Startegic Planning?

Question

I need help on strategic planning, whats is it? then i need to know :-

-Why a businesses needs to think strategically,

-The need for strategic planning

and

-Approached to business strategy.

Answer 1

1)situation analysis
2)strategy formulation
3)strategy implementation
4)strategy evaluation

Strategy makes the business run smoothly, efficiently and toward a certain goal.

Answer 2

Generally, strategic planning is laying out major principles, goals and metrics that a business establishes to grow and/or improve itself. These can be based on any number of factors-- sales, customer experience, competitve advantage, etc. Basically, a strategic plan is a "what do you want to be when you grow up" for a business.

Why think strategically?
- Well, if a business only focuses on on tactical things, it could be going in all sorts of directions that will not lead it to where it wants to be. Thinking strategically is looking at the big picture and holitically at a business or organization.

The need? I think I covered that... its to establish overall goals, targets, aspirations and idealy tactics to reach those overarching goals.

Approach- There are few different ways to do it and there are books on how to structure. Generally, you want to establish what your major goals are-- what do you want to be really good at, what drives your business, etc. You also want an analysis of where you are today with respect to where you want ot be. Then you want to identify how you'll measure success. Usually things like SWOT (strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analyses are done. So are market outlooks and competitive analsysis. Finally, major intiatiative and tactics should be outlined to get you from where you are today to where you want to be strategically. As you implement things and go forward, you need to assess progress and govern new things that come into the picture to see if they fit (or not) with your strategy.