Strategic Planning

This seminar is built to bring together the most effective, field-tested strategic planning methods with fresh thinking from across the current landscape of strategic management. You will broaden your perspective on the planning process through breakout sessions, practical exercises, and real case applications. Bring your own strategic challenges to the program and receive guidance on analytical and organizational frameworks you can apply right away.

Who Should Attend:

Executives, division leaders, and senior managers involved in the development and implementation of organizational strategy.

How You Will Benefit:

• Identify the strategic planning questions that must be answered to build a sustainable competitive advantage
• Apply analytical and conceptual frameworks that expand your understanding of your market and competitive environment
• Align your organization around strategic goals by integrating strategy, objectives, metrics, and performance
• Spot evolving strategic patterns and develop ideas for applying them in your organization
• Build customer needs into the core of your strategic planning process
• Use a case study to examine and test the strategic planning process in practice
• Understand how the actions of customers, competitors, and your own organization shape the outcomes in your markets
• Determine the best approach for implementing your strategic plan with organizational commitment behind it

What You Will Cover:

• Identifying the questions and analyses that every strategic plan must address
• Organizing a structured and repeatable strategic planning process
• Developing a mission, vision, and unique value statement for your business unit
• Assessing both the external and internal environment thoroughly
• Determining your performance profile and conducting a rigorous competitor assessment
• Conducting a VRIO analysis to identify sustainable competitive advantages
• Applying an internal assessment diagnostic to your organization
• Making strategic decisions using a SWOT analysis framework
• Understanding the value of scenario planning for navigating uncertainty
• Building your strategic action plan and crafting a compelling executive summary
• Communicating and executing your strategic plan across the organization
• Generating commitment throughout the execution process
• Translating strategic imperatives into measurable goals and specific actions
• Aligning the entire organization around a clear and shared strategic purpose

Course Outline:

Learning Objectives

• Describe the strategic planning process and its key components
• Use strategic planning tools and analytical frameworks to gather and interpret relevant data
• Begin building a strategic action plan for your area of responsibility

Strategic Planning Overview

• Define key strategic planning terms
• Identify the questions that strategic planning must answer
• Describe how these questions can be organized into a structured planning process
• Explain how your unit's planning connects to broader organizational planning

The Strategic Pillars

• Differentiate between mission and vision
• Examine core values and their role in guiding strategy
• Articulate the unique value your unit delivers
• Develop mission and vision statements for your unit

Assessing the External Environment

• Distinguish between macro and market-level environments
• Identify macro and market trends shaping the competitive landscape
• Describe how these trends will affect your organization and customers

Assessing the Internal Environment

• Explain the components of a thorough internal assessment
• Understand the concept of core competencies and why they matter
• Recognize the role of organizational culture in internal assessment
• Apply an internal assessment diagnostic to your organization

Making Strategic Decisions

• Understand the roles of data synthesis, insight, and creative judgment in strategy
• Conduct a SWOT analysis and use it to select your strategic priorities
• Determine your strategic imperatives and performance measures

Building Your Strategic Action Plan

• Identify the essential elements of a strong strategic action plan
• Begin developing your own strategic action plan
• Craft a clear and persuasive executive summary

Communicating and Executing Your Plan

• Understand the execution gaps you will face and how to bridge them
• Build commitment through consistent, multi-channel communication throughout execution
• Align the organization around a single strategic purpose
• Set individual and team goals that are directly linked to the strategic action plan
• Ensure recognition and rewards are connected to strategic progress