plan is usually on the entire organization. In short, a strategic plan is a business's roadmap for its future.

Strategic planning is a way of understanding the fundamental drivers of a business and rigorously (and playfully) challenging conventional thinking about them, in conversation with others. Good strategic planning uncovers potential opportunities for creating value and challenges assumptions about a company's value proposition, so that as the plan is created, it targets these opportunities.

The strategic planning process includes considerations in: your products and offerings; your workforce competencies and skills; your environment and industry; and your customers and markets; and your suppliers and competitors. You will need to include some of your key employees in the process.

Although this process sounds similar to the business planning you already do, there are several differences. First is the time frame, most business plans concentrate on a relatively short time, usually one year or less, while strategic plans are normally two to five years. Most business plans are focused on the company's current product lines and customers, while the purpose of strategic planning is looking for new opportunities and underserved markets. The strategic plan says you want to visit a foreign city in two years; the business plans over the next two years present the details of how you will get there.

As planning for any trip, business or personal, developing a strategic plan takes time and resources. Many business owners say they just don't have time to devote to such activities and therefore it leaves them in the situation without a clear destination for their business's "trip." Working with SCORE mentor(s) can add valuable time and resources to developing the destination and the strategic plan to get there.

John Moran is the founder and president of Global Gateways, Inc. a learning facilitation company, and a SCORE mentor who works with existing businesses in Northern Nevada. Contact him at a john_moran@global-gateways.com.