“Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions”.
Peter Drucker
When it comes to entrepreneurship, one of the pillars of success is Strategic Planning. This is an obvious matter that is not always a priority for the entrepreneurs.
According to Carlos T. Wagner, author of the book “Planeación Estratégica Social” (2012), latinos are creative and ingenious, but also undisciplined and barely methodical. The reason is that they prefer to react rather than planning and to correct rather than prevent. They assume that since reality always exceeds plans, planning implies a waste of time, and therefore it is better to improvise.
Strategic Planning requires a capacity of criticism and self-criticism that exposes the deficiencies of the projects, and many people prefer to avoid it.
Strategic Planning is a process that allows us to act and make decisions efficiently, which is a great help for institutional philosophy, in addition to supporting our organization in the achievement of our goals. It is crucial to consider these points before starting any task we want to perform, so we will be able to save time, money and effort.
Some benefits of planning are:
- Allows us to narrow our efforts focusing in important things
- Avoids unforeseen crises and prepare us to react in case they arise.
- Identifies our strengths, helping us to exploit them.
- It helps us recognize which responsibilities we can delegate.
- Improves our decision making by offering an overview of our organization.
- To establish well-defined goals and objectives.
- Promotes team cooperation.
- It helps us to adapt to the changing conditions of our environment.
- To measure and evaluate the performance of our company.
- To reduce risk, uncertainty and insecurity.
- Strengthens and controls the economic operation avoiding unnecessary expenses.
We must be clear that Strategic Planning does not guarantee success alone, it is not the solution to all the problems of our business, but it does provide us with the elements that lead the way to success and permanence.
The process of Strategic Planning can be applied not only to start-up companies, but also to established companies that need to be strengthened.
Once we develop our Strategic Plan, we must bear in mind that it is not a monolithic document, a key feature is its adaptation ability, so it must be revised periodically to carry out adjustments that allow us to obtain the results we seek.
To achieve the effectiveness of a strategic plan, it's necessary that all members of our company participate in its development and implementation. The particular vision that each one provides allows us to approach the specific needs of each area so all the collaborators are responsible for the achievements, they help to innovate and to contribute, while sharing the acknowledgments and benefits that our company may achieve.
If you are interested in going deeper into the subject, I recommend you the book: Strategic Planning (2010), by May Gary May, Business Expert Press.
By: Andrés Mayo Góngora
