Unity University, Adama Campus

Strategic Planning at a Local Company

By the Use of the telephone contact with business owners or top managers, the group members
find an organization that does strategic planning. We made an appointment to visit with the
strategist (president, chief executive officer, or owner) of that business and tried to answer for
the following questions the following answers during the interview.
E How does your firm formally conduct strategic planning?
Based on the discussion the strategists told us how the firm formally conducts strategic planning
as follows:
Step 1: Determine Organizational Readiness
Set up their Planning Process for Success – Questions to Ask:
Are the conditions and criteria for successful planning in place at the current time? Can certain
pitfalls be avoided?
Is this the appropriate time for the organization to initiate a planning process? Yes or no? If no,
where do you go from here?
Step 2: Develop Team & Schedule
Who is going to be on firm strategic planning team? They need to choose someone to oversee the
implementation (Chief Strategy Officer or Strategy Director) and then they need some of the key
individuals and decision makers for this team.
Step 3: Collect Current Data
They collect the following information on their organization:
 The last strategic plan, even if it is not current
 Mission statement, vision statement, values statement
 Business plan
 Financial records for the last few years
 Marketing plan
 Other information, such as last year’s SWOT, sales figures and
 projections
Step 4: Review collected data:
They review the data collected in the last action with their strategy director and facilitator.
What trends do they see?

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Are there areas of obvious weakness or strengths?

Based on the above steps and questions the Strategists conduct successful strategy by using the
following and steps:

Phase 1: Determine our Strategic Position

Step 1: Identify Strategic Issues
Strategic issues are critical unknowns that are driving you to embark on a strategic planning
process now. These issues can be problems, opportunities, market shifts or anything else that is
keeping you awake at night and begging for a solution or decision.
Step 2: Conduct an Environmental Scan
Conducting an environmental scan will help you understand our operating environment. An
environmental scan is also referred to as a PEST analysis, which is an acronym for Political,
Economic, Social and Technological trends. Sometimes it is helpful to also include Ecological
and Legal trends as well. All of these trends play a part in determining the overall business
environment.
Step 3: Conduct a Competitive Analysis
The reason to do a competitive analysis is to assess the opportunities and threats that may occur
from those organizations competing for the same business you are. You need to have an
understanding of what our competitors are or aren’t offering our potential customers.
Step 4: Identify Opportunities and Threats
Opportunities are situations that exist but must be acted on if the business is to benefit from
them.
Step 5: Identify Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths refer to what our company does well.
Weaknesses refer to any limitations a company faces in developing or implementing a strategy.
Step 6: Customer Segments
Customer segmentation defines the different groups of people or organizations a company aims
to reach or serve.
Step 7: Develop SWOT

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A SWOT analysis is a quick way of examining our organization by looking at the internal
strengths and weaknesses in relation to the external opportunities and threats. By creating a
SWOT analysis, you can see all the important factors affecting our organization together in one
place. It’s easy to read, easy to communicate, and easy to create. Take the Strengths,
Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats you developed earlier, review, prioritize and combine
like terms.
E Who is involved in the process?
As the strategists told us, Employers, employees, and stakeholders in a company all play a
pivotal role in the strategic planning process.
E Does the firm hold planning retreats?
As the strategists told us yes they hold planning retreats.
E If yes, how often and where?
From half to three times from different halls with different concerned bodies for a review of the
mission, vision, and values, Assess the long-term business assumptions and conduct a traditional
SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, to Identify the long-term strategic objectives and to Set short-
term goals and action items if possible.
E Does our firm have a written mission statement?
Yes
E How was the statement developed?
Now having a better understanding of vision and mission statements, our organization has the
tools to develop unique statements. Because members of our organization feel the current
statements could be improved, this process can be easily used to modify the statement.
As developing the firm vision and mission statements is the first step in creating action plan, it is
especially important that these first steps are well grounded in community beliefs and values.
Awareness of the important issues in our community is critical for the development of a strong,
effective, and enduring action group.
There are many different ways gather this information, including:
Conducting "public forums" or "listening sessions" with members of the community to gather
ideas, thoughts, and opinions about how they would like to see the community transformed.
In public forums or listening sessions, people gather from throughout the community to talk
about what is important to them. These meetings are usually led by facilitators, who guide a

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discussion of what people perceive to be the community's strengths and problems, and what
people wish the community was like. Someone typically records these meetings, and a transcript
of what is said provides a basis for subsequent planning.
Holding focus groups with the people interested in addressing the issue(s), including community
leaders, people most affected by the issues, businesses, church leaders, teachers, etc.
Focus groups are similar to public forums and listening sessions, but they are smaller and more
intimate. Generally speaking, they are comprised of small groups of people with similar
backgrounds, so they feel comfortable talking openly about what concerns them.
Conducting Interviews
It’s important to realize that these different ways of gathering information from our community
are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you have the resources, it is recommended to do all of the
above: to have some time for the community at large to respond, then spend more time in focus
groups with the people you believe might contribute greatly to (or be most affected by) some of
the issues brought up in the public forum. And finally, some one-on-one time with community
leaders can strengthen their knowledge and purpose; remember, there are communities members
who have been wrestling with the same issues you are now looking at for a long time. Take
advantage of that experience so they don’t waste time on something that’s already been done.
E When the statement was last changed?
There are two ideal times to keep in mind to change the mission, including:
 A change in programming
Our organization has added, removed or completely changed one or more of our programs; it
could be the right time to change our mission statement too. A mission statement can also be
expanded or limited, depending on the shift our organization makes. Perhaps you want more
direct programming for a specific demographic, or you want to broaden our gaze to a wider
range of clients. Whatever the changes in programming, a mission statement can also be changed
to reflect them.
 A change in resources;
our non profit’s resources can greatly determine the scope of our mission statement. For instance,
the loss or gain of funding can have a significant impact in the community you work with. Or if
some staff members have left or joined the team that could also make a difference in where

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nonprofit’s resources go. When resources change dramatically, it might be best to reevaluate our
mission statement and see how resources can best be spent moving forward.
E What are the benefits of engaging in strategic planning?
As the strategists idea there are about top 5 benefits of strategic planning:
 It allows organizations to be proactive rather than reactive.
 It sets up a sense of direction
 It increases operational efficiency
 It helps to increase market share and profitability
 It can make a business more durable.
E What are the major costs or problems in doing strategic planning in your business?
1. Lack of obvious challenges clearly lay out
2. Ineffective training
3. Lack of resources
4. Lack of communication
5. Lack of follow through
E Do you anticipate making any changes in the strategic-planning process at your
company?
Yes
E If yes, please explain.
For strategic planning to be truly transformative, it takes a sense of urgency to drive
organizational change. Clear priorities, achievable goals, rapid iteration, and dynamic re-
visioning can accelerate the process in volatile times. A strategic planning process that
continuously monitors progress, evaluates outcomes, and forecasts time-to-value allows
organizations to pivot in anticipation of changing market conditions.

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