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Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy, including its capital and people. Various business analysis techniques can be used in strategic planning, including SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats ) and PEST analysis (Political, Economic, Social, and Technological analysis) or STEER analysis (Socio-cultural, Technological, Economic, Ecological, and Regulatory factors) and EPISTEL (Environment, Political, Informatic, Social, Technological, Economic and Legal).

Strategic planning is the formal consideration of an organization’s future course. All strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions:

1. “What do we do?”
2. “For whom do we do it?”
3. “How do we excel?”

In business strategic planning, the third question is better phrased “How can we beat or avoid competition?”. (Bradford and Duncan, page 1).

In many organizations, this is viewed as a process for determining where an organization is going over the next year or more -typically 3 to 5 years, although some extend their vision to 20 years.

In order to determine where it is going, the organization needs to know exactly where it stands, then determine where it wants to go and how it will get there. The resulting document is called the “strategic plan.”

It is also true that strategic planning may be a tool for effectively plotting the direction of a company; however, strategic planning itself cannot foretell exactly how the market will evolve and what issues will surface in the coming days in order to plan your organizational strategy. Therefore, strategic innovation and tinkering with the ’strategic plan’ have to be a cornerstone strategy for an organization to survive the turbulent business climate.

There are many approaches to strategic planning but typically a three-step process may be used:

• Situation – evaluate the current situation and how it came about.
• Target – define goals and/or objectives (sometimes called ideal state)
• Path – map a possible route to the goals/objectives

One alternative approach is called Draw-See-Think

• Draw – what is the ideal image or the desired end state?
• See – what is today’s situation? What is the gap from ideal and why?
• Think – what specific actions must be taken to close the gap between today’s situation and the ideal state?
• Plan – what resources are required to execute the activities?

An alternative to the Draw-See-Think approach is called See-Think-Draw

• See – what is today’s situation?
• Think – define goals/objectives
• Draw – map a route to achieving the goals/objectives

In other terms strategic planning can be as follows:

• Vision – Define the vision and set a mission statement with hierarchy of goals and objectives
• SWOT – Analysis conducted according to the desired goals
• Formulate – Formulate actions and processes to be taken to attain these goals
• Implement – Implementation of the agreed upon processes
• Control – Monitor and get feedback from implemented processes to fully control the operation

Best of luck with your efforts to turn vision into ideas that will be consolidated into your organisations processes to reach the goals set out by your management.

He has a background as civil engineer and geoscientist. He has worked mainly within the oil and gas industry from the mid 1980s. He has written a few fictional novels as well as being the author of some professional litterature within oil and gas sector, he is now an editor of some web sites.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/strategic-planning-what-how-and-when-1301706.html

During an iteration planning meeting, I ask the team, “Can you commit to delivering the features we’ve discussed?”  Notice that the question I ask is not “Can you commit to delivering the tasks we’ve identified?”  That is a very different question and a far weaker commitment because it is a commitment to complete a set of tasks rather than a commitment to deliver new functionality.

If new tasks are discovered during the iteration (and they almost certainly will be), a team that is committed to delivering the new functionality described by a user story will try to complete the new tasks as well.  A team that committed to only an individual list of tasks may not.  In either case, it is possible that the newly discovered tasks will take long enough that they cannot be completed during the iteration.  In that case, the team will need to discuss the situation with the product owner and see if there is still a way to meet the iteration goal; they may need to reduce the functionality of a story or drop one entirely.

I ask a team if they can commit after each user story is split into tasks and the tasks are estimated.  For the first few tasks, the commitment will be easy to gain as the amount of time to complete the tasks is rather small.  But as the meeting progresses and as more user stories are brought into the iteration, the answer to my question, “Can you commit?” begins to require some thought.  Eventually, we reach a point where the team cannot commit any further.  If they cannot, they may choose to drop a story and replace it with a smaller one before finishing.

Christopher loves to write articles on all types of subjects. Feel free to visit his newest website which helps people find their next glider rocker chair or glider and ottoman set.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/ask-for-a-team-commitment-in-software-iteration-planning-1309323.html

There’s not one employee in your business, from the CEO down to the lowest level worker, who intentionally tries to create waste or fail in their assigned work assignments. Everyone wants to do a good job. But it’s just human nature, plain and simple; to strive for and attain success in all endeavors we are tasked with accomplishing. Sadly, many of us unwittingly follow the path of least resistance – even when we’re pushing toward our goals.

There are times when shortcuts start to become standard business practice over time as we attempt to avoid the less desirable jobs, and in doing so, we make mistakes, generate waste and experience risk that, not only depletes the bottom-line, but also hurts productivity, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ultimately the future of your organization is at the very center of your risk factor. Today it is important to identify, quantify and begin to eliminate wasted efforts in your company which will ultimately save dollars; the fuel that puts everything in motion in today’s business setting.

Because we find ourselves in a powerful and destructive global recession; there has never been a better time to get rid of the waste in our organizations as we push toward the financial and emotional fitness of our businesses. Some tough decisions will have to be made; unpleasant decisions that no one wants to make. But in order to truly succeed you need to act on these issues, get a commitment from your management team to plan for action and motivate the team, and make sure that you empower your workforce to get the job done – from the top down.

In order to, at least, stay in the game, one of the first issues you’re going to have to deal with is cash flow. If it is possible, lower the cost of doing business and do it fast. For most companies, the decision is almost made for them; we’ve seen throughout the recession all over the world. Just cut the employee roster. But before you watch valuable employees walk out the door and perhaps into the hands of competitors, you might consider cutting salaries by a percentage before cutting them altogether. You might also want to forego a planned program or two that was on the drawing board; maybe put it on hold for a quarter or two. Or dip into dormant lines of credit. Frequently business owners set up lines of credit they don’t use. The CEO may have it on hand for a “rainy day” and that day has finally arrived. If you get creative you just might find a lot of methods that might help you loosen up the cash flow, at least long enough to get to the next hurdle.

Another step in the process is to become as unique and innovative as possible. Whether you are thinking “inside” or “outside” some imaginary box, your business must generate an excess of interest in your product or service. Normally that means doing something completely different. Find better ways to use the technology that exists in your company to make more profit. Being innovative will require you and your staff to try things that a year ago would have sounded bizarre. The management team must be prepared to offer unusual suggestions; but maybe even more difficult, they must also be prepared to carry out those same outlandish suggestions. It’s always the thing you never considered that will be the original idea to ultimately guide the company out of its doldrums.

There are a numerous “tried and true” methods of doing business that can be used and will help you survive even in the toughest of times. Then, when things start to pick up, you will have a business that is ready to make more profit than it ever did before.

www.whoisJamesDicks.com -For more than a decade, James Dicks has been one of the nation’s leading educators on the subject of Real Estate, Stocks, Options, the Foreign Exchange Market and empowering investors to handle their own investments.

James is living his dream by helping investors and businesses overcome the hurdles of reaching their financial goals. Millions of people have heard James’ message of diversification, money management and financial freedom and thousands have attended one of his many free workshops. Increasing investment knowledge is James’ goal and he strives to reach this goal by using a common sense approach that investors of all types can utilize on their road to financial freedom.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/making-your-business-fiscally-fit-in-tough-times-1283268.html

photo credit: Photo Mojo

Do you own a growing business that needs financing? If you are like most business owners, whenever your business needs money you head over to the bank. Unfortunately, as most small business owners soon find out, most banks do not lend money to businesses unless they have significant collateral and a history of successful operations. This presents quite a challenge for business owners.

When banks are not an option, small business owners turn to what is known as the alternative financing funding market. Although the financing options discussed in this article fall under the alternative financing category, they are actually quite widely used and should be considered mainstream. Most major companies (including public companies) have used this alternative financing at one time or another during their growth history.

Most of the tools described in this article can only be used by businesses that are already in operation, and whose main requirement is working capital. Although startups can benefit from these tools, the companies will need to be in operation for a little while and have a growing list of clients.

General Invoice Factoring

Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: gurms

What are you going to use for money to keep your business operating when your bank says “NO” to your loan request? You say “Oh my bank won’t say NO to me. I have been a customer of theirs for twenty years”.

Ask thousands of small and medium sized businesses people that said the same thing. One day they left their bank stunned from what their banker said, “NO” to their loan request. They no longer had a line of credit, purchase order loan or any bank financial assistance that had once provided the funds to keep their businesses operating.

Do you think the recent decisions of Congress are going to fix this problem for you? I don’t think so, certainly not in time to save your cash starved business. Those recent financial decisions by Congress are to bail out some of the world’s largest financial institution to hopefully save America’s entire economic system. Until that is fixed, money for the small business owner is likely to dry up completely. Read the rest of this entry »

Email lists are a vital part of today’s diversifying e-commerce world. It has been proven to deliver incredible results for both small time and top notch companies in line with products/services promotion. If you haven’t invested on email list building, then you better venture on it now before it’s too late!

Opt-in email lists are not as complicated as most people think. It is as simple as enticing your casual online site visitor to becoming your company’s avid fan. For a more technical definition, it is the system of building a direct relationship with clients via email messaging.

It lies on a thin borderline almost similar to spamming; only it is permission based. Opt-in emails are requested by its recipients through sign ups and subscriptions to a website publication. If you have noticed, some sites offering their newsletters after each registration form. This is one of the email list building strategies.

The advantage of using it is countless not to mention the access to your clients’ personal emails allowing you to send multiple ads and updates to them. The best part is, there is a high probability of sales to these individuals since they have initiatively asked for the information.

It’s called opt-in for an obvious reason. All registrants have an option whether or not they would want to receive updates from your site. That’s the beauty of it. No one can accuse you of spamming if your client preferred to receive your mails. Even if you flood their inboxes, and sometimes these mails are categorized as spam, you’re protected by the subscription agreement. Your IP address will not be blacklisted.

However, there are some sites that instantly include subscription agreement in their terms and condition statement. This could be compared to an all or nothing game bet. If the users don’t agree to your proposition, special privileges are held back to them. You can hinder them from community and forums, disable access to exclusive reports or have the latest info about your industry.

Although that doesn’t sound quite optional, you are still shielded by the fact that they signed up for you knowing the probable consequences.

How to make your opt-in subscription noticeable

The most popular form of opt-in subscription is the opt-in box. These are the tick boxes found after each registration. Although it’s not as effective as pop ups or alert boxes, placing your subscription forms after the registration can brief clients on what they’re getting in case they’re interested.

Placement of opt-in boxes to your homepage should be strategically based. Since these tiny squares are often unseen regardless of the text beside it, it doesn’t instantly attract the eye of the viewer.
This is the reason why some sites integrated cookies utilizing pop up boxes. However, this should appear on the first time the visitor lands on your page.

Alert boxes work same way as pop ups but this appears on the home page itself. It comes out instantly displaying a short description of your publication in exchange for the viewer’s name and email address.

To make it more tempting, offer incentives. Do you sometimes wonder why some sites give so many free e-books and software? They use that to further excite their visitors in subscribing. Use the alert/pop-up boxes to broadcast your incentives and right at the bottom is your opt-in tick box and a two-liner form requesting for name and email address.

The secret to email marketing is having a massive list. Just remember that it is critical thinking and creativity that runs this industry.

Find more strategies on making easy money online on this website. There is very valuable information available that will assist you to achieve your goal in the internet marketing arena.

In case you are looking for freebies as a hook to capture more subscribers please find some quality e-books for a steal, that you could give away for a sign up. Those e-books are not only excellent to give away, but they also contain valuable information on how to build your internet business.

Stephan Weigandt is a business owner, entrepreneur and loves the Internet Marketing. His expertise is in Data Mining, creating analytical Datamarts, as well as Internet marketing, SEO optimizing and traffic generation.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/making-easy-money-online-through-optin-email-list-building-strategic-location-for-optin-boxes-1306040.html

“Inch by inch, row by row…that’s the way my garden grows” was a favorite saying of my grandmother’s — usually when she was trying to teach me something about patience!

While I never mastered the art of having patience, I have learned how that saying can apply to creating a successful business.

If you’ve got big dreams for starting or growing your own business, but you lack the start-up capital, technical assistance or training that you need to succeed, then start by thinking…small. In fact, think smaller than small! Think micro — as in “microenterprise development programs”.

What is a microenterprise development program? Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve just had the most wonderful conversation with a very experienced Sales Consultant from Sydney. Her name is Karen. She helps businesses make the sales process easier and more fun! She usually charges a very expensive fee to consult to businesses, however, in this interview she revealed some of her best secrets, such as:

• How to find the best mentors and use them to help make you successful in sales
• How to Cold Call and What to Say if you get rejected
• How often to keep calling your customers
• How to “earn the right” to do business with companies
• Different sales strategies for different types of products
• A simple way to entice interest in your product when cold calling
• Exactly how to setup strategic alliances and referrals (you can make huge sales if you get this one right)
• Gret ways to test if your own business will have a good market penetration
• What to look for when hiring a great salesperson
• The single best question to ask to determine whether you should hire a salesperson
• What are the different types of salespeople, and which category you fit into
• How to use “plant seeds” to generate sales leads (you’ll be the only person in your market who does this!)
• Great tactics for meetng people at networking lunches
• Unusual ways to use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to generate new leads
• How to find a sales job on Facebook
• Position yourself as an expert in your field using Twitter
• Use LinkedIn to find targeted prospects for your product
• A very fast and reliable way to get to small businesses
• Should you pay a referral fee to alliance businesses?
• The quickest way to turn around a poor sales performer
• Karen’s process for turning around underperforming companies
• Expert Tips for selling Expensive Products

If you would like a copy of this interview, simply subscribe to my Interviews With Sales Gurus and I’ll send you a copy immediately!

Read more on to learn Sales Strategies for Selling Expensive Products here http://www.expensiveselling.com

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/strategic-planning-articles/stop-press-latest-interviews-with-sales-gurus-released-1269480.html

Today you can enjoy a sandwich over lunch while looking at great places you’d like to go on vacation, then take care of your various bills, connect with some friends and even get a car loan by the time you need to get back to work. That might sound amazing but in the age of the internet, getting things done in a shorter and more convenient time frame has become the norm.

What people have not realised as much though is that with the advent of secure sites and companies pushing more of their activities online, you can get bank loans, credit cards and even car loans approved while sitting at your desk. We have all heard horror stories of people’s personal details being stolen but as long as you are on a secure site, there is little chance of your personal information being compromised. Read the rest of this entry »

photo credit: Unhindered by Talent

The credit markets have been tightening for the last year and personal credit has become more and more elusive. Now, more than ever, we are starting to see a tightening on business credit and loans offered by banks. Banks are tightening their standards and dropping more liberal business loan programs as well.

Just a few months ago, BofA offered an express business line of credit program that even entrepreneurs in business just a month or two could qualify for with the right credit scores. They pulled the program in the last quarter. American Express for years has offered a Business Line of Credit program that entrepreneurs could apply for in addition to their American Express credit cards. The line of credit was competitive in the industry with interest rates and most small business owners with an American Express credit card were getting approved. The program was pulled in the last quarter. Read the rest of this entry »