Strategic Planning vs Strategic Intent Thinking Conventional

Strategic planning VS strategic intent thinking

Conventional strategic planning refers to guides created by an Organization or a business to map out how it will reach its goals and setting the foundation to the entire organization to know what is expected of them. This provides the organization with the clear view on how to achieve a stated vision for the chosen potential market target and how a company can attend and serve its customers consistently effectively so as to get profits all the time and not losses.

Eton Lawrence (1999) describes Strategic intent thinking as the purpose the organization is striving for or the intent goals of the company which helps in long-term planning of how to distribute work effectively among its members so as to achieve their goals.

Strategic intent thinking provides focus on members of an organization on how to divide their energy among themselves as they focus on their attention, to resist destruction and to concentrate as long as it takes so as to achieve their goals.

Strategic thinking and strategic planning are interrelated and complementary since they are both necessary in a strategic management process because each on its own is necessary but not sufficient. For one to succeed, he must use both strategic thinking and strategic planning.

Chaudron (2008) says that concepts of Conventional Strategic planning includes;

Vision- This shows the clear picture of how the organization will look like and how I will operate in future. It also shows the products the company will produce, major markets to be served, there competitors and the company's corporate structure.

Mission-This is a precise statement that shows what business the company is dealing with, which markets are to be served and how the company provides value to its customers

The statement of value shows the precise statement about the company's belief and their guiding principles which includes integrity, product quality customer relationship, employee performance, accountability and financial management. Statement of value guides the behavior of people in an organization.

Gogo Erokosima (2011) says that the strengths and weaknesses of an organization should also be included in a strategic plan. One way of determining such strengths and weaknesses is by conducting the SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

Goals and objectives- The company should indicate its goals and both long-term and short-term objectives in the strategic plan to show what they want to achieve and what they are working towards both in near future and in many years to come .The goals and objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound.

Concepts of strategic intent thinking

System perspective- One should have a mental model of the complete system of what he/she wants to deal with from the beginning to the end and make sure that he understands the whole chain without leaving anything out.

Intent focus- This refers to the long-term objectives of an organization for example long-term market and competitive positions that a firm wants to build in the long run.

Intelligent Opportunism-This is an idea of openness to the new experiences in the environment which allows one to take advantage of other opportunities which are alternate to the ones available that may merge as more relevant to a rapid changing business environment.

Thinking in time-One should be able to hold the past, present and future in mind at the same time for him/her to make a better decision and be able to implement it faster since he has ideas of happened in the past, what is happening now and what may happen in the future .The past always predicts about the future for example if the past was bad compared to the present, what can you do to secure the future?

Hypothesis driven- One should ensure that both creative and critical thinking are incorporated in his/her strategy making. One should be able to open up to the emerging opportunities.

Conventional strategic planning can lead to a better strategy practice since it plugs people in the system by providing them with the standards of accountability and also helps them in allocation and effective utilization of both human and financial resources hence increasing their profits and avoid wastage of resources ( IOWA State University, 2011).

Conventional strategic planning also provides opportunities to influence the future since when planning the future is looked into and also planned for so that they can achieve their future goals. Measures are put in place to ensure that the company achieves its goal.

Conventional strategic planning can also lead to a better strategy since it helps to define the overall mission of the organization and focuses on the objectives too. It describes the customers, what to be served to them how they are supposed to be served and what the company wants to achieve.