MBA 517 OL Strategic Business Plan – Planning Worksheet Template, Fall 2016
Executive Summary
- Give a brief background of the business situation and market conditions
- Describe the business opportunity/ problem you are addressing in the plan
- Briefly describe how you intend to resolve the issue(s) identified and how this will improve the company and create a sustainable competitive advantage
* The Executive Summary is the first part of the plan management reads. Make it impactful. A few paragraphs should be adequate to cover this initial part of the plan.
Strategic Vision
- Examples: Table 2.1, and Illustration Capsule 2.1 on pages 22 and 23
- What is the desired state for the business once the plan has been achieved?
- A well-crafted Vision Statement gives the organization a clear sense of direction- “Where are we going?”
- Don’t confuse vision with mission- mission describes the present business and purpose
- The Strategic Plan gives you the opportunity to translate the vision into objectives, strategies and actions
Business Objectives
- Review Example on pg. 28 of the text, Table 2.2
- Business objectives represent the conversion of the Strategic Vision into specific performance targets, results and outcomes (big steps in achieving your vision statement)
- Objectives should be measurable (quantifiable) and have a timetable for achievement (achieve X in Y timeframe)
- Objectives should be both short-term (12-18 months) and long-term (12-36 months)
- Objectives can be strategic, operational and financial
Environmental Analysis-
Identify those external factors in the environment that will affect all companies competing in the same business segment of interest to your industry. Choose those that are relevant to your industry.
- Technical- changes in technology creating obsolescence
- Financial- product pricing and profit margin structure changes
- Operational- changes in the supply chain between manufacturer and customer
- Human Resource- employee base changes, type or skill sets
- Regulatory- government regulations that change the competitive environment for products/companies
- Legislative- government imposes new regulations that affect all competitors
- Other- competitive environmental changes, customer needs affecting product profiles
* Summarize your findings. Which factors do you need to track or monitor that could affect the success of your business plan?
Industry & Competitive Analysis for competing companies- 7 Industry Analysis Questions
- What is the industry’s Macro- Environment- Table 3.1, pg. 48
- What kind of industry forces are competitors facing- Porter’s 5 Forces – Figure 3.3, pg. 49
- What are the drivers of change in the competitive market- Table 3.3, pg. 67
- What are competitive market positions and key strengths- IC 3.1 pg. 69
- What are competitors likely to do- gain or lose market share- pg. 71-72
- What are key success factors (KSF) to be competitive- 72 – 73
- Does the overall market growth situation look attractive- pg. 75 point 8
* Summarize your findings. Which factors do you need to track or monitor that could affect the success of your business plan?
Competitive Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats- SWOT– Table 4.3 pg. 92 and Figure 4.2, pg. 94
- Your objective is to develop your business strategy from information developed/summarized from the external, competitive environment and SWOT analysis
| Internal to the company | Strengths Assets Competencies | Weaknesses Strategies Products |
| External to the company | Opportunities Market Share Product Expansion | Threats Competitor Actions Change in Market Needs |
. Draw conclusions and identify actions- build strengths, eliminate weaknesses, capture opportunities and reduce threats. Summarize your SWOT analysis.
Business Strategies
- A successful strategy describes your competitive plan for maintaining and growing the enterprise, as well as creating sustainable competitive advantage
- Your business strategy is built from your environmental analysis (external/competitive) and SWOT analysis)
- State your chosen business strategy as the first sentence in the strategy section of the plan
- Description of 5 generic competitive strategy features (table 5.1, pg. 139 in text)
| Broad market segment | Lowest cost provider | Broad differentiation strategy |
| Narrow market segment | Focused low cost provider (cost advantage) | Focused differentiation strategy (Differentiation Advantage |
* Summarize your strategy
Implementation Plan
- Describes how you intend to implement the chosen business strategy(s)
- Chart format of prioritized actions implemented over a specific time frame that achieve stated Business Objectives and support achievement of the Vision Statement. Priorities down the left margin, timeline across the top margin.
- Priorities down the left margin, timetable across the top margin of the chart
| Timeframe | ||||
| Activity | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 |
- Tie in any new procedures, organizational structural needs, information tools, rewards/ incentives, requirement for company leadership in the process
- Identify any ethics management issues- you want to track during implementation
Expansion Plan (optional if it applies to the goals of your strategic business plan)
- Identify only those actions that are reasonable to support sustainable growth. You may want to pilot some planned strategic changes in the business in a controlled environment before expanding more broadly within the company or more broadly geographically.
- Expansion alternatives:
- After business diversification- Figure 8.6, pg. 244
- Lowers risk
- Related/ unrelated business
- Supply chain integration
- Foreign Markets
- Five Attractive Paths: pg. 189 – 193
- Strategic alliances, Joint ventures
- After business diversification- Figure 8.6, pg. 244
Monitoring Adjustment- A Dynamic Process
- Develop methods to determine if the goals of the plan are being achieved. Measure success of your Implementation Plan (plan tactics) and your stated Business Objectives (financial and strategic).
- Quantitative tools – can be measured numerically
- Qualitative tools- can be measured subjectively through interviews, surveys
- Differentiate between corrections and changes if you need to make adjustments to your plan. . Choices must be supportive of your Vision Statement and Business Objectives.
Plan Sections
A strategic plan format guide will be provided in advance for you to use in building your strategic business plan
- Executive Summary-
- Write a paragraph describing the business situation/ problem that you are addressing in the plan and basic outline of how you intend to resolve it. The executive summary represents an important checkpoint that you will refer to as you construct the plan. All elements of the plan should be supportive of the executive summary. You may want to do a rough outline of the executive summary as you start the plan to identify the “big picture” and then rewrite a finished version once you have completed the plan. Remember to answer the three tests of winning strategy in your executive summary:
- Strategic fit
- Competitive advantage
- Identify the problem and the solution “what problem am I solving and how”
- Measurable performance objectives (financial, strategic and/or operational) “will the business have a sustainable competitive advantage as a result of the plan”
- Strategic Vision-
- What is your vision statement for the business? This should give the reader a sense of the “desired state” of the business once the plan has been successfully implemented and answer the question “How am I creating long term shareholder value”
- Describe your strategic and financial business objectives. Consider the examples given on page 28 Table 2.2 of the text. Develop objectives that are relevant to your business issues. Strategic/financial objectives should be both short term (1-3 years) and long term (1-5 years).
- Business Objectives
- Identify strategic, financial and/or operational objectives. These objectives must have a time frame and be measurable, (achieve X by Y time frame)
- External Environmental Analysis
- Construct an external environmental analysis and describe the factors that you feel will impact your business environment. These may include technical, financial, operational, human resource, regulatory, legislative issues or others
- Industry and Competitive Environmental Analysis-
- Assess the competitive environment. Use Porter’s Five Forces Model to describe the competitive situation you are facing. Consider the seven industry analysis questions that apply to your business situation when constructing your industry and competitive analysis
- Internal Environmental Analysis – Competitive Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats-
- Construct a SWOT analysis. Translate the output from your SWOT analysis to construct your business strategy
- Business Strategy
- Using the output from your SWOT analysis state the business strategy(s) that respond to your environmental analysis, leverage your strengths and opportunities, offset your weaknesses and external threats and are realistic as solutions to the stated business objectives. Refer to the five generic competitive strategies discussed on pages 118 Figure 5.1.
- Implementation Plan-
- Describe, in detail in chart format, the steps you will take in implementing your business plan strategy.
- Who will do it
- How will it be implemented
- Your implementation time frame
- How you will incentivize strategy execution and performance
- Standards in place to ensure ethical implementation
- How will you use information tools to monitor implementation progress against plan objectives?
- A process to make real time changes to your plan as necessary
- Construct your Implementation Plan in chart format with prioritized actions down the left margin and a time line with deliverables on the top margin
- Describe, in detail in chart format, the steps you will take in implementing your business plan strategy.
- Strategy Expansion Plan-
- Consider what strategy you would use to expand your business plan assuming success of the core plan and strategic value of expansion to other geographic locations or other business units of the company
- Consider the different strategic expansion options described in Chapter 7 of the textbook
- A secondary form of business expansion is diversification into related and unrelated business areas. If this option offers strategic growth, then describe how you would use it in your plan
- Implementation and Monitoring Plan
- Monitor your Implementation plan activities as this support achievement of your business strategy
- Monitor achievement of your Business Objectives as this support achievement of your Vision Statement
- Monitoring can be done either qualitatively (numerical measurements) or qualitatively (surveys, focus groups)
- Write a paragraph describing the business situation/ problem that you are addressing in the plan and basic outline of how you intend to resolve it. The executive summary represents an important checkpoint that you will refer to as you construct the plan. All elements of the plan should be supportive of the executive summary. You may want to do a rough outline of the executive summary as you start the plan to identify the “big picture” and then rewrite a finished version once you have completed the plan. Remember to answer the three tests of winning strategy in your executive summary:
* Remember, a winning strategy addresses:
- Strategic fit
- Sustainable competitive advantage
- Measurable performance
* Put your Strategic Business Plan through a Spell and Grammar check before submitting as a Final Plan
* Read your Strategic Business Plan thoroughly to ensure that all sections of your plan are connected and support each other. A Plan Format Worksheet with links to the course textbook will be provided in the course Content tab to help you construct your strategic business plan. With the plan format provided you get to focus on being the content expert for your plan
