Strategic Planning: Its Definition and Overview in Organization

Generally, the definition of strategic planning is the planning process wherein the organization reviews the development directions (as to the goals, visions, missions, philosophy, values, objectives and strategies) on a certain course of action in the future to achieve organizational productivity and performance.

These are varied definitions of strategic planning :

1) It is the determination of the competitive advantage by looking into the present situation and future direction to pursue a course of action in the plan to enhance the productivity and performance of the organization.

2) It refers to the strategic direction of the plan through the formulation of the desired organizational goals for the implementation of the development programs and projects with competitive edge in the internal and external environment.

3) It studies the organizational process which is done through planning and organizing the desired resources as the road map on the strategic direction of the plan in the future.

4) It is a strategic process to determine the medium and long range goals of the plan as the best strategic approach in achieving the desired goals in the future.

The strategic planning has the following features :

1. It has to identify the strategic issues and concerns in the formulation of the desired future action.

The strategic issues and concerns are very critical in defining the desired future action of the organization. It has to define and understand the strategic weaknesses and threats of the environment to determine the future course of action as to the implementation of the strategic plan. The organization exists with the collective interest to provide the profits (return-of-investment) in the enterprise or business of certain goods and services in the competitive market.

It has to address the strategic issues and concerns as to the following conditions of the internal and external environment to become more globally competitive in the corporate world:

a) The organizational competitiveness of the internal environment to provide a responsive and competent human, financial, and management resource to survive and sustain the competitive world as the supplier of certain good s and services.

The strategic direction must address the professional competence of the human resources to achieve loyalty and satisfaction of the stakeholders and clients in providing quality service. It has to maintain sound financial resources to compete the capital-intensive market for a durable competitiveness that may economic and financially support corporate shocks. Furthermore, the management has the right way to manage in the planning, organizing, directing, executing, deciding , evaluating and monitoring in all management functions, processes and systems to sustain the survival of the organization

b) The organizational awareness of the external environment to provide a more responsive and receptive marketing and promotional strategy to get enough market shares in the production of goods and services.

The external environment has been the major force to respond the organizational operation as its main domain to survive the highly competitive environment as in getting enough market shares for the clients, customers and stakeholders. The organizational partnership, linkages and responsive technological fusion have to be addressed in this area.

2. It has to provide the environmental trends to possibly shift into a new direction to be more competitive and responsive in the market.

The environmental trends have to be analyzed in the SWOT analysis as to address the paradigm shift and continuous quality improvement, and benchmarking in the competitive market. The organizational research and development has been provided the main mechanism to support the competitive edge as the quality assurance has to be present in the product and service line in the market.

3. It has to identify the possible future strategic direction that may have not foreseen in the future.

The formulation and identification of the environmental direction of the organization may now be the basis of the strategic direction to ensure the competitive advantage of the organization. It has to identify the market strategy as to the possible future strategic direction including those alternative strategies that may affect the future as the dynamic forces of the turbulent environment remains the grave threats to all the competitor in the market.