With a solid strategic plan, companies can be proactive rather than merely reacting to situations as they arise. Being proactive enables organizations to keep up with the ever-changing trends in the business and always stay one step ahead of the competition.

1. Shimon Yelinek
Most Important Benefits of
Strategic Planning

2. A strategic plan is a charted course for managers and
employees to get an organization to where its
stakeholders would like it to be usually in 3 to 5 years.
According to Shimon Yelinek, during the strategic
planning process, an organization builds its strategic
directions and objectives and specifies the means to
achieving these objectives including resource allocation
(money, people, and effort), interim goals, and how to
measure progress toward achieving these goals
What's a strategic plan?

3. Strategic planning has a number of benefits to
companies. These benefits are essentially operations-
related and people-related and come from simply having
a plan and working together to build and achieve
common goals. I have attempted to organize the series
in some meaningful way, beginning with the broad
benefits, then moving into specific operational benefits,
and ending with people benefits.
Operations and people-related
benefits:

4. However, this is not meant to suggest that one benefit is
more important than the other. They are equally
advantageous and integral to organizational growth and
success. Moreover, the interests are not discrete, they
are correlated - benefits in one area, normally mean a
cascade of benefits in many areas.

5. The essential operations-related benefit of strategic
planning is being able to more efficiently control and
manage organizational change. In general, having a
solid plan for future benefits to ensure that an
organization is prepared as best as possible to make
positive internal changes or achieve important goals.
Effective Control Over Change

6. Elements of the strategic planning process are devoted
to scanning the current external and internal trends in
order to be able to make reasonable predictions about
the future. This analysis and others allow companies to
construct a path to remediating identified problems and
to actively manage changes rather than having changes
and events befall them.

7. Strategic planning helps companies identify their
priorities and their major concerns in order to develop a
sound method for addressing them. The early stages of a
good strategic plan must include establishing or
reviewing the organization's mission and values and
defining the organizational culture.
Planned internal cultural change

8. This gives a meaningful foundation for planning for the
future. It reminds everyone of what is really important -
what the organization is there to do and how it is
supposed to do it. Once the priorities are organized, the
Strategic Planning Committee can evaluate whether the
organization meets these priorities or whether changes
need to be made to meet them.

9. Are you actually delivering the best product in the
quickest time? Are there children who are falling
through the cracks because your intake process is
inadequate? Is the morale of your workers affecting
productivity? Do they need to collaborate as your Core
Values state, or does that just sound like a good
contemporary value you should have? Do they actually
collaborate? Why?

10. Recognizing the core issues helps leaders develop a plan
to start fulfilling priorities or continue to fulfill them.
Thus, an organization can conduct controlled internal
change to bring the actual culture of the organization in
line with the ideal culture. Importantly, a thoughtful
analysis helps organizations understand that changes or
problems in one area are likely not confined to that area
- changes made to one area of the company will spill
over into areas, positively or negatively.

11. When creating a strategic plan, then, an organization
determines whether it needs to change internally, plans
how to do so, and predicts how changes in one area will
affect other areas of organizational life. It is more
efficient and effective to control the changes within your
industry rather than allow them to occur naturally.
Things do not get better on their own or with quick-fix
schemes.

12. Shimon Yelinek says that another part of building a
strategic plan is to scan the external environment
(social, political, economic, environmental, and
technological), define the current context, and explain
its relevance to your industry.
Predicted and unpredicted
external change

13. Look at the trends in these areas, do your research, and
try to explain the possible changes that could happen in
these areas a couple of years down the road. Your goals
and strategies must be based in part on the broader
context within which the organization exists. This keeps
you grounded in reality and protects you to some extent
from being blindsided by developments that may be in
the wind.

14. But nothing is for sure. A careful external environment
analysis provides much context, but there can be no
guarantees about what is going to happen around you.
However, having a plan means your organization has a
touch-point when unpredicted and uncontrollable
changes do occur in the environment.

15. Having a strategic plan indicates that everyone
understands what is really essential under normal
circumstances or when slow-burning emergencies or
sudden disasters occur. Not only does it help people
focus, but it also provides comfort and keeps people-
centered. A strategic plan provides a starting point that
helps leaders understand whether they need to deviate
from the current direction temporarily or long-term, and
slightly or extremely in light of the unpredicted
developments.

16. A strategic plan lays out the desired road ahead but is
also a mainstay if adaptation needs to occur. This cannot
be stressed enough. Planning is critical for controlled
organizational growth and development and effectively
dealing with emergencies. Dealing with an emergency
without a strategic plan always means starting from
ground zero.

17. Strategic plans help not-for-profit corporations. In a
downward economic trend, a charity group constructing
a strategic plan may determine that not only could their
funding be cut because the money just isn't there, but
because it serves a workforce-aged population there
could be reduced service demands if these people need
to leave the area for opportunities elsewhere.
Examples:

18. This may suggest a need to downsize. Downsizing is a
complex and delicate organizational change in itself, but
the need for a foundation to become smaller may reduce
their funding even more and lead to concerns about
service quality and the ability to continue to deliver all
services. Strategic planning can help this charity
prioritize and gain the needed perspective to focus on
critical issues.

19. Strategic planning can also help a for-profit industry
that wishes to expand its product line. Strategic planning
will help this company determine where it wants to go
and whether the new directions fit into their current
brand (or image), and if not, whether they need to
rebrand themselves.

20. Strategic planning will help this organization understand
the critical factors that must change to accommodate the
new product line and the ramifications this will have on
current operations and practices. A strategic plan will
help this organization articulate and actualize their
vision.

21. Whatever the results of the study in whatever type of
organization, strategic planning is proactive rather than
reactive. It is strategic, not tactical. It is a long-term
solution rather than a short-term band-aid. It is planned
and controlled evolutions, not impulsive or hasty
modifications. Strategic planning means effective
change management. Period.
Planned and controlled
evolution