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How to plan long-term strategic goals in the company
Understand the importance of planning strategic objectives in the company and the benefits of performance indicators.
Isabel García
HR Consultant
17 of February, 2025
For a long time, businesses have striven to do things correctly according to their own commitment to customers and providing a service guarantee. In addition to this, customer interaction is required to give a satisfactory response in all cases.
Therefore, since the twenties to date, they have tried to plan competitive strategies in all markets. The variation with the rest of the competitors enabled businesses to encompass a greater business capacity. In this sense, for a business to achieve goals, it is necessary to know how to plan precise strategic objectives.
Definition of strategic planning
There are multiple definitions of the concept in question. One of them may indicate that strategic planning is the process by which business leaders organize their business objectives and their actions over time. It is not a domain by senior management, but a process of communication and decision-making in which all strategic levels of the company are involved.
In any case, planning refers, etymologically speaking, to establishing a plan with a view to the future. If we transfer this general definition to the scope of the organization, planning means implementing a needs forecast plan for the future. Plans should be expressed in a way that all employees understand them in nominal, graphic, and quantitative terms. Planning is the most efficient system to compare the achieved reality with the one previously estimated and, if necessary, to correct the company’s expectation. Within the planning process, we can distinguish three varied types of actions:
- Strategic planning: Sets the vision, mission, strategy, and policies of the organization in general.
- Tactical planning: Includes the implementation of the strategic plan, the setting of specific objectives for each area, for each department and employees. Also, the necessary steps to meet or exceed the goals, the development of a control calendar, performance evaluation, and the development of a budget.
- Operational Organization: It involves choosing how financial, material, and human resources will be used to ensure the delivery of services with greater effectiveness.
Types of strategic objective planning
Balanced Scorecard
This is a framework for strategy management which takes into account the following elements:
- Objectives: They are the high-level organizational goals.
- Measures: The metrics that help you understand if you are strategically on track to achieving your goal.
- Initiatives: They are key action programs that help you achieve the set objectives.
Strategic Map
This is a visual tool designed to communicate a strategic plan in detail and reach high-level business goals.
SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis, standing for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is a high-degree model used at the start of a company’s strategic planning.
PEST Analysis
The PEST analysis, standing for political, economic, socio-cultural, and technological, is often used together with the external factors of a SWOT analysis. Each of these factors is used to visualize an industrial or commercial environment and understand what could affect the health of the organization.
Gap Analysis
Gap analysis, also known as need gap analysis or strategic planning gap, is used to compare where a company is now, where it really wants to be, and how to close the gap between these comparisons.
Porter’s 5 Forces Analysis
This particular analysis was created around the forces that weaken the profitability of an industry or a market. The five forces it examines are: the threat of new competitors, of new products or services, the bargaining power of customers, of suppliers, and market rivalry and competition.
Steps to plan long-term strategic objectives
- Make a diagnosis of the current situation. The SWOT analysis is the first step you should take to plan strategic objectives. This involves analyzing companies from within to understand the current status.
- Define the organizational identity. To determine and highlight your company from the rest, it is necessary to implement an organizational philosophy (mission, vision, values). This is understood as the statement of the reason for being of your company and what it wants to transform into over time.
- Objectives and establishment of indicators. For a global goal to be scalable, small achievements must be established for each of the work groups to conquer. Remember that these objectives should be challenging, but at the same time realistic and that all collaborators are aware of them.
- Action plan. As soon as you know what the company’s position is regarding its objectives, competitors, and where it wants to go, it is important that you start executing the strategy based on an established calendar.
- Monitoring and evaluation. To finish, the periodicity to present the obtained results should be established and the viability of them should be identified. And through this, locate and interpret whether they are actually achievable or not, or if they require some modifications.
In short, planning strategic objectives is not something you do in five minutes, it requires time and preparation. But without a doubt, it can offer you countless benefits for your company. A good option to make your human resources tasks more bearable is to rely on the use of a human resources software like Sesame. This digital tool will save you a lot of time and you will be able to quickly create strategies to achieve your goals.
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