It is an “organization management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results and assess and adjust the organizations direction in response to a changing environment” – Strategic Management Group.
What is strategic planning?
It is an “organization management activity that is used to set priorities, focus energy and resources, strengthen operations, ensure that employees and other stakeholders are working toward common goals, establish agreement around intended outcomes/results and assess and adjust the organizations direction in response to a changing environment” – Strategic Management Group.
Does this sound like something that you have implemented within your company? Most landscape companies would respond with a big fat “no”. Usually they are spending most of their time trying to manage the day to day of their business let alone be able to implement a strategic plan. Well if you want to be able to achieve your company goals and be able to measure those results so that you can improve your business, then I highly recommend you create one.
The big question always arises; how do I start my Strategic Plan?
First and foremost, we need to outline what we are looking to achieve and how we are going to achieve it. You want to break it down into individual goals, and create a strategic plan for each so that you can capture the big strategic picture. Take a look at the example below and try to create your own strategic plan.
Goals: What is my goal?
- You want to make sure that your goals are realistic and achievable, don’t set yourself up for failure.
- Retain more customers
Desired Outcome: What are my desired outcomes from this goal?
- To make more sales revenue
Strategies: How will I achieve your goal/outcomes?
- Build a sales process with an incentive plan for my sales people so that they are equipped with the right tools to sell to customers and be motivated to do so.
Measures & Targets: What will I monitor and measure to evaluate success?
- I will use software to measure and evaluate my sales people – what did they actually sell this year?
Results: How can we improve?
- Look back at what worked and what didn’t. Is there a process that is broken?
Use your strategic plan to communicate with the organization the organizations goals, the actions needed to achieve those goals and all of the other critical elements developed during the planning exercise.
