Strategic planning is a general term but in an industrial context a necessary action every company has to take. For any company either it is a fortune 500 or a start up a strategy planning is a mandatory to guide it thru all ups and downs and lead a way to profits. Learn the basics from professional Strategic Planning Consulting experts.
Michael Porter in 1980 formulated a competitive strategy to have 2 internal environment elements and 2 external environment elements like a company’s Strengths & Weaknesses, Ethics and values of the board members being internal and Opportunities& Threats, Expectations from Society being external. Strategic plan of a company is needed to know whether company is successful or not. It defines a platform on which a company should function by getting a constant feedback and modelling the new decisions to be taken. It is a management activity which insists to focus energy of resources and operations by setting priorities and common goals. The Strategic planning document should be a guide for a disciplined effort to achieve success even in ever changing internal or external environment.
Why a Consultant?
Any company can have an internal strategy planning team or can hire a Strategic Planning Consultant. Hiring a consultant has been trending even in many successful companies as they can bring in a fresh and independent way of thinking to the table. Of course a big company definitely can afford an expert Strategic planning team for their daily changing needs.
A Sacramento Strategic Planning consultant adds value by asking write questions to the heads or key implementers of the strategy. Usually employees do not question the status quo or never touch the sensitivities of the boss. But a consultant being an experienced, independent from the company culture and knowledge (may be certified in Strategic Planning) can explore many things which could open up new opportunities for the company potential. The company do not realise the importance of consultant until the situations deteriorated and they are left with very few alternatives to get in to the race again.
Strategic Planning takes an input of even subtle details about company and the key implementers of the policies and provide a candid guiding policy document. The company hiring external consultant expects that he should have certain qualities or certain outcome from his process. Consultant should provide a process which could give a method to provide solutions. He should question the status quo and probe with a challenging questions even it is uncomfortable for few. This process sheds more light on weaknesses of the company leading to its low performance. An honest assessment is required by throwing light on sensitivities and also keeping all thoughts which are already working perfectly in the organisation. Consultant should deeply understand clients businesses and get involved with the team so that he could also provide link to strategy with execution. He acts like a police and sets execution on track before exit.
Conclusion:
Choosing the right one at right time helps to bring right outcome as expected.