Components of the Strategic Planning Process

The strategic planning based process is able to play a major role in the ways by which modern organizations operate in the business environment in an effective manner. Strategic planning is thereby able to affect the ways by which the long term strategies are developed by the management in order to increase their levels of profitability and revenues. The OTIC model can be linked with the conventional strategic planning based process that is implemented by the companies. The OTIC model is the acronym for Organization-Team-Individual-Change (Baumgartner & Rauter, 2017). The connection which can be established between the different levels of the organizations are mainly addressed by the OTIC model.

The report will be based on the analysis of the ways by which organizations are able to receive benefits from the process of conventional strategic planning. The organizations that are not able to receive effective levels of benefits from strategic planning process will also be analysed in the report.

Strategic planning can be defined as the guide or the plan which is created in order to map the goals and reach them as well. The plan is also able to serve as a management based tool which is used for the purpose of solving problems, development of products, preparation of the business plans. The major goal of the plan to integrate different activities of the business within a system which supportive in nature. The different components that are considered to be a part of the strategic planning process include, the vision statement, mission statement, statement of the corporate values, corporate weaknesses and corporate strengths and long term goals and the short term objectives (Bergh et al., 2016). These components of the strategic planning model are helpful in the proper development of effective strategies in order to develop the effective processes.

Vision of an organization is based on the development of a clear picture which is based on its operations in the industry. The mission statement on the other hand is able to depict the business environment in which the company operates. The beliefs and principles of the company are developed within the value statement of strategic planning model. The analysis of the strengths and the weaknesses is also an important part of the strategic plan that is developed by the organization. The strategic plan is finally able to develop the long term goals and short term objectives of the organization (Chen et al., 2015). The objectives that are thereby developed with the help of conventional strategic planning need to be SMART in nature. SMART is used as an acronym for S-smart, M-measurable, A-achievable, R-realistic and T-time-based.

The organizations are able to benefit from the process of conventional strategic planning and develop strategies that are highly effective in nature. The strategic plans are thereby developed in order to form the long term based strategies and the short term objectives. For example, Apple is an organization which uses the process of strategic planning in order to operate in the environment in a profitable manner. Apple was established in the year 1976 in a garage in California. The company has been able to develop its position in the technology industry with the help of innovative products (Cook et al., 2014). The organization has been able to make innovation in the products in order to maintain its position in the industry. Strategic planning has been able to play a major role in the development of long term and short term strategies for organizational development (Apple.com., 2018). The industry and the internal environment of the company has been analysed effectively in order to develop strategies that can be helpful for the future operations of Apple (Dibrell, Craig & Neubaum, 2014).

Benefits of Conventional Strategic Planning for Organizations

Some organizations however believe that conventional strategic planning is not useful for the operations and the development of effective strategies. The organizations which operate in the tourism based industry are mainly those which do not find the process quite useful for their operations and strategy development based process. The changes that take place in the external environment are quite fast and this is able to affect the operations of the company (Friedmann, 2017). The development of long term strategies is thereby not useful for the revenues and profitability of the tourism based organizations.

The most important part of the strategic planning process is related to the effective determination of people who are involved within the process. The process of strategic planning is however divided into several parts in which different levels of employees are involved. The CEO or the chief executive officer of the company can be considered to be most important person who is engaged in the strategic planning. The CEO thereby needs to develop a team in order to perform different jobs within the strategic plan. The top level members of the organization are thereby involved in the strategic plans that are developed (Hill, Jones & Schilling, 2014).

The CEO has the authority to develop a team and decide the steps that need to be taken in the strategic plans. The leaders or the CEOs who are able to develop the teams effectively get maximum amount of benefits from the strategic plans. The process however does not stop after involving the members of the top management. The entire organization and the employees are thereby involved in the process of strategic planning. The different types of employees are involved in the strategic plan based on the stages of the plan (Horkoff et al., 2014). People who are engaged in the strategic planning in an active manner are the following,

• Governors
• Chair of governing body
• CEO
• Members who belong to the planning team of the CEO
• Managers
• Executive staff
• Operators
• Facilitators
• Assistants and advisors
• Consultants
• Interest Groups
• Beneficiaries

The levels of engagement and communication among different levels of employees can be managed effectively with the help of OTIC model. The interaction levels between the individuals and the teams are thereby managed with the help of proper implementation of this model (Weigand et al., 2014).

Figure 1 – Process of engaging people in strategic planning

Source – (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015)

Figure 2 – Process of the engagement of people in strategic planning

Source – (West, Ford & Ibrahim, 2015)

The process of conventional strategic planning has proved to be useful for the companies which operate in the modern business environment in 21^st century. The organizations are thereby able to develop effective strategies which can help in the long term as well as the short term operations in the industry. The proper analysis of the factors that are a part of ever-changing technology based industry is considered to be important for the proper operations of the modern organizations. The interaction between the individuals within the organizations and the teams have also increased due to the implementation of effective strategic planning based process (Wolf & Floyd, 2017).

The strategic plan of the business is thereby useful for the proper development of strategies which can be used for the future operations. The internal environment and external environment of the companies is also analysed in the plan in order to develop approaches according to the needs and environment of operations. However, in the highly competitive business environment the proper analysis of the external factors is important for development of strategies that can be highly effective. The plans need to be updated on a periodic basis in order to analyse the factors that are able to affect the organizational operations in a huge manner. Some of the organizations however do not feel that strategic planning can be effective for operations in the business based environment (Horkoff et al., 2014).

The process is however considered to be highly effective in nature for the organizations which need to be develop strategies for their long term operations within the industry. The process of strategic planning is also quite effective in bringing changes within the organizational operations. The analysis of the environment is thereby able to play a major role in the ways by which change based strategies are developed for the effective organizational operations (Dibrell, Craig & Neubaum, 2014).

Conclusion 

The analysis in report can be concluded by stating that strategic planning process can play a major role in the effective operations of the modern organizations. The changes that take place in the external environment of the organizations are able to affect their operations in a huge manner. The companies can implement the process of strategic planning in order to operate in the environment effectively. Strategic planning is however not considered to be effective for some of the organizations which operate in the tourism based sector. The development of long term strategies is thereby not highly significant for the organizations. The change process of different organizations is also based on the conventional strategic planning.

References 

Apple.com. (2018). Apple. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/

Baumgartner, R. J., & Rauter, R. (2017). Strategic perspectives of corporate sustainability management to develop a sustainable organization. Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, 81-92.

Bergh, D. D., Aguinis, H., Heavey, C., Ketchen, D. J., Boyd, B. K., Su, P., … & Joo, H. (2016). Using meta?analytic structural equation modeling to advance strategic management research: Guidelines and an empirical illustration via the strategic leadership?performance relationship. Strategic Management Journal, 37(3), 477-497.

Chen, Y., Tang, G., Jin, J., Li, J., & Paillé, P. (2015). Linking market orientation and environmental performance: The influence of environmental strategy, employee’s environmental involvement, and environmental product quality. Journal of Business Ethics, 127(2), 479-500.

Cook, C. N., Inayatullah, S., Burgman, M. A., Sutherland, W. J., & Wintle, B. A. (2014). Strategic foresight: how planning for the unpredictable can improve environmental decision-making. Trends in ecology & evolution, 29(9), 531-541.

Dibrell, C., Craig, J. B., & Neubaum, D. O. (2014). Linking the formal strategic planning process, planning flexibility, and innovativeness to firm performance. Journal of Business Research, 67(9), 2000-2007.

Friedmann, J. (2017). Two centuries of planning theory: An overview. In Explorations in planning theory (pp. 10-29). Routledge.

Hill, C.W., Jones, G.R. & Schilling, M.A. (2014). Strategic management: theory: an integrated approach. Cengage Learning.

Horkoff, J., Barone, D., Jiang, L., Yu, E., Amyot, D., Borgida, A., & Mylopoulos, J. (2014). Strategic business modeling: representation and reasoning. Software & Systems Modeling, 13(3), 1015-1041.

Weigand, K., Flanagan, T., Dye, K., & Jones, P. (2014). Collaborative foresight: Complementing long-horizon strategic planning. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 85, 134-152.

West, D. C., Ford, J., & Ibrahim, E. (2015). Strategic marketing: creating competitive advantage. Oxford University Press, USA.

Wolf, C., & Floyd, S. W. (2017). Strategic planning research: Toward a theory-driven agenda. Journal of Management, 43(6), 1754-1788.