Strategic Planning

Strategic planning and consulting is our core business competence. We regularly assist clients with strategic reviews, competitor analyses and planning workshops.

We have extensive experience in supporting clients on projects dealing with all elements of the strategic planning framework. Matters that we can assist with include the following.

	Market Assessment Analysing and understanding an organisation’s market is an essential first step in strategic planning. Questions include: what is the business' target market's characteristics, needs and values? what is the profile of the organisation’s existing customer base? what relevant trends are evident across the target market? are there definable segments within the market that can be described and have distinct requirements in terms of product, marketing or distribution?
	Strategic Assessment An organisation’s strategic assessment should address key issues relating to its competitive positioning including: competitor analysis including existing and potential new entrants product comparisons product development trends and relevant innovations within the industry the competitive positioning of the organisation vis a vis its competitors strategic opportunities and threats
	Business Assessment A business assessment provides an analysis of the performance and capabilities of an organisation including issues such as: product features and gaps operational capabilities in key business lines: sales & distribution; marketing; HR; production; service delivery; communications; IT; etc financial performance including trend analysis, benchmarking and identification of potential performance improvement
	Situation Analysis The Situation Analysis combines all elements of the market, strategic and business assessments into an overall ‘as is’ analysis of the organisation’s current situation and circumstances.
	Board/Management Vision Organisational purpose needs to be driven by board and management vision. Developing a unified view of long-term organisational potential is often a challenging task, but one that is critical to good strategy as it defines the organisation’s sense of shared purpose.
	Mission, Vision, Objectives Setting organisation direction requires clarity of purpose. Even if an organisation adopts a flexible strategic posture, boards and management still need to resolve questions such as: what is the overall purpose of the business? where is the business headed and what should it be like in the future? how does the organisation know that it is achieving its mission and vision; ie. what high-level objectives/goals/KPIs are appropriate?
	Strategies Ideally, strategy identification and development should take place within the context of a solid Situation Analysis from which new strategies frequently emerge. Strategies need to be considered across a number of different areas including: product/pricing; sales/distribution; marketing/communications; operations/structure; financial management and governance. Establishing strategies also requires strategy analysis and prioritisation, a process that can take time and work.
	Projections Financial forecasting should be an integral part of strategic planning. Trend and scenario analysis assists with budgeting, resource allocation and goal setting. Ideally, the process of goal setting, strategy formulation and forecasting should be undertaken collectively, with goals, strategies and forecasts adjusted until they are consistent and complete.
	Implementation Plans Setting a robust Business Plan involves matters such as: identifying definable projects/workstreams that give effect to agreed strategies establishing project/workstream priorities, timetables and responsibilities establishing appropriate monitoring and reporting practices to oversee execution