The Importance of Strategy

Having a clear and focused strategy is critically important to the success of your business, and without a well-defined strategy, yours may stall or even fail.

If you can take the emotion out of your decision-making process, you’ll have a business and a team that is more focused, more productive, and more profitable. 

A successful strategic plan does the following:

1. Provides Direction and Action Plans
It establishes in a clear, concise and strategically sound way

• the direction for the organization
• how this will be achieved, including detailed action plans

2. Prioritizes and Aligns Activities
Strategic planning is about making choices, establishing priorities, allocating resources to strategic initiatives and coordinating to achieve desired results.

3. Defines Accountabilities
It defines clear lines of accountability and timelines for achieving expected results on the agreed strategic initiatives.

4. Enhances Communication and Commitment
In clarifying the vision and accountabilities, the strategic plan increases the alignment of all organizational activities and fosters commitment at all levels.

5. Provides a Framework for Ongoing Decision Making
Since all decisions should support the strategy, the strategy and the strategic initiatives are the reference point for decision-making.

You have to have a plan for day-to-day business, but you also need to spend time looking and listening to the changes that are happening in your industry. It is a matter of having both a daily plan to get things done and an overarching strategy to guide those daily plans so you make progress towards your long-term goals.

If you don’t have a business plan in place, you’re not alone. Honestly, it took me a while before I was willing to admit that a business plan was what we needed to reach our goals as a company. It takes time and energy to sit down and write something like this. Time and energy that could be spent running and growing your business. I’ve been there. I get it.

But let me ask you this: are you happy with how things are going? Do you have an awesome product or service that you believe in? Is there potential for more growth, more money, more efficiency in your business?

A business plan can help you answer these questions and get a plan for how to improve things.

Since making the decision to become more strategic about our own business plan, I have seen my company double in size and revenue with no signs of slowing down. Using a strategic approach to planning has been the difference between us staying an Average Joe local business and becoming a regional leader in I.T. services.

One area that many businesses either don’t consider or don’t want to spend time creating a strategy around as part of their larger business plan is disaster recovery. Disasters are a part of life – earthquakes, tornadoes, rogue employees. But that doesn’t mean you have to be caught off guard.