Key Components of Corporate Strategies and Strategic Planning

Summary: Ever wondered what goes into developing successful corporate strategies?

What is the single most important thing about creating any type of plan? Having a plan for the plan – right? That is to say, having a backup plan. Contingencies. All the answers for potential what ifs. You need to create a plan using foresight, but you also need to recognize that things don’t always go to plan, and therefore accounting for the need to possibly be flexible on certain aspects of your plan, is shrewd. All successful corporate strategies keep this in mind.

There are so many unforeseeable circumstances that can happen in the business world. Stock market crashes, surprise mergers or acquisitions, a private company announcing its intent to go public, a sudden change in legislations… almost anything can impact the success or failure of business – including social media! Yes. There are a lot of land mines out there that, as a business owner, you must plan for. This is why corporate strategies need to be flexible.

Corporate Strategy Details

Depending on the size of your business or corporation, you could have multiple corporate strategies in place at the same time. You could create them departmentally, as they pertain to a specific industry, or even based on specific time frames. The key components of most corporate strategies are:

• Long-term objectives
• Your vision
• Short term objectives
• Changes you will want to institute
• Solid action plans for real or imagined threats/risks

Creating Stability

Having a solid but flexible corporate strategy will provide security for your employees and businesses. If you anticipate problems and already have measures in place for how to deal with them, should they arise, your businesses will operate with confidence.

The Strategy Itself

If you were going to present your corporate strategy to your employees, you would want it to read concisely but not be all legalese and marketing jargon. Corporate strategies should always be easy to digest and consist of real information that will be used to guide your business moving forward. Your employees are going to want to see things such as:

• Vision Statement
• Mission Statement
• Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) Analysis
• Action Plan(s)
• Goal Setting

Your vision statement is going to help your businesses see your intent and your mission statement is going to help them determine their role and purpose in the grand scheme. SWOT analysis is where you are going to take a long hard look at your corporation and identify existing and potential problems. It will be honest. However, you will also point out where your business is strongest and where you are poised to capitalize.

The SWOT is perhaps one of the most significant aspects of corporate strategies as it really pinpoints the reality of the business. After this you will need real action plans in place to address your SWOT. You may have to create multiple action plans for each SWOT issue, for each business in your corporation. This is where a management consulting firm could be a key asset.

Finally, you will need to tackle your goals and intentions for the future – near or far. Long and short-term objectives help make the broader mission statement seem more attainable. You may set a lofty ultimate goal, but you will need smaller goal posts along the way to help keep up morale and motivation . Setting short term goals also helps you keep an eye on progress with measureable results, which is helpful for everyone.

Corporate strategies can be as complex or as simple as you want them to be, but the better the corporate strategy plan, often the more successful it is. Have expectations. Communicate them. Execute them. Success will follow.