Strategic Planning is defined in the dictionary as “the planning of all the activities of a business to ensure competitive advantage and profitability” and is a great tool to utilize when charting the success of your business.

1) Define your competitive edge and translate that into your mission or vision statement. What does your company do better than anyone else? Focus on your unique abilities, products or services when defining the overall big picture for the company and how they will best meet the needs of your customers. Complete a mission or vision statement that answers the question “What is my business and what can I do best for my customers?”

2) Define your future direction. Ask yourself “What will my business look like 5 years from now?” Visualize the products, customer needs, market opportunities, etc. to determine the direction you want your company to go.

3) Prepare a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) Analysis. This is a useful tool to match your Strengths with your Opportunities to maximize success. By identifying your Weaknesses and Threats you are better able to implement planning that will minimize failure. Don’t forget to consider markets, sales trends, competitors, suppliers and what is happening in the world when you are performing your analysis.

4) Utilize your SWOT analysis to write goals and objectives that will take you from your current status to your future direction. First determine up to 5 realistic objectives that will get take you on the path to your future direction, then develop goals to support each objective. Use the SMART acronym to succeed in setting achievable goals:

(a) Specific-Be specific and clear

(b) Measurable-Make them measurable and quantifiable

(c) Achievable-They need to be achievable

(d) Realistic-They must be realistic

(e) Time-There must be an adequate time frame for achieving

5) Define the processes needed to achieve your goals and then prioritize them. Assess your resources and determine how to best utilize for achieving the objectives and goals you have established. Communicate with your employees, set deadlines and track results.

6) Set up a dashboard for KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that measure the objectives and goals and continually communicate the progress to management. Setting deadlines and tracking results are essential to guiding the company to achieve the goals that will deliver the defined mission statement. The Intuit Sage Solution has customizable features for your unique business needs. You can’t achieve what you can’t measure. An experienced CFO is invaluable to making this happen.

7) Refine the strategic plan. Continually assess the future direction to make sure you are on track. As the company changes and grows, your plan must also be changed to adapt to new technology, product discovery, economic drivers, business funding needs, customer needs, etc.

While following these guidelines will help you in developing, measuring and defining your strategic plan, the most important piece of a successful business puzzle is the leadership. An effective leader devoted to successful implementation of a strategic plan will communicate the plan and the progress in achieving the plan to everyone in the organization and will take actions needed to adapt to changes.

An experienced CFO (Chief Financial Officer) will take the strategic plan and develop the needed KPI’s to measure success. If you haven’t got the business resources to have a full time CFO, consider engaging the services of a Part Time CFO or Entrepreneurial CFO. You may even consider a Virtual CFO to suit your business needs. No matter if they are locating business funding sources, determining future cash flows, or interpreting financial results, a CFO contributes greatly to the success of a business enterprise.