Scenarios

• The strategic planning process requires a detailed look at each element of your business, such as administration, manufacturing, sales, fulfillment, and expansion, then create scenarios. To develop a scenario, start with a definition of the status quo as it applies to the element you are studying. Since it is impossible to accurately predict the future, attempt to define as many possible futures including fluctuations in the economy, natural disasters, regulatory changes, windfalls and accidents.
  
  

Strategic Plan

• The point of strategic planning is to define a need, a goal and a way to reach that goal. Once you have set up your scenarios, create lists of helpful and unhelpful reactions or tactics that the company might take and use these as the basis for your strategic plan. For example, if one scenario shows your biggest competitor introducing a new product, your strategic plan might call for creating a new model of one of your best products, creating a superior service related to the current model, or acquiring a company with a synergistic product line.
  
  

Creation

• A good strategic plan is a collaborative effort. Involve all levels of your company from the lowest level laborer to executive management because, like the parable of the blind men trying to describe an elephant, each level has a different viewpoint. It is important to understand the nuances of fulfillment if you are going to improve customer service, for example. On a group basis, examine the details of each scenario and apply the group knowledge to its solution or optimization.
  
  

Implementation

• A strategic plan is only as effective as its implementation. If it isn't accepted by the managers and staff employees in your company, it will not succeed. That is another reason why the planning process should be a collaboration involving all levels of your company, possibly including vendors and customers.