Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM MAY 2019 64 I t is great to have dreams, but dreams are just dreams unless you set goals and follow a plan to achieve them. A goal is a preferred result that a person or an organization envisions, plans, and commits to achieve with desired outcomes and measurements. Developing a strategic plan takes time and resources. It requires you to focus on the mission and vision of your company. It requires you to make a commitment to a direction that your company's mission is dictating. In large part, your responsibility as the visionaries of your organization is to develop and implement the strategies and goals needed to carry out your defined mission. As such, it's incumbent upon both the leadership and upper management to engage not only in strategic thinking, but also in the effective execution of the process. By planning and measuring, you will be better prepared to grow in a meaningful way and to reach your goals. There are 5 key components to a powerful strategic plan. 1. Your mission, vision and aspirations. A mission statement is your overall lasting formulation of why your company exists and what it hopes to be in the future. 2. Your core values 3. A SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) 4. Your objectives, strategies and operational tactics 5. Your KPI dashboard for measurements and funding streams So, why do you need a strategy? Why take the time for planning? There are many reasons, but here are just a few: 1. First and foremost, you need a strategy because it sets the direction and establishes priorities for your organization. The goal of strategic planning is to ensure that everyone is working toward common goals to achieve outcomes and results through organized management. It defines your organization's view of success, prioritizes the resources, and focuses the energy of all involved. When that happens, it strengthens your operations. 2. A strategic plan helps simplify decision-making. Once your plan is in place, making decisions becomes easy. New ideas or initiatives that do not follow your strategic plan become burdensome because they do not fit neatly in the pre- determined direction of your plan. They stick out like a sore thumb and are easy to identify and evaluate. 3. Your strategic plan will communicate your message to your employees, your suppliers, your lenders and your customers. It will effectively articulate and define your business and its direction and make it easier for your staff to work toward the goal that they have been asked to achieve. Your strategic plan moves through a number of different phases. The first is to establish and clarify your mission and vision. Once the vision is clear, you are ready to formulate your strategy based on all the information you have collected and then develop your desired outcomes. The next step is to implement your strategy and finally evaluate and control the performance. Remember that having a vision and a plan is critical to the future of your organization. It has been said that "A vision without a plan is just a dream. A plan without a vision is just drudgery. But a vision with a plan can change the world". STRATEGIC PLANNING— YOUR ROADMAP TO SUCCESS S E R V I C E D E P A R T M E N T RO Ralph Wolff, Industry Relations, PSA Certified Service Center www.certifiedservicecenter.org

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