As the year ends, entrepreneurs should revisit their annual business plan. Reviewing it will allow you to start thinking about creating your new business plan for the new year ahead.
A business plan functions as a blueprint of decisions and strategies. It helps entrepreneurs follow an outline that enables them to anticipate changes in market conditions, thrive and survive amid the pandemic, maximize potential opportunities, and develop a structure for new projects.
It’s not just about your business operations, though. A strategic business plan is a great motivational tool that can help you inspire and persuade company leaders to stay on board with you. Encouraging team members from all levels to be involved in the planning process will contribute to the success of your business. It will build company culture, enable employees to gain valuable learning experience, and strengthen morale.
While having a new strategic plan will help you and your people stay on track to meet your business goals, it isn’t easy to create one. Here are some tips on successfully developing your strategic business plan for 2022.
Assemble a Planning Team
Your planning team should consist of core people at your organization, including company leaders and a few selected staff, representing different levels within your organization. You will need all their inputs to finalize your strategic plan.
Each team member shall have their own roles and responsibilities. This is to create accountability and avoid confusion about each other’s tasks.
Aside from your core team, you should also establish a committee of people who can remark at each milestone of your new plan. This planning group can include business partners, board members, and investors.
Develop a Timeline for the Plan’s Development
A timeline can negatively put pressure on your team to accomplish tasks. This can lead to haphazard decisions and results. However, having a timeline can help your team stay on track to meet your business goals.
Your plan’s timeline should include details of your meeting schedules, what inputs and accomplishments are required for each meeting and the agenda for each session. It should also include the time for when you will need input from the planning committee and other stakeholders in your business.
Review and Renew
Review your current business plan and renew your company’s mission and vision statements.
After two tumultuous years, it’s become more important than ever to have a robust business plan. If your current business plan is already in good shape, though, you can use it to guide you in making the new one. You’ll need to review it.
Use the old plan to analyze your company’s current position. Revisit the building blocks of your strategy—financial objectives, growth plans, and distinct value proposition. But don’t forget your company’s mission and vision statements. Use them to remind yourself, stakeholders, and employees about your business’s values, goals, and purpose. These elements can help you build a better plan for the coming year.
According to the financial consulting firm Saddock Advisory, a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis is an effective management tool that can help you evaluate your business. You can leverage it to determine which aspects of your business needs improvement and what outside factors negatively affect your business so that you can avoid them.
Set Strategic Goals
The big step in the planning process is setting your business strategies. You need to keep in mind two factors when assessing your strategic goals. First, your goals should be clear and realistic. Second, these goals must be achievable through a series of action plans included in your new business plan.
To set your goals, you can use the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely) method, as suggested by The Thriving Small Business, a small business consultancy firm.
Ask yourself, are your goals specific? Are they quantifiable or measurable? Are they attainable, or do they seem impossible to be achieved?
Finally, are your goals realistic? You should have the resources or means to accomplish your goals. For instance, ceiling contractors can incorporate enhanced digital marketing goals into their new plan for 2022. Without a digital presence, they can’t achieve their goals.
Moreover, all your goals should fall into the timeline that you’ve developed earlier.
Start Your Plan Now
While there are still a few weeks until the new year starts, take this opportunity to quickly assess your business, meet with your core team, and start planning out your business strategies for next year. In fact, businesses that can develop a new plan for the new year can face unexpected challenges more confidently, according to The Thriving Small Business.
Consider the tips above to develop a strategic business plan for 2022.
