Strategic Planning

Strategic planning is delineated as an organization's practice of outlining its strategy or direction to be undertaken and making decisions on apportioning its resources to carry out the strategy. Strategic planning is largely beneficial to the organization in that it outlines the short-term benefits sought after and where the company seeks to get to. The strategic planning cycle exemplified in a sequence of formal planning procedures, makes certain that managers evaluate key strategic issues being faced by the organization. This is imperative to get through the common preoccupation with operational problems in the short run. In addition, it offers a sensible structure to help managers to deal with their strategic problems in a systematic manner, and also make certain that no key problems are left unaddressed (David and David, 2016).

The strategic planning cycle involves four steps. The first phase of the strategic planning cycle encompasses initiating and formulating the plan itself. This deciphers the organizational mission and vision with regard to the general goals and objectives of the business. This institutes the aims, context, suppositions, risks, and environmental features from which all other planning will be undertaken. The main advantage of the strategic planning with respect to this phase is that it examines comprehensive approaches and objectives adequate to offer sufficient guiding principles to employees in lower positions that will set out underlying plans, ventures, and schemes. In overall, it delineates what ought to be done and what ought not to be done (National Child Welfare Resource Center, 2016).

The second phase of the strategic planning process encompasses developing the plan. For an organization to develop its strategic plan, it has to set out priorities by taking into consideration the necessities, strong suits, and resources of the organization. The benefit of this particular phase is that there are key elements that are taken into account. This includes what the organization wishes to accomplish, what it will undertake and carry out to get there and how the organization can ascertain if it is making progress to achievement. In this second phase, the organization sets the framework of its ultimate destination, the routes undertaken to get there and whether it is taking the right routes along the way (National Child Welfare Resource Center, 2016).

The third phase of the strategic planning cycle is implementation. Evaluations between actual outcomes and plans are prized to test the quality of suppositions and the plans. This stage of the cycle encompasses communicating the strategic plan, managing the execution of the plan, supervising the actual undertaking and finally monitoring and reporting any kind of progress being made on the plan set out initially. In this phase, all the ideas that had been put into place are implemented in accordance to the precise decisions that were initially made (National Child Welfare Resource Center, 2016). In addition, in this phase, the organizational performance is monitored on a regular basis and any risks that hinder attaining organizational objectives are highlighted and pointed out. Counteractive measures are set in place in order to ascertain that the objectives being carried out are aligned with the initially set targets.

The last phase of the strategic planning cycle is the reviewing phase. This phase commences the cycle all over again, permitting the strategic plan to be incessantly updated. The main benefit of this particular phase is that it keeps the plan current and also significant to the business. The organization should undertake appraisals of its performance by collecting and evaluating information. Thereafter, it should convene the planning group to assess performance and reevaluate objectives, results, strategies and actions steps, and to make recommendations for alterations. From then on, the organization revises the plan. The revision includes putting into place the counteractive measures to remove the risks that can hinder the organization from attaining its set targets on the objectives. In particular, the magnitude to which the strategic plan is transformed and updated, it will continue to be up to date, pertinent and significant to the organization (National Child Welfare Resource Center, 2016).

Strategic planning not only benefits the business in the short run, but also in the long run. One of the longstanding benefits of strategic planning for an organization encompasses spreading costs or expenses. Long-term strategic planning allows an organization to budget over a lengthier time period for new ingenuities and initiatives. Attempting to finance a new product line or unit with cash may not be conceivable. On the other hand, utilizing a financial loan to form something new augments the organization's costs by increasing interest. Therefore, budgeting a percentage of the business' revenues or profits over a time period of several years enables the organization to fittingly finance new initiatives devoid of dwindling its prevailing operations or financial position (Ashe-Edmunds, 2016).

Another benefit for strategic planning in the long run is that it facilitates test marketing. In particular, a long-term strategy allows the business to instigate and put into place changes in stages and in lesser, more controllable sections. For instance, if the price of a product is changed or an item is added to the product line, a business is able to do so in minimal geographical expanses to measure the results. This curtails the organization's losses in the event that the initiative does not work, or facilitates the organization to make a change to its strategy prior to committing all its funds (Ashe-Edmunds, 2016).

Strategic planning also has the long-term benefit of less risk. Charting out and executing a new direction for the organization devoid of the time to test and adjust the conceptions necessitates the business to gamble on an initiative (Ashe-Edmunds, 2016). Being committed and compelled to a short standing schedule for a product launch or change in operations might not facilitate the organization to make alterations on the basis of the outcomes received or taking place. Therefore, by having long-term strategic plans, the organization is able to follow and track outcomes and make any essential adjustments (Ashe-Edmunds, 2016). Eventually, the business faces less risk through charting out long-term strategies.

There are distinctive barriers that organizations need to be wary of when executing the foundations of strategic planning as they can lead to its failure.

1. Lack of Accountability

Strategic planning cannot be efficaciously executed devoid of assessing progress of plans in a regular manner. Strategic plans cannot be successful without suitable monitoring system. The lack of regular assessment of strategic plans leads to failure to correct errors and thereby rendering the plans irrelevant to the business (Latif et al., 2013).

2. Lack of Commitment

The lack of commitment from managers in the course of the planning process is a key and underlying basis for all the hurdles in effective strategic planning. When management is not dedicated to the formulation and execution of strategic plans, all other obstacles come about.

3. Insufficient Instructions to Staff

Managers commonly fail to sufficiently expect the necessitated training and instructions for the employees so as to equip their personnel with the skills and competencies necessitated for the execution of strategic plans. This leads to a mismatch between the expected time period for implementation and the actual time taken (Latif et al., 2013).

4. Power and Influence

Any strategic plans formulated that could lead to a change within the organization, ultimately interrupting their power and influence is largely opposed. Individuals are generally comfortable with the status quo, and such changes are not openly welcome. In addition, managers might have the feeling that their change in roles might decrease the power and influence they hold and therefore create obstacles in the implementation of strategic plans (Latif et al., 2013).

5. Business Culture

Effective execution of strategic plans calls for a business to change its culture. If the organizational culture does not offer such support, the implementation will be limited solely towards generic strategic plans rather than specific strategic plans necessitated by the organization to deal with challenges (Latif et al., 2013).