From Vision to Action: 6 Steps to a Successful Strategic Plan

In today's rapidly changing business landscape, having a well-defined strategic plan is more than just a good idea — it’s essential for long-term success and resilience. When done well, strategic planning fosters cohesion, focuses resources on the most impactful areas, and keeps teams motivated with a clear sense of purpose and direction. Moreover, it allows organizations to anticipate challenges and pivot when necessary, ensuring they are not only prepared for the future but also positioned to thrive. 

In this blog, we’ll outline the six steps to creating an effective strategic plan...

What is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is the process an organization uses to get from “Point A” to “Point B.” Ultimately, strategic planning provides a roadmap that aligns an organization’s people and resources to achieve its vision and mission, enabling organizations to answer questions like:

• Where are we now?

• Where do we want to be?

• How are we going to get there?

• How will we know we’ve arrived?

Without strategic planning, organizations risk being reactive, which can lead to misaligned priorities, fragmented efforts, and missed opportunities for growth.

The Benefits of Strategic Planning

Organizations that master strategic planning are able to instill a companywide understanding of their purpose, creating better commitment to the organization and its goals.

Strategic planning helps organizations to:

• Detail milestones to better monitor achievements and assess results
• Foster successful communication and teamwork
• Bring everyone together to better meet the needs of customers

The Strategic Planning Cycle

The strategic planning cycle can be broken down into six steps…

1. View the Environment

The first stage is to collect information. Before you can make a plan, you’ll need:

• Customer feedback
• Employee feedback
• A review of your competition
• Feedback from distribution channels
• Industry analysis

Once you have the lay of the land, you can start to analyze.

2. Conduct Internal & External Analysis

This phase is where you’ll contextualize the state of internal affairs with the external factors you need to consider. To do this, we recommend a SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

In a SWOT analysis, the first two letters concern your internal state and the last two concern the external state.

Internal

Start by fully understanding your company’s strengths and weaknesses. Examine things like product quality, customer service, and employees. Include objective metrics as well, such as profitability or other performance indicators.

External

Then, you can look at opportunities and threats from the outside. Examples of these may include new market opportunities, chances to grow, or opportunities to purchase competitors. Threats would be things like strong competition, increasing material costs, or legislative changes.

The SWOT analysis should leave you with a comfortable understanding of where your company sits in the broader marketplace both internally and externally.

3. Review Mission & Vision Statements

Your mission and vision statements are your guiding principles. If you don’t have them, we recommend you take this time to create them. If you already have these statements in place, it’s a good idea to refresh them as part of your strategic planning implementation.

Most companies will have a mission statement, but vision statements are less common. 

A mission statement:

• Focuses on today and describes an organization’s purpose or reason for existing. 
• Answers questions like: What is our purpose? What do we do? Why is it special to work here?
• Should be a short, concise, concrete statement that clearly defines the scope of your organization.

A vision statement:

• Focuses on tomorrow.
• Reveals what your business hopes to become and achieve in the long run.
• Synthesizes your ambition and mobilizes your staff.

With these guiding principles in place, your strategic planning will start to take shape.

4. Develop Strategies, Goals, & Actions

In this phase, you’ll focus on identifying specific strategies and articulating the goals and action items you’ll need to realize these targeted strategies.

Pick a Target

Start by looking at the opportunities you identified during your SWOT analysis. For each one, ask:

• Is it viable, given your current strengths and weaknesses?

• Does it fit your mission & vision statements?

• Which threats need to be mitigated to realize it?

For each opportunity you want to pursue, form a statement of intent. For example, “Prepare the organization for a successful leadership transition within the next two years.”

Take Aim

Now, you need to articulate how you plan to hit your target. We recommend that you identify strategic objectives in four main business areas. We’ll continue using the example of a leadership change:

1.  Financial: Prepare for the exit of current leadership (payouts).
2.  Customer: Introduce new leadership over time.
3.  Internal Processes: Prepare management for change in leadership through training/mentorship.
4.  People and Learning: Revise organizational structure to meet changes.

After setting goals, ensure you measure them with specific KPIs relevant to each department.

5. Executing the Plan

Typically, execution is the most difficult of the six steps. Successfully executing your plan will require:

• Ongoing communication
• Preparing your team for the process
• Driving accountability
• Properly measuring progress

Perhaps most importantly, it will require total commitment from your senior executives. That’s because they’ll be the ones driving action and attitudes. Without buy-in from the top, it will be impossible to shepherd the rest of the team.

6. Assessing & Adjusting

Strategic planning is a process that is never truly finished. Your organization’s strategic plan is a guiding, living document that evolves with your company and requires periodic adjusting.

We recommend that every six months or so, you reevaluate your strategy execution and ask yourself:

• Are my goals on track to be met by the timeframe established? If not, why?

• Should deadlines be modified?

• Should I change focus?

Eliminating egos is key at this stage. Changing course is often required, and the more flexible you can be in your approach, the better the odds that you’ll ultimately realize your objectives.

How CMTC Can Help With Your Strategic Planning

At CMTC, we understand that effective strategic planning requires a substantial commitment of time and effort. A strategic plan can help guide your organization to success if given the proper attention. However, small and medium-sized manufacturers may not have the resources or bandwidth necessary to engage in effective strategic planning. 

Fortunately, CMTC can step in and assist. Our expert consultants can help you understand, develop, implement, and monitor every component of your strategic plan.

Ready to get started? Contact us today!