Many organizations understand the importance of strategic planning, and they’ll invest a great deal of time and money coming up with the strategic plan itself. But once the strategic planning process is complete, it’s really common for that plan to just… well, sit there. Maybe it gets reviewed once a year–an obligatory thing your company or organization simply “has to do.” Or worse, it becomes a glossy (and expensive) document that sits gathering dust on the shelf.
Well, as the leading provider of strategic planning and execution software, we disagree! A strategic plan is the compass for your goals, and we’re here to re-ignite that strategic planning spark. To get you started, you can grab our Free Strategic Plan Template, which you can download as a PDF.
In this post, we are going to look at five of the major benefits of a strong strategic plan, the purpose of strategic planning in the first place, and how it will improve virtually every aspect of your operations – from employee engagement, to plan execution, to leadership.
Here are five benefits of strategic planning.
1. It makes your organization proactive rather than reactive
Why is strategic planning important?
A strategic plan allows organizations to anticipate things that are most likely to happen and prepare accordingly. Through strategic planning, companies can anticipate certain unfavorable scenarios before they happen and take necessary precautions to avoid them. And, if something unfortunate–whether a small scale mishap, or a full blown crisis–does happen, then you already have something in place to ensure you’re able to get back on track.
2. It instills a shared sense of responsibility
A strategic plan helps to define the direction in which an organization must travel, and aids in establishing realistic objectives and goals that are in line with the vision and mission charted out for it. But it also creates a sense of collaboration and collective responsibility.
The key to successful strategic planning is to engage everyone with the plan as early as possible in the planning process, and build in measures and implementation steps that allow you to monitor the results at regular intervals. When you do this, goals become stepping stones to even greater goals, and everyone becomes familiar with the aspirations and pain-points of your overall vision, and their contribution to it.
