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Do it now or do it over – with strategic planning, mission and vision statements come first. Proper building blocks for strategic planning, whether for-profit or non-profit organizations, begins with well crafted mission and vision statements.

“There aren’t short cuts for such important actions,” states Don Midgett, business consultant and author of Mission and Vision Statements: Your Path to a Successful Business Future. “Laying the right foundation provides the accurate guide for strategic and long-range planning as well as day-to-day operations.” In short, do it from the start or do it over later. Some real-world examples of non-profit and for-profit organizations using a vision driven approach to strategic planning are given below.

“I had been through other planning processes and inevitably they would only take you so far” said Tim Logerquist, Association Director for the non-profit Gold Coast Baptist Association in southern California. “As we continued the mission and vision process I was able to align my mission and vision statements with strategies and actions that would yield results. This investment in time and effort up front proved successful to the strategic planning process as we now have initiated strategies with real impact.”

“Visionary businesses excel because they set goals that relate directly to their vision. They communicate the vision and vision-based goals to their customers and employees” continues Midgett. “They come up with strategies and actions to reach their goals and achieve their vision. It is in this way that a for-profit or non-profit organization or business can control its destiny in the marketplace rather than let outside forces determine a business direction.”

An early pioneer in internet consulting, Novo Solutions, Inc. in Virginia Beach, Va. began with the initial mission and vision statements providing affordable, innovative business solutions to small and mid size companies. Now in its sixth year, Novo has begun a process of realignment of its business focus centering on newly revised mission and vision statements which called for changes in their strategic planning.

“Using the model of mission and vision statements as a foundation made it easier to frame our mission, define our market products and understand the benefits of having a visionary, market driven company” said Anne Sych, Novo’s Marketing Manager.

Both time and effort can be used successfully when organizations and businesses see the value in doing “their homework” from the beginning and building on solid plans and actions.

So remember! Don’t do it over – do it now! Create your mission and vision statement today. Begin to lay the solid foundation for your organization’s strategic plan and strategic planning process. To learn more on a vision driven approach to strategic planning, go to http://www.missionvisionstatement.com/.

Before discussing strategic plan management, it is important to understand the basic concept of a strategic business plan. This is a management tool used to decide the values, objectives, goals, and responsibilities of your company. Your strategic plan provides proper direction to your company by ensuring that all the members are working in a unified manner towards a common purpose. Hence, strategic plan management is important for the better utilization of your resources and ensuring you adapt to a changing market place.

What does strategic plan management entail?

The very significance of strategic plan management lies in the word ‘strategic’ itself. You refer to this business plan as strategic because it prepares your organization in advance for facing changing environments and circumstances. This can be achieved only when you are sure about the objectives and resources of your company and know how to combine both for facing your competition.

You start by making plans, setting down goals and time lines to meet these aims. During the implementation of the strategic business plan, your employees share the focus, and through implementing required actions and reviewing the results, assess the effectiveness of strategic plan management. The best approach uses a systematic questionnaire for finding out information about the present and bases future assumptions upon that discovery.

At the end of the business planning stage, some crucial decisions have to be undertaken that will determine the practical steps you need to take. Hence, the entire business plan boils down to these action steps, which are of critical importance. Once the plan is documented and the scheduled actions have been determined, the strategic plan management process really begins. Apart from the basic purpose, what matters most now is the discipline needed for implementing the strategies and a determination to make it happen. Many business plans never see the light of day once the ink is dry. Strategic plan management is the process that follows the planning.

The elements of a strategic business plan

Strategic plan management incorporates three levels of plan making:

1.Organizational: This level determines the organizational purpose, or mission, and the strategies that lead to organizational development.

2.Programmatic: This will involve initiatives for managing, developing and delivering certain programs.

3.Functional: This has to do with satisfying the means to influence the effectiveness, administration and efficiency of your organization.

After you have taken an analysis of the in-house information, you have to turn your focus to the external market data and use these in the development of the strategic business plan. Only this depth of analysis can make the process of strategic plan management effective. The formation of strategies can prove to be rather interesting and easy if you know how to inspire your workers to participate in the whole affair. However, the real results come from the management of the process once the business plan is completed.

Most business owners know they should prepare a strategic plan but seldom follow through because they are too busy working “in” their business or because they don’t know how to prepare a strategic plan. For the new business owner, it’s better to have a simplistic strategic plan rather than no strategic plan at all. This article will teach the new business owner how to prepare a strategic plan in an easy and simple manner using an 8-step method.

If you’re like most beginning business owners you have an idea of what you want to accomplish in your business but it’s not written down. A document that captures your thoughts, vision and objectives on how you want to make money will give you, your current employees, and future employees direction when making business decisions. This type of document is called a strategic plan.

Strategic Plan versus an Action Plan. A strategic plan is usually a short document that talks about your current business, your future business, and 4-7 key strategy statements. These statements are the 4-7 items that you feel are critical to your business success. You are communicating to your employees and reminding yourself that these items are the focus of your Company. An important point to make is that a strategic plan does not go into “how” you plan to accomplish these 4-7 key strategies. A separate document, called an Action Plan, contains the information on “how” you will accomplish what is in your strategic plan. This article explains only the development of a strategic plan.

Three Parts of a Strategic Plan. There are three parts to a strategic plan. Part one includes your business mission, vision and values. Part two looks at your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This is commonly referred to as a SWOT analysis. The third, and last, part is the 4-7 key strategy statements that were mentioned earlier in this article.

For the new business owner, here is an easy, 8-step process to develop a strategic plan.

Mission, Vision, and Value Statement. Step one is to write your Mission Statement. This is a statement of what you want your company remembered for. Answer these three questions: What product or service does your company provide? Who is your customer? Why do they come to you and not your competitor? Your answers can be separate sentences or can be combined to make a single statement.

Step two is to write your Vision Statement or a statement of what your company aspires to be in 5 years or beyond. It usually is a very short statement. Answer these questions: What do you want your company to do that seems impossible right now but will build on your company expertise, strengths, resources or customer bases? Is the vision challenging and vivid? If not, make it so.

Step three is defining your values in a Value Statement. The basis of your company culture is dependent upon the values you include in your strategic plan. Write down words that describe the most important values for your company. Some words to consider: Customer-oriented, helpful, high quality, teamwork, integrity, expertise, or creative.

SWOT Analysis. A SWOT Analysis may be difficult for the new business owner because you may not have enough history to determine your strengths and weaknesses, however, the SWOT Analysis still should be done.

Step four is to define your company strengths. What does your company do very well? This could be related to service, product, employee, management, operations, etc… List 1-5 items. These will be items that you want to capitalize, leverage and / or promote.

Step five is to define your company weaknesses. Where does your company need to do better? List 3-5 items. These are items that you want to improve upon.

Opportunity and threats to your company deal with the environment influences outside of your company and outside of your direct control. You list theses items to be proactive and to determine which items need to be prioritized and used to your advantage or to have plans developed if or when a particular situation arises.

Step six is to list 1-4 opportunities and step seven is to list 1-4 of your company’s external threats. For both steps six and seven, you will need to consider the best or worse case scenarios if, while operating your business, the following changes occur: your business environment changes (political, legal, environmental, social or technical), if the industry that your business is in changes (new competitors, alternative products), the market changes (grows, gets smaller, new markets), or something happens with your competitors (what’s their strategies, strengths, weaknesses?).

Key Strategies. Once you know where you are (Mission), where you want to go (Vision) and what values will guide your company, you need to determine the top 4-7 strategies. These strategics contribute to achieving your company vision.

Step eight is to refer to your Mission and Vision statements and to begin to write down answers to the following questions: 1) How will I achieve my vision looking at where I am at currently (products / services, people, resources, environment, etc…)? And 2) What do I need to be doing today to achieve this vision? Look at your weakness list. Are these things preventing you from growing a stronger, more profitable business? Do they need to be addressed as a strategic statement?

Using Your Strategic Plan. As you gain more information about your business and customers you should refer to and update your strategic plan often. Reviewing your strategic plan may be on a monthly or quarterly basis.

With this easy to follow, 8-step method, you now have a strategic plan that any new business owner can immediately refer to for guidance and decision making criteria.