Have you ever wondered why some students excel 👩🎓in their grades while others only attain average marks? Not every sportsperson becomes a medal🥇winning star, and likewise, very few business startups witness a success graph📈 at each stage as they progress.
Proceeding without proper planning leads to an embargo. The most trending business setup with rigorously working employees may fail to achieve great heights if the authorities underestimate strategically planned moves.
Researchers have postulated that 86% of business heads are least interested in strategy discussions and tend to spend less than an hour a month.
The Harvard Business School has stated that 48% of such organizations do not meet their pre-set goals🚩 due to negligence towards strategic planning.
Let’s find out how strategic planning helps in credible business growth.
Advantages of Strategic Planning
There are numerous advantages of generating a sequential idea💡 beforehand than behaving decisive at random and ultimately detracting from the expected scenarios.
Well-Managed Group: Strategic planning helps decide the company’s consecutive moves, while the most underrated benefit is that it unites the staff to work as one team with one stimulated goal. It helps in determining and distributing roles and responsibilities at each level.
Enhanced Vision with Motivation: A pre-planned strategy can bring unprecedented changes to the company and its employees. It prominently defines a path to be traveled together with a shared vision of great success. The idea of seeking an achievable destiny instills motivation among the employees, who work hard with faith and confidence👨💻.
Awareness of the Outcomes: While running a business, strategy planning always helps understand the possible result of a specific move. It is evident that if the business heads make strategic plans focusing on a target🎯, then recognizing the risk factors becomes higher, thus, generating functional abilities to eliminate them.
Efficient Workload Sharing: A predesigned layout for a company’s progress helps the management effectively distribute the workload with accountability to the trusted workforce. Once the team has a plan, it can deliver outputs on the desired vision and direction while ensuring a higher success rate.
Credible Growth Analysis: A strategic plan in a business organization can bring far-reaching effects since the managers can then track the growth rate📊 at each step. It helps organize the team members to face the upcoming multifaceted challenges. The departments can analyze the growth structure and reassess their future approach.
Setting Priorities: Once the stakeholders discuss the strategy to implement the idea of progression, they can re-shuffle the work shifts of critical jobs on a priority basis. This scenario upholds effective time⏳ management for the authorities to deliver efficient results while managing their work-life balance.
Beating the Competition: Analyzing the market and emerging competitors regularly for any specific business model is critical. The companies must use competitor analysis templates, and accordingly, they can improvise on their strategic plans to stay ahead of their competitors.
Role of Strategic Planning Template
The fact is that ideating a plan goes in vain if it is not documented correctly, as there are minimal chances of implementation. Strategic planning templates are pivotal for business organizations in creating systematic instructions for successive moves.
These functional templates📝 are formal and executable at multiple hierarchical levels, thus highly beneficial in business growth.
Here is a list of the topmost strategic planning templates.
HubSpot
HubSpot is a renowned CRM technology firm launched in 2004. They offer multiple software systems for business management in more than 120 countries🌏 dealing with brands like Trello and Reddit.
They offer multiple professionally designed business templates. Their strategic planning template has about five significant sections with sub-divisions to make it informative.
- You can mention the company’s overview with mission, objectives, and project partners in the Executive Summary.
- Provide the product details with pricing and information related to suppliers and delivery in the Development section.
- Under the Marketing Plan, you can brief the marketing strategy, advertising plan, client details, and current status.
- The Market Research section is sufficient for detailing the market situation, competitors, and prominent clients.
- And you can brief out your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats under the SWOT Analysis section.
The template is available in MS Word or PDF format and can be downloaded from the official website for free.
Smartsheet
Smartsheet is a well-known solution provider among Fortune 100 companies such as Lego, Pfizer, etc. They offer modern work management software with a flexible interface that helps in efficient performance.
About 10 unique templates are available on their website for making strategies at different departments or levels such as IT, HR, Non-profit, SWOT, Strategic Vision, or One-page Plan.
The Strategic Business Plan template is described in brief.
- Executive Summary for an overview.
- Company details such as mission, principles, past trajectory, and management.
- Service Development includes product description, pricing, delivery system, capabilities, and critical suppliers.
- Market Research has clients, competition, and market status.
- Marketing Plan has tactics, client details, ads, PR, and cross-selling possibilities.
- Measurable Marketing Goals include market share, distribution channels, etc.
- SWOT Analysis with internal and external factors.
- Financial🫰 Plan for briefing revenue sources, projections, cash flow, and statements.
- Overall Assessments for tracking systems, surveys, campaigns, and associate advisory.
These customizable templates can be downloaded as Microsoft Excel or Doc📄 files. At the same time, the Smartsheet software compiles them together for execution and assistance in real-time.
Jotform
Jotform has launched the World’s first online form builder tool. It is a well-established firm with a global footprint, and brands like Adobe, Red Bull, Ford, etc., are listed among its major clients.
Their strategic planning template is an online editable form compatible with PCs, mobiles, and kiosks. You can edit the template and download it in PDF format directly from the website.
The form design is straightforward, with elements as briefed below.
- You begin with Company Overview, adding the mission, vision, core values, and a summary.
- Next, you will list the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the Analysis section.
- The Strategic Goals and Action section let you objectivize the organization’s plans for the future. You can also use the action planner📆 which helps to prioritize the meeting schedules.
- Under Financial Plan and Evaluation, you can mention the projected sales and returns every month with an added evaluation of the plan.
The fonts and colors of the template are fully customizable, and the company can easily add its logo.
Atlassian
Atlassian has designed templates for multiple categories, such as Business Strategy, HR, Marketing, IT, Teamwork, etc., while the Business Strategy itself has 28 such templates.
The significant features are defined below.
- Executive Summary is the first step to highlight the business format, plans, and future ideas.
- Where We Play covers the market and competitors, focusing on competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, and threats. It also analyses the target audience in specific price segments.
- The How We Win section gives the option to write a vision statement with a list of strategies and a differentiating outline planning.
- How We Execute lists the execution plan with objectives and metrics followed by a caution statement of what not to do. Charts are also available for risks and mitigation, along with questions by owners.
- The Appendix section is to list the data resources.
These editable Doc files are available for free on the website.
ProjectManager
ProjectManager is a software company headquartered in Austin, USA, and deals in project management tools, automated systems, and templates.
The strategic plan template is available in MS Word and can be downloaded for free from the website.
- Enter your company’s name and other details, followed by a briefing about Executive Summary, Vision, and Mission Statement.
- Provide the SWOT Analysis in accordance with internal and external factors.
- Write about the future Business Goals you think should be communicated to the employees.
- The Marketing Plan gives separate information about advertising along with research, campaigns, and KPIs.
- Proceed further by outlining the Operations Plan, Financial Projections, and skilled Teams handling the responsibility.
The Business templates are integrated into a project management tool with API integration for centralized strategy management.
Asana
Asana’s product and project management tool can be integrated with Slack, Dropbox, Adobe, and 200+ APIs to improve work efficiency. It is preferred by Amazon, P&G, and many other Fortune 100 companies.
Their website has about 20 outlined business management templates and is accessible online to create a personalized strategic planning template for free.
- Begin with detailing the company’s vision and business plans.
- Go through the quick SWOT analysis to determine your position in the market.
- Include competitor’s information for analysis.
- Key Performance Indicators or KPIs include aspects like hiring, market efforts, plans, etc., to ensure the work is on the right track.
The list View feature provides a glance at goals and achievements, while you can use the Dependencies option to check interdependent tasks and Custom fields to sort out priorities.
TemplateLAB
TemplateLAB, as the name suggests, is a full-fledged laboratory of templates, contracts, and agreement letters with impressive graphics for multiple categories.
The website displays numerous template designs for creating strategic plans, all available for free. Some are in textual format, while others are in colorful graphic style. The general parameters of the template are given below.
- Write down the vision and mission statement of your company at the top.
- You can also mention your core values and focused areas. Check out different template formats to get a brief idea.
- Give a brief idea of the business goals.
- Describe your strategic plan for the next move in the targeted direction.
- Summarize the current status in performance regarding technical, financial, or organizational success.
TemplateLAB has designed more than 150 templates in the Business, Legal, and Personal departments, as well as 50+ designs in Real Estate, Education, and Art & Media.
Miro
Miro aims to create a visual collaboration platform for colleagues, whether in-office, remotely, or in hybrid mode. The tool fulfills the basic requirements, such as virtual meeting space and whiteboards, and is preferred among tech giants like HP, Deloitte, and Accenture. It has over 50 million global users and 100+ integrations on the platform.
One is the Strategy Presentation template, which focuses explicitly on planning and implementation. The prime objectives of the template are given here.
- In the first frame, you need to give the presentation title.
- The following slide has the option to give a brief about the agenda that is to be discussed.
- In the third slide, you need to list the sequence of jobs to be done.
- The final slide describes the strategy intention with specific points of accomplishment.
They offer 98 customized templates as presentation slides under the strategy and planning segment.
Process Street
Process Street provides an AI-powered platform for workflows, forms, and data sets. This tool is adopted by brands like Salesforce, and Drift, for its simplistic interface with no requirements for coding. It can be integrated with Zapier, Airtable, Google Forms, or other tools.
Here are a few checklists to grab the strategies in an understandable format.
- The Discussion phase gives space for the company’s description, vision, values, etc. Mention your clients and competitors, followed by products or service details. You can continue with further sections about SWOT analysis and note down your meetings with reminders.
- The Development phase is from detailing the focused area and objectives.
- The Review phase is for notifying about the plan reviews, sharing the with appropriate connections, and responding towards untouched goals.
- Last is the Strategic Plan document to view the plan, display approval, and transcribe it in a specific format.
This online editable strategic planning template is free to use directly from the website.
Template.Net
Template.Net has one of the World’s🌐 largest sets of professionally designed templates for business growth management.
These trendy templates are categorized under heads like Social media, Documents, Presentations, Business, Education, etc.
Their website has more than 50 strategy templates in the business section that are bifurcated for specific business planning requirements. About 11 such templates are outlined for annual strategic planning and are free to download from the website as Doc files, PDFs, or Apple Pages.
- Input the details about internal and external factors such as staff members, systems, partners, stakeholders, etc.
- Create situational analysis regarding SWOT and outcomes along with expectations.
- Brief about the data analysis to find the root cause of issues and the best practices.
- Plan out your strategies over specific objectives.
- Deal with the tactics regarding budget, goals, initiatives, and actions.
- Review your company’s data focusing on the final results.
Template.net has millions of users globally from companies like Indeed, Travel Advisor, and many others.
Evernote
Evernote is a well-recognized name amongst executives and entrepreneurs, who have used it over smartphones or tabs to note down ideas or tasks with reminders and much more.
Log in to benefit from an online strategic template that is easy and free. It works best to focus on results while communicating your values and strategic plans.
- Use the Organization section for mission, values, and purpose.
- Write your short-term & long-term Goals✍️.
- Plan out your Strategy with insights and resources.
It has been featured in world-class media portals like Forbes and Inc for its feasibility and performance.
My Take on Strategic Planning Templates
Strategic planning templates provide incredible experience with enhanced productivity, staff satisfaction, goal achievements, and a lot more. The above-listed templates are chosen for their feasible design, ease of usage, and potency.
Downloadable template sheets by HubSpot, Atlassian, Templatelab, and others are suitable for startups to get an idea about how to create and follow the plan.
Jotform gives an instant idea about online solutions, while if you need a reliable and well-equipped online tool, use Asana, which is best for an inherent firm.
Miro is a trusted software if you need to prepare a presentation on a company’s strategy, while Evernote and Smartsheet are better for swift solutions with real-time execution.
