strategic business plan content

How To Write A Strategic Plan That Gets Results + Examples

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the thought of writing a strategic plan for your business? Do you want to create a plan that will help you move your team forward with inspired alignment and disciplined execution? You're not alone.

Gone are the days of rigid, 5- or 10-year planning cycles that do not leave room for flexibility and innovation. To stay ahead of the curve, you need a dynamic and execution-ready strategic plan that can guide your business through the ever-evolving landscape.

At Cascade, we understand that writing a strategic plan can be dreadful, especially in today's unpredictable environment. That's why we've developed a simple model that can help you create a clear, actionable plan to achieve your organization's goals. With our tested and proven strategic planning template , you can write a strategic plan that is both adaptable and effective .

Whether you're a seasoned strategy professional or a fresh strategy planner, this guide will walk you through the process step-by-step on how to write a strategic plan. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive, easy-to-follow strategic plan that will help you align your organization on the path to success.

Follow this guide step-by-step or skip to the part you’re most interested in: 

• Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation

Cascade Model For Strategic Planning: What You Need To Know

• Key Elements of a Strategic Plan

How To Write A Strategic Plan In 6 Simple Steps

3 strategic plan examples to get you started, how to achieve organizational alignment with your strategic plan.

• Quick Overview of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Create An Execution-Ready Strategic Plan With Cascade 🚀

*Editor’s note: This article is part of our ‘How to create a Strategy’ collection. At the end of this article, you’ll find a link to each piece within this collection so you can dig deeper into each element of an effective strategic plan and more related resources to master strategy execution.

Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation 

Before we dive into writing a strategic plan, it's essential to know the basics you should cover before the planning phase. The pre-planning phase is where you'll begin to gather the data and strategic insights necessary to create an effective strategic plan.

1. Run a strategic planning workshop

The first step is to run a strategic planning workshop with your team. Get your team in the room, get their data, and gather their insights. By running this workshop, you'll foster collaboration and bring fresh perspectives to the table. And that’s not all. 

The process of co-creating and collaborating to put that plan together with stakeholders is one of the most critical factors in strategy execution . According to McKinsey’s research , initiatives in which employees contribute to development are 3.4 times more likely to be successful. They feel like the plan is a result of their efforts, and they feel ownership of it, so they're more likely to execute it. 

💡 Tip: Use strategy frameworks to structure your strategy development sessions, such as GAP analysis , SWOT analysis , Porter’s Five Forces , Ansoff matrix , McKinsey 7S model , or GE matrix . You can even apply the risk matrix that will help you align and decide on key strategic priorities.

2. Choose your strategic planning model

Before creating your strategic plan, you need to decide which structure you will use. There are hundreds of ways to structure a strategic plan. You’ve likely heard of famous strategic models such as OKRs and the Balanced Scorecard .

But beyond the well-known ones, there's also a myriad of other strategic planning models ranging from the extremely simple to the absurdly complex.

Many strategic models work reasonably well on paper, but in reality, they don't show you how to write a strategic plan that fits your organization's needs.

Here are some common weaknesses most popular strategic models have:

• They're too complicated. People get lost in terminology rather than focus on execution.
• They don’t scale. They work well for small organizations but fail when you try to extend them across multiple teams.
• They're too rigid. They force people to add layers for the sake of adding layers.
• They're neither tangible nor measurable. They’re great at stating outcomes but lousy at helping you measure success.
• They're not adaptable. As we saw in the last years, the business environment can change quickly. Your model needs to be able to work in your current situation and adapt to changing economic landscapes.

Our goal in this article is to give you a simpler, more effective way to write a strategic plan. This is a tested and proven strategic planning model that has been refined over years of working with +20,000 teams around the world. We call it the Cascade Strategy Model.

This approach has proven to be more effective than any other model we have tried when it comes to executing and implementing the strategy .

It’s easy to use and it works for small businesses, fast-growing startups, as well as multinationals trying to figure out how to write a fail-proof strategic plan.

We’ve created a simple diagram below to illustrate what a strategic plan following the Cascade Model will look like when it's completed:

Rather than a traditional roadmap , imagine your strategy as a flowchart. Each row is a mandatory step before moving on to the next.

We call our platform  Cascade for a reason: strategy must cascade throughout an organization along with values, focus areas, and objectives.

Above all, the Cascade Model is intended to be execution-ready —in other words, it has been proven to deliver success far beyond strategic planning. It adds to a successful strategic management process.Key elements of a Strategic Plan

Key Elements Of A Strategic Plan

The key elements of a strategic plan include: 

• Vision : Where do you want to get to? 
• Values : How will you behave on the journey? 
• Focus Areas : What are going to be your strategic priorities? 
• Strategic objectives : What do you want to achieve? 
• Actions and projects : How are you going to achieve the objectives? 
• KPIs : How will you measure success?

In this part of the article, we will give you an overview of each element within the Cascade Model. You can follow this step-by-step process in a spreadsheet , or sign up to get instant access to a free Cascade strategic planning template and follow along as we cover the key elements of an effective strategic plan.

Your vision statement is your organization's anchor - it defines where you want to get to and is the executive summary of your organization's purpose. Without it, your strategic plan is like a boat without a rudder, at the mercy of strong winds and currents like Covid and global supply chain disruptions.

A good vision statement can help funnel your strategy towards long-term goals that matter the most to your organization, and everything you write in your plan from this point on will help you get closer to achieving your vision.

Trying to do too much at once is a surefire way to sink your strategic plan. By creating a clear and inspiring vision statement , you can avoid this trap and provide guidance and inspiration for your team. A great vision statement might even help attract talent and investment into your organization.

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have a vision statement like, “To be the premier bike manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest.” This statement clearly articulates the organization's goals and is a powerful motivator for the team.

In short, don't start your strategic plan without a clear vision statement. It will keep your organization focused and help you navigate toward success.

📚 Recommended read: How to Write a Vision Statement (With Examples, Tips, and Formulas)

Values are the enablers of your vision statement —they represent how your organization will behave as you work towards your strategic goals. Unfortunately, many companies throw around meaningless words just for the purpose of PR, leading to a loss of credibility.

To avoid this, make sure to integrate your organization’s core values into everyday operations and interactions. In today's highly-competitive world, it's crucial to remain steadfast in your values and cultivate an organizational culture that's transparent and trustworthy.

Companies with the best company cultures consistently outperform competitors and their average market by up to 115.6%, as reported by Glassdoor . 

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have core values like:

• Accountability

These values reflect the organization's desire to become the leading bike manufacturer, while still being accountable to employees, customers, and shareholders.

👉 Here’s how to add vision and values to your strategic plan in Cascade: 

After you sign up and invite your team members to collaborate on the plan, navigate to Plans and Teams > Teams page, and add the vision, mission and values. This will help you to ensure that the company’s vision, mission statement, and values are always at top of mind for everyone.

📚When you're ready to start creating some company values, check out our guide, How To Create Company Values .

3. Focus Areas

Your focus areas are the strategic priorities that will keep your team on track and working toward the company’s mission and vision. They represent the high-level areas that you need to focus on to achieve desired business outcomes.

In fact, companies with clearly defined priorities are more likely to achieve their objectives. According to a case study by the Harvard Business Review , teams that focus on a small number of key initiatives are more likely to succeed than those that try to do too much. 

That’s also something that we usually recommend to our customers when they set up their strategic plan in Cascade. Rather than spreading your resources too thin over multiple focus areas, prioritize three to five. 

Following our manufacturing example above, some good focus areas include:

• Aggressive growth
• Producing the nation's best bikes
• Becoming a modern manufacturer
• Becoming a top place to work

Your focus areas should be tighter in scope than your vision statement, but broader than specific goals, time frames, or metrics. 

By defining your focus areas, you'll give your teams a guardrail to work within, which can help inspire innovation and creative problem-solving. 

With a clear set of focus areas, your team will be better able to prioritize their work and stay focused on the most important things, which will ultimately lead to better business results.

👉Here’s how you can set focus areas in Cascade: 

In Cascade, you can add focus areas while creating or importing an existing strategic plan from a spreadsheet. With Cascade’s Focus Area deep-dive functionality , you will be able to: 

• Review the health of your focus areas in one place.
• Get a breakdown by plans, budgets, resources, and people behind each strategic priority. 
• See something at-risk? Drill down into each piece of work regardless of how many plans it's a part of.

📚 Recommended read: Strategic Focus Areas: How to create them + Examples

4. Strategic Objectives

The importance of setting clear and specific objectives for your strategic plan cannot be overstated. 

Strategic objectives are the specific and measurable outcomes you want to achieve . While they should align with your focus areas, they should be more detailed and have a clear deadline. 

According to the 2022 State of High Performing Teams report , there is a strong correlation between goals and success not only at the individual and team level but also at the organizational level. Here’s what they found: 

• Employees who are unaware of their company's goals are over three times more likely to work at a company that is experiencing a decline in revenue than employees who are aware of the goals. 
• Companies with shrinking revenues are almost twice as likely to have employees with unclear work expectations. 

Jumping straight into actions without defining clear objectives is a common mistake that can lead to missed opportunities or misalignment between strategy and execution.

To avoid this pitfall, we recommend you add between three and six objectives to each focus area .

It's here that we need to start being a bit more specific for the first time in your strategic planning process . Let's take a look at an example of a well-written strategic objective:

• Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

This is too specific to be a focus area. While it's still very high level, it indicates what the company wants to accomplish and includes a clear deadline. Both these aspects are critical to a good strategic objective.

Your strategic objectives are the heart and soul of your plan, and you need to ensure they are well-crafted. So, take the time to create well-planned objectives that will help you achieve your vision and lead your organization to success. 

👉Here’s how you can set objectives in Cascade: 

Adding objectives in Cascade is intuitive, straightforward, and accessible from almost anywhere in the workspace. With one click, you’ll open the objective sidebar and fill out the details. These can include a timeline, the objective’s owner, collaborators, and how your objective will be measured (success criteria).

📚 Recommended read: What are Strategic Objectives? How to write them + Examples

5. Actions and projects

Once you’ve defined your strategic objectives, the next step is to identify the specific strategic initiatives or projects that will help you achieve those objectives . They are short-term goals or actionable steps you or your team members will take to accomplish objectives. They should leverage the company’s resources and core competencies. 

Effective projects and actions in your strategic plan should: 

• Be extremely specific. 
• Contain a deadline.
• Have an owner.
• Align with at least one of your strategic objectives.
• Provide clarity on how you or your team will achieve the strategic objective.

Let's take a look at an example of a well-written project continuing with our bike manufacturing company using the strategic objective from above:

Strategic objective: Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

Project: Expand into the fixed gear market by 31st December 2023.

This is more specific than the objective it links to, and it details what you will do to achieve the objective.

Another common problem area for strategic plans is that they never quite get down to the detail of what you're going to do.

It's easier to state "we need to grow our business," but without concrete projects and initiatives, those plans will sit forever within their PowerPoint templates, never to see the light of day after their initial creation.

Actions and projects are where the rubber meets the road. They connect the organizational strategic goals with the actual capabilities of your people and the resources at their disposal. Defining projects is a vital reality check every strategic plan needs.

👉Here’s how you create actions and projects in Cascade: 

From the Objective sidebar, you can choose to add a project or action under your chosen objective. In the following steps, you can assign an owner and timeline to each action or project.

Plus, in Cascade, you can track the progress of each project or action in four different ways. You can do it manually, via milestones, checklists, or automatically by integrating with Jira and 1000+ other available integrations .  

📚 Recommended read: How to create effective projects

Measuring progress towards strategic objectives is essential to effective strategic control and business success. That's where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. KPIs are measurable values that track progress toward achieving key business objectives . They keep you on track and help you stay focused on the goals you set for your organization.

To get the most out of your KPIs, make sure you link them to a specific goal or objective. In this way, you'll avoid creating KPIs that don't contribute to your objectives and distract you from focusing on what matters. 

Ideally, you will add both leading and lagging KPIs to each objective so you can get a more balanced view of how well you're progressing. Leading KPIs can indicate future performance while lagging KPIs show how well you’ve done in the past. Both types of KPIs are critical for operational planning and keeping your business on track.

Think of KPIs as a form of signpost in your organization. They provide critical insights that inform business leaders of their organization’s progress toward key business objectives. Plus, they can help you identify opportunities faster and capitalize on flexibility. 

👉Here’s how you can set and track KPIs in Cascade: 

In Cascade , you can add measures while creating your objectives or add them afterward. Open the Objective sidebar and add your chosen measure. 

When you create your Measure, you can choose how to track it. Using Cascade, you can track it manually or automatically. You can automate tracking via 1000+ integrations , including Excel spreadsheets and Google Sheets. In this way, you can save time and ensure that your team has up-to-date information for faster and more confident decision-making.

📚 Recommended reads:

• 10 Popular KPI Software Tools To Connect & Visualize Your Data (2023 Guide)
• ‍ How To Track KPIs To Hit Your Business Goals

Corporate Strategic Plan 

Following the steps outlined above, you should end up with a strategic plan that looks something like this:

This is a preview of a corporate strategic plan template that is pre-filled with examples. Here you can use the template for free and begin filling it out to align with your organization's needs. Plus, it’s suitable for organizations of all sizes and any industry. 

Once you fill in the template, you can also switch to the timeline view. You’ll get a complete overview of how the different parts of your plan are distributed across the roadmap in a Gantt chart view.

This template will help you create a structured approach to the strategic planning process, focus on key strategic priorities, and drive accountability to achieve necessary business outcomes. 

👉 Get your free corporate strategic plan template here.

Coca-Cola Strategic Plan 

Need a bit of extra inspiration to start writing your organization’s strategic plan? Check out this strategic plan example, inspired by Coca-Cola’s business plan: 

This template is pre-filled with Coca-Cola’s examples so you can inspire your strategic success on one of the most iconic brands on the planet. 

👉 Grab your free example of a Coca-Cola strategic plan here.

The Ramsay Health Care expansion strategy

Ramsay Health Care is a multinational healthcare provider with a strong presence in Australia, Europe, and Asia.

Almost all of its growth was organic and strategic. The company founded its headquarters in Sydney, Australia, but in the 21st century, it decided to expand globally through a primary strategy of making brownfield investments and acquisitions in key locations.

Ramsay's strategy was simple yet clever. By becoming a majority shareholder of the biggest local players, the company expanded organically in each region by leveraging and expanding their expertise.

Over the last two decades, Ramsay's global network has grown to 460 locations across 10 countries with over $13 billion in annual revenue.

📚 Recommended read: Strategy study: The Ramsay Health Care Growth Study

✨ Bonus resource: We've created a list of the most popular and free strategic plan templates in our library that will help you build a strategic plan based on the Cascade model explained in this article. You can use these templates to create a plan on a corporate, business unit, or team level.

We highlighted before that other strategic models often fail to scale strategic plans and goals scales across multiple teams and organizational levels. 

In an ideal world, you want to have a maximum of two layers of detail underneath each of your focus areas. This means you'll have a focus area, followed by a layer of objectives. Underneath the objectives, you'll have a layer of actions, projects, and KPIs.

If you have a single team that’s responsible for the strategy execution, this works well. However, how do you implement a strategy across multiple and cross-functional teams? And why is it important? 

According to LSA research of 410 companies across 8 industries, highly aligned companies grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable. And this is what Cascade can help you achieve. 

To achieve achieve organization-wide alignment with your strategic plan and impact the bottom line, there are two ways to approach it in Casade: through contributing objectives or shared objectives .

1. Contributing objectives

This approach involves adding contributing objectives that link to your main strategic objectives, like this:

For each contributing objective, you simply repeat the Objective → Action/Project → KPI structure as follows:

Here's how you can create contributing objectives in Cascade: 

Option A: Create contributing objectives within the same plan 

This means creating multiple contributing objectives within the same strategic plan that contribute to the main objective. 

However, be aware that if you have a lot of layers, your strategic plan can become cluttered, and people might have difficulty understanding how their daily efforts contribute to the strategic plan at the top level. 

For example, the people responsible for managing contributing objectives at the bottom of the plan ( functional / operational level ) will lose visibility on how are their objectives linked to the main focus areas and objectives (at a corporate / business level ). 

This approach is best suited to smaller organizations that only need to add a few layers of objectives to their plan.

Option B: Create contributing objectives from multiple plans linking to the main objective

This approach creates a network of aligned strategic plans within your organization. Each plan contains a set of focus areas and one single layer of objectives, each with its own set of projects, actions, and KPIs. This concept looks like this:

This example illustrates an objective that is a main objective in the IT strategic plan , but also contributes to the main strategic plan's objective.

For example, let’s say that your main business objective is to improve customer satisfaction by reducing product delivery time by 25% in the next quarter. This objective requires multiple operational teams within your organization to work together to achieve a shared objective. 

Each team will create its own objective in its plan to contribute to the main objective: 

• Logistics team: Reduce the shipment preparation time by 30%
• IT team: Implement new technology to reduce manual handling in the warehouse
• Production team: Increase production output by hour for 5%   

Here’s how this example would look like within Cascade platform:

Although each contributing objective was originally created in its own plan, you can see how each contributing objective relates to the main strategic objective and its status in real-time.

2. Shared objectives

In Cascade, shared objectives are the same objectives shared across different strategic plans.

For example, you can have an objective that is “Achieve sustainable operations”. This objective can be part of the Corporate Strategy Plan, but also part of the Operations Plan , Supply Chain Plan , Production Plan, etc. In short, this objective becomes a shared objective between multiple teams and strategic plan. 

This approach helps you to:

• Cascade your business strategy as deep as you want across a near-infinite number of people while maintaining strategic alignment throughout your organization .
• Create transparency and a much higher level of engagement in the strategy throughout your organization since objective owners are able to identify how their shared efforts contribute to the success of the main business objectives.

The more shared objectives you have across your organization, the more your teams will be aligned with the overarching business strategy. This is what we call " alignment health ”. 

Here’s how you can see the shared objectives in the alignment map and analyze alignment health within Cascade:

You get a snapshot of how is your corporate strategic plan aligned with sub-plans from different business units or departments and the status of shared objectives. This helps you quickly identify misaligned initiatives and act before it’s too late.  Plus, cross-functional teams have better visibility of how their efforts contribute to shared objectives. 

So whether you choose contributing objectives or shared objectives, Cascade has the tools and features to help you achieve organization-wide alignment and boost your bottom line.

Quick Overview Of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Here’s a quick infographic to help you remember how everything connects and why each element is critical to creating an effective strategic plan:

This simple answer to how to write a strategic plan avoids confusing jargon and has elements that the whole organization can both get behind and understand. 

💡Tip: Save this image or bookmark this article for your next strategic planning session.

If you're struggling to write an execution-ready strategic plan, the Cascade model is the solution you've been looking for. With its clear, easy-to-understand terminology, and simple linkages between objectives, projects, and KPIs, you can create a plan that's both scalable and flexible.

But why is a flexible and execution-ready strategic plan so important? It's simple: without a clear and actionable plan, you'll never be able to achieve your business objectives. By using the Cascade Strategic Planning Model, you'll be able to create a plan that's both tangible and measurable, with KPIs that help you track progress towards your goals.

However, the real value of the Cascade framework lies in its flexibility . By creating links between main business objectives and your teams’ objectives, you can easily scale your plan without losing focus. Plus, the model's structure of linked layers means that you can always adjust your strategy in response to new challenges or opportunities and keep everyone on the same page. 

So if you want to achieve results with your strategic plan, start using Cascade today. With its unique combination of flexibility and focus, it's the perfect tool for any organization looking to master strategy execution and succeed in today's fast-paced business world. 

Want to see Cascade in action? Get started for free or book a 1:1 demo with Cascade’s in-house strategy expert.

This article is part one of our mini-series "How to Write a Strategic Plan". This first article will give you a solid strategy model for your plan and get the strategic thinking going.

Think of it as the foundation for your new strategy. Subsequent parts of the series will show you how to create the content for your strategic plan.

Articles in our How to Write a Strategic Plan series

• How To Write A Strategic Plan: The Cascade Model (This article)
• How to Write a Good Vision Statement
• How To Create Company Values
• Creating Strategic Focus Areas
• How To Write Strategic Objective
• How To Create Effective Projects
• How To Write KPIs + Ultimate Guide To Strategic Planning

More resources on strategic planning and strategy execution: 

• 6 Steps to Successful Strategy Execution
• 4-Step Strategy Reporting Process (With Template)
• Annual Planning: Plan Like a Pro In 5 Steps (+ Template) 
• 18 Free Strategic Plan Templates (Excel & Cascade) 2023
• The Right Way To Set Team Goals
• 23 Best Strategy Tools For Your Organization in 2023

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Why You Need a Strategic Business Plan And How to Actually Write One

Chris Leadley

[email protected]

A strategic business plan is a critical document for any organisation, regardless of its size or industry.

It outlines the company’s vision, mission, and objectives, as well as the strategies and tactics that will be used to achieve them. It also establishes a system for monitoring and measuring progress and making adjustments as needed.

Having a well-written and well-executed strategic business plan is essential for a business to succeed. It provides a clear roadmap for growth and helps to ensure that the business is making the most of its resources, including time, money, and talent.

Strategic business planning

A strategic business plan also helps to align the efforts of all stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, and customers, towards a common goal. In today’s fast-paced business environment, having a strategic plan can give a business a competitive edge, and help it to achieve its goals and objectives.

A good planning framework that can be used to create a strategic business plan is PR Smith’s SOSTAC®  Planning Framework – Situation, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Action, Control.

There is more information about the SOSTAC® Planning Framework here .

PR Smith’s SOSTAC®  planning framework

Here’s a brief guide on how to use SOSTAC® to write a strategic business plan:

Begin by analysing the current situation of your business. This includes analysing the external and internal factors that may be impacting your business, such as the economic environment, competitors, and current market trends. This step will give you a clear understanding of where your business stands and where it needs to go.

Objectives:

Once you have a clear understanding of the current situation, set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) objectives for your business. These objectives should align with your overall vision and mission and should be specific to different areas of your business, such as sales, marketing, and operations.

Based on your objectives, develop strategies that will help you achieve them. These strategies should be aligned with your overall vision and mission and should take into account the current situation of your business.

Once you have developed your strategies, develop specific tactics that will help you implement them. These tactics should be specific, actionable, and measurable and should align with your overall strategy.

Once you have developed your tactics, create an action plan that outlines the specific actions that need to be taken to implement them. This should include who will be responsible for each action, when it will be completed, and any resources that will be required.

Finally, establish a system for monitoring and measuring the progress of your plan. This should include specific metrics that will be used to track progress and regular reviews to ensure that the plan is on track. Any necessary adjustments should be made based on the results of the review.

By using the SOSTAC®  framework, it ensures that your business plan is well-structured and covers all the important elements. Additionally, it is also a useful tool for monitoring and measuring progress, making adjustments as needed, and keeping your plan on track to achieve your objectives.

Make a strategic change in your business

If you are looking to drive more sales, increase profit, and improve your business’ performance then our Strategic Business Review will help you identify where more sales can be made, how to maximise your profits, and improve your business’ performance.

Find out more about our Strategic Business Review →

Further references

1. SOSTAC® Video (4 mins from PR Smith)  www.PRSmith.org/SOSTAC  (scroll to bottom) 2. SOSTAC® Guide to your Perfect Digital Marketing Plan (2020)  book 3. SOSTAC® Blog (posts from PR Smith):  www.PRSmith.org/blog 4. SOSTAC® Groups are also on  Facebook  &  Linkedin 5. SOSTAC®  Instagram   https://www.instagram.com/sostac_planning/

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Essential Guide to the Strategic Planning Process

By Joe Weller | April 3, 2019 (updated March 26, 2024)

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In this article, you’ll learn the basics of the strategic planning process and how a strategic plan guides you to achieving your organizational goals. Plus, find expert insight on getting the most out of your strategic planning.

Included on this page, you'll discover the importance of strategic planning , the steps of the strategic planning process , and the basic sections to include in your strategic plan .

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organizational activity that aims to achieve a group’s goals. The process helps define a company’s objectives and investigates both internal and external happenings that might influence the organizational path. Strategic planning also helps identify adjustments that you might need to make to reach your goal. Strategic planning became popular in the 1960s because it helped companies set priorities and goals, strengthen operations, and establish agreement among managers about outcomes and results.

Strategic planning can occur over multiple years, and the process can vary in length, as can the final plan itself. Ideally, strategic planning should result in a document, a presentation, or a report that sets out a blueprint for the company’s progress.

By setting priorities, companies help ensure employees are working toward common and defined goals. It also aids in defining the direction an enterprise is heading, efficiently using resources to achieve the organization’s goals and objectives. Based on the plan, managers can make decisions or allocate the resources necessary to pursue the strategy and minimize risks.

Strategic planning strengthens operations by getting input from people with differing opinions and building a consensus about the company’s direction. Along with focusing energy and resources, the strategic planning process allows people to develop a sense of ownership in the product they create.

“Strategic planning is not really one thing. It is really a set of concepts, procedures, tools, techniques, and practices that have to be adapted to specific contexts and purposes,” says Professor John M. Bryson, McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota and author of Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Guide to Strengthening and Sustaining Organizational Achievement . “Strategic planning is a prompt to foster strategic thinking, acting, and learning, and they all matter and they are all connected.”

What Strategic Planning Is Not

Strategic planning is not a to-do list for the short or long term — it is the basis of a business, its direction, and how it will get there.

“You have to think very strategically about strategic planning. It is more than just following steps,” Bryson explains. “You have to understand strategic planning is not some kind of magic solution to fixing issues. Don’t have unrealistic expectations.”

Strategic planning is also different from a business plan that focuses on a specific product, service, or program and short-term goals. Rather, strategic planning means looking at the big picture.

While they are related, it is important not to confuse strategic planning with strategic thinking, which is more about imagining and innovating in a way that helps a company. In contrast, strategic planning supports those thoughts and helps you figure out how to make them a reality.

Another part of strategic planning is tactical planning , which involves looking at short-term efforts to achieve longer-term goals.

Lastly, marketing plans are not the same as strategic plans. A marketing plan is more about introducing and delivering a service or product to the public instead of how to grow a business. For more about marketing plans and processes, read this article .

Strategic plans include information about finances, but they are different from financial planning , which involves different processes and people. Financial planning templates can help with that process.

Why Is Strategic Planning Important?

In today’s technological age, strategic plans provide businesses with a path forward. Strategic plans help companies thrive, not just survive — they provide a clear focus, which makes an organization more efficient and effective, thereby increasing productivity.

“You are not going to go very far if you don’t have a strategic plan. You need to be able to show where you are going,” says Stefan Hofmeyer, an experienced strategist and co-founder of Global PMI Partners . He lives in the startup-rich environment of northern California and says he often sees startups fail to get seed money because they do not have a strong plan for what they want to do and how they want to do it.

Getting team members on the same page (in both creating a strategic plan and executing the plan itself) can be beneficial for a company. Planners can find satisfaction in the process and unite around a common vision. In addition, you can build strong teams and bridge gaps between staff and management.

“You have to reach agreement about good ideas,” Bryson says. “A really good strategy has to meet a lot of criteria. It has to be technically workable, administratively feasible, politically acceptable, and legally, morally, and ethically defensible, and that is a pretty tough list.”

By discussing a company’s issues during the planning process, individuals can voice their opinions and provide information necessary to move the organization ahead — a form of problem solving as a group.

Strategic plans also provide a mechanism to measure success and progress toward goals, which keeps employees on the same page and helps them focus on the tasks at hand.

When Is the Time to Do Strategic Planning?

There is no perfect time to perform strategic planning. It depends entirely on the organization and the external environment that surrounds it. However, here are some suggestions about when to plan:

If your industry is changing rapidly

When an organization is launching

At the start of a new year or funding period

In preparation for a major new initiative

If regulations and laws in your industry are or will be changing

“It’s not like you do all of the thinking and planning, and then implement,” Bryson says. “A mistake people make is [believing] the thinking has to precede the acting and the learning.”

Even if you do not re-create the entire planning process often, it is important to periodically check your plan and make sure it is still working. If not, update it.

What Is the Strategic Planning Process?

Strategic planning is a process, and not an easy one. A key is to make sure you allow enough time to complete the process without rushing, but not take so much time that you lose momentum and focus. The process itself can be more important than the final document due to the information that comes out of the discussions with management, as well as lower-level workers.

“There is not one favorite or perfect planning process,” says Jim Stockmal, president of the Association for Strategic Planning (ASP). He explains that new techniques come out constantly, and consultants and experienced planners have their favorites. In an effort to standardize the practice and terms used in strategic planning, ASP has created two certification programs .

Level 1 is the Strategic Planning Professional (SPP) certification. It is designed for early- or mid-career planners who work in strategic planning. Level 2, the Strategic Management Professional (SMP) certification, is geared toward seasoned professionals or those who train others. Stockmal explains that ASP designed the certification programs to add structure to the otherwise amorphous profession.

The strategic planning process varies by the size of the organization and can be formal or informal, but there are constraints. For example, teams of all sizes and goals should build in many points along the way for feedback from key leaders — this helps the process stay on track.

Some elements of the process might have specific start and end points, while others are continuous. For example, there might not be one “aha” moment that suddenly makes things clear. Instead, a series of small moves could slowly shift the organization in the right direction.

“Don’t make it overly complex. Bring all of the stakeholders together for input and feedback,” Stockmal advises. “Always be doing a continuous environmental scan, and don’t be afraid to engage with stakeholders.”

Additionally, knowing your company culture is important. “You need to make it work for your organization,” he says.

There are many different ways to approach the strategic planning process. Below are three popular approaches:

Goals-Based Planning: This approach begins by looking at an organization’s mission and goals. From there, you work toward that mission, implement strategies necessary to achieve those goals, and assign roles and deadlines for reaching certain milestones.

Issues-Based Planning: In this approach, start by looking at issues the company is facing, then decide how to address them and what actions to take.

Organic Planning: This approach is more fluid and begins with defining mission and values, then outlining plans to achieve that vision while sticking to the values.

“The approach to strategic planning needs to be contingent upon the organization, its history, what it’s capable of doing, etc.,” Bryson explains. “There’s such a mistake to think there’s one approach.”

For more information on strategic planning, read about how to write a strategic plan and the different types of models you can use.

Who Participates in the Strategic Planning Process?

For work as crucial as strategic planning, it is necessary to get the right team together and include them from the beginning of the process. Try to include as many stakeholders as you can.

Below are suggestions on who to include:

Senior leadership

Strategic planners

Strategists

People who will be responsible for implementing the plan

People to identify gaps in the plan

Members of the board of directors

“There can be magic to strategic planning, but it’s not in any specific framework or anybody’s 10-step process,” Bryson explains. “The magic is getting key people together, getting them to focus on what’s important, and [getting] them to do something about it. That’s where the magic is.”

Hofmeyer recommends finding people within an organization who are not necessarily current leaders, but may be in the future. “Sometimes they just become obvious. Usually they show themselves to you, you don’t need to look for them. They’re motivated to participate,” he says. These future leaders are the ones who speak up at meetings or on other occasions, who put themselves out there even though it is not part of their job description.

At the beginning of the process, establish guidelines about who will be involved and what will be expected of them. Everyone involved must be willing to cooperate and collaborate. If there is a question about whether or not to include anyone, it is usually better to bring on extra people than to leave someone out, only to discover later they should have been a part of the process all along. Not everyone will be involved the entire time; people will come and go during different phases.

Often, an outside facilitator or consultant can be an asset to a strategic planning committee. It is sometimes difficult for managers and other employees to sit back and discuss what they need to accomplish as a company and how they need to do it without considering other factors. As objective observers, outside help can often offer insight that may escape insiders.

Hofmeyer says sometimes bosses have blinders on that keep them from seeing what is happening around them, which allows them to ignore potential conflicts. “People often have their own agendas of where they want to go, and if they are not aligned, it is difficult to build a strategic plan. An outsider perspective can really take you out of your bubble and tell you things you don’t necessarily want to hear [but should]. We get into a rhythm, and it’s really hard to step out of that, so bringing in outside people can help bring in new views and aspects of your business.”

An outside consultant can also help naysayers take the process more seriously because they know the company is investing money in the efforts, Hofmeyer adds.

No matter who is involved in the planning process, make sure at least one person serves as an administrator and documents all planning committee actions.

What Is in a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan communicates goals and what it takes to achieve them. The plan sometimes begins with a high-level view, then becomes more specific. Since strategic plans are more guidebooks than rulebooks, they don’t have to be bureaucratic and rigid. There is no perfect plan; however, it needs to be realistic.

There are many sections in a strategic plan, and the length of the final document or presentation will vary. The names people use for the sections differ, but the general ideas behind them are similar: Simply make sure you and your team agree on the terms you will use and what each means.

One-Page Strategic Planning Template

“I’m a big fan of getting a strategy onto one sheet of paper. It’s a strategic plan in a nutshell, and it provides a clear line of sight,” Stockmal advises.

You can use the template below to consolidate all your strategic ideas into a succinct, one-page strategic plan. Doing so provides you with a high-level overview of your strategic initiatives that you can place on your website, distribute to stakeholders, and refer to internally. More extensive details about implementation, capacity, and other concerns can go into an expanded document.

Download One-Page Strategic Planning Template Excel | Word | Smartsheet

The most important part of the strategic plan is the executive summary, which contains the highlights of the plan. Although it appears at the beginning of the plan, it should be written last, after you have done all your research.

Of writing the executive summary, Stockmal says, “I find it much easier to extract and cut and edit than to do it first.”

For help with creating executive summaries, see these templates .

Other parts of a strategic plan can include the following:

Description: A description of the company or organization.

Vision Statement: A bold or inspirational statement about where you want your company to be in the future.

Mission Statement: In this section, describe what you do today, your audience, and your approach as you work toward your vision.

Core Values: In this section, list the beliefs and behaviors that will enable you to achieve your mission and, eventually, your vision.

Goals: Provide a few statements of how you will achieve your vision over the long term.

Objectives: Each long-term goal should have a few one-year objectives that advance the plan. Make objectives SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, and time-based) to get the most out of them.

Budget and Operating Plans: Highlight resources you will need and how you will implement them.

Monitoring and Evaluation: In this section, describe how you will check your progress and determine when you achieve your goals.

One of the first steps in creating a strategic plan is to perform both an internal and external analysis of the company’s environment. Internally, look at your company’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the personal values of those who will implement your plan (managers, executives, board members). Externally, examine threats and opportunities within the industry and any broad societal expectations that might exist.

You can perform a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis to sum up where you are currently and what you should focus on to help you achieve your future goals. Strengths shows you what you do well, weaknesses point out obstacles that could keep you from achieving your objectives, opportunities highlight where you can grow, and threats pinpoint external factors that could be obstacles in your way.

You can find more information about performing a SWOT analysis and free templates in this article . Another analysis technique, STEEPLE (social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal, and ethical), often accompanies a SWOT analysis.

Basics of Strategic Planning

How you navigate the strategic planning process will vary. Several tools and techniques are available, and your choice depends on your company’s leadership, culture, environment, and size, as well as the expertise of the planners.

All include similar sections in the final plan, but the ways of driving those results differ. Some tools are goals-based, while others are issues- or scenario-based. Some rely on a more organic or rigid process.

Hofmeyer summarizes what goes into strategic planning:

Understand the stakeholders and involve them from the beginning.

Agree on a vision.

Hold successful meetings and sessions.

Summarize and present the plan to stakeholders.

Identify and check metrics.

Make periodic adjustments.

Items That Go into Strategic Planning

Strategic planning contains inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. Inputs and activities are elements that are internal to the company, while outputs and outcomes are external.

Remember, there are many different names for the sections of strategic plans. The key is to agree what terms you will use and define them for everyone involved.

Inputs are important because it is impossible to know where you are going until you know what is around you where you are now.

Companies need to gather data from a variety of sources to get a clear look at the competitive environment and the opportunities and risks within that environment. You can think of it like a competitive intelligence program.

Data should come from the following sources:

Interviews with executives

A review of documents about the competition or market that are publicly available

Primary research by visiting or observing competitors

Studies of your industry

The values of key stakeholders

This information often goes into writing an organization’s vision and mission statements.

Activities are the meetings and other communications that need to happen during the strategic planning process to help everyone understand the competition that surrounds the organization.

It is important both to understand the competitive environment and your company’s response to it. This is where everyone looks at and responds to the data gathered from the inputs.

The strategic planning process produces outputs. Outputs can be as basic as the strategic planning document itself. The documentation and communications that describe your organization’s strategy, as well as financial statements and budgets, can also be outputs.

The implementation of the strategic plan produces outcomes (distinct from outputs). The outcomes determine the success or failure of the strategic plan by measuring how close they are to the goals and vision you outline in your plan.

It is important to understand there will be unplanned and unintended outcomes, too. How you learn from and adapt to these changes influence the success of the strategic plan.

During the planning process, decide how you will measure both the successes and failures of different parts of the strategic plan.

Sharing, Evaluating, and Monitoring the Progress of a Strategic Plan

After companies go through a lengthy strategic planning process, it is important that the plan does not sit and collect dust. Share, evaluate, and monitor the plan to assess how you are doing and make any necessary updates.

“[Some] leaders think that once they have their strategy, it’s up to someone else to execute it. That’s a mistake I see,” Stockmal says.

The process begins with distributing and communicating the plan. Decide who will get a copy of the plan and how those people will tell others about it. Will you have a meeting to kick off the implementation? How will you specify who will do what and when? Clearly communicate the roles people will have.

“Before you communicate the plan [to everyone], you need to have the commitment of stakeholders,” Hofmeyer recommends. Have the stakeholders be a part of announcing the plan to everyone — this keeps them accountable because workers will associate them with the strategy. “That applies pressure to the stakeholders to actually do the work.”

Once the team begins implementation, it’s necessary to have benchmarks to help measure your successes against the plan’s objectives. Sometimes, having smaller action plans within the larger plan can help keep the work on track.

During the planning process, you should have decided how you will measure success. Now, figure out how and when you will document progress. Keep an eye out for gaps between the vision and its implementation — a big gap could be a sign that you are deviating from the plan.

Tools are available to assist with tracking performance of strategic plans, including several types of software. “For some organizations, a spreadsheet is enough, but you are going to manually enter the data, so someone needs to be responsible for that,” Stockmal recommends.

Remember: strategic plans are not written in stone. Some deviation will be necessary, and when it happens, it’s important to understand why it occurred and how the change might impact the company's vision and goals.

Deviation from the plan does not mean failure, reminds Hofmeyer. Instead, understanding what transpired is the key. “Things happen, [and] you should always be on the lookout for that. I’m a firm believer in continuous improvement,” he says. Explain to stakeholders why a change is taking place. “There’s always a sense of re-evaluation, but do it methodically.”

Build in a schedule to review and amend the plan as necessary; this can help keep companies on track.

What Is Strategic Management?

Strategic planning is part of strategic management, and it involves the activities that make the strategic plan a reality. Essentially, strategic management is getting from the starting point to the goal effectively and efficiently using the ongoing activities and processes that a company takes on in order to keep in line with its mission, vision, and strategic plan.

“[Strategic management] closes the gap between the plan and executing the strategy,” Stockmal of ASP says. Strategic management is part of a larger planning process that includes budgeting, forecasting, capital allocation, and more.

There is no right or wrong way to do strategic management — only guidelines. The basic phases are preparing for strategic planning, creating the strategic plan, and implementing that plan.

No matter how you manage your plan, it’s key to allow the strategic plan to evolve and grow as necessary, due to both the internal and external factors.

“We get caught up in all of the day-to-day issues,” Stockmal explains, adding that people do not often leave enough time for implementing the plan and making progress. That’s what strategic management implores: doing things that are in the plan and not letting the plan sit on a shelf.

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How to make a business plan

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

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How to Develop a Content Strategy in 7 Steps: A Start-to-Finish Guide

Published: April 10, 2024

Whether you‘re just starting out with content marketing or you’ve been using the same approach for a while, it never hurts to revisit your content strategy plan and make sure it's innovative and engaging for your prospects and customers.

If you're having trouble planning for the upcoming year or need some fresh ideas to include in your plan, read on.

In this post, we'll dive into what content strategy is, why your business needs a content marketing plan, and what steps you need to take to create your strategy.

Plus, we'll explore some examples of effective content marketing strategies for inspiration.

Table of Contents

What is content strategy?

Why marketers need to create a content marketing strategy, elements of a content strategy plan, how to create a content strategy framework.

• Content Marketing Strategy Statistics 

Questions to Ask When Creating a Content Strategy

Content strategy template, content marketing strategy example, content strategy tactics.

A content strategy is the planning, creation, publication, management, and governance of content. A great content strategy will attract and engage a target audience, meeting their needs while driving business goals.

Say your business goals include increasing brand awareness.

To achieve this, you might implement a content strategy that focuses on SEO to increase your website's visibility on the search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive traffic to your products or services.

New business owners might assume a content strategy is a nice-to-have, but not necessary early on. However, producing high-quality content can be invaluable in building trust with new audiences and succeeding in the long haul.

In essence, a good content strategy is the foundation of your Attract and Delight stages in a buyer's journey that follows the inbound marketing framework.

Along with attracting prospects to your brand, you can leverage a content strategy for sales enablement and customer satisfaction.

Plus, with 70% of marketers actively investing in content marketing , it's critical to develop a good content strategy to compete in your industry.

Content Marketing Planning Templates

Plan your content strategically with these handy templates.

• Editorial Calendar Template
• Buyer Persona Templates
• SWOT Analysis Templates
• SMART Goal Template

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

A couple of years ago, I worked as a content writer for a literary company that just launched.

Despite all the meetings the team had before the launch, the founder and CEO of the company didn’t understand why it was important to create a content marketing strategy we’d adhere to when the website went live.

Three months after the launch, the CEO called another meeting and expressed their dissatisfaction with the poor performance so far.

Both the website and the company’s social media profiles were receiving crickets by way of organic traffic, and the paid ads were not converting at all.

I suggested that we create a content strategy plan for the next quarter and see what happens.

We did that, and sure enough, by the end of Q2, we recorded an increase in traffic and conversions from both the website and social media profiles.

No matter the kind of company or industry you work in, a content marketing strategy is integral for the success of your digital marketing efforts.

Here are some reasons why.

1. It aligns the team on goals and objectives.

A content marketing strategy ensures that everyone on the marketing team understands the overarching goals and specific objectives of the business.

When content creators, social media managers, writers, and other team members are aligned on goals such as brand awareness, lead generation, or customer engagement, they can produce content that consistently supports these aims.

This increases the chances of getting tangible results.

Carl Broadbent , a digital marketing expert, values content marketing strategies for the alignment they bring.

“After years of publishing blogs, ebooks, and videos, I‘ve learned that a strong content strategy acts like a guiding compass. It points you towards topics and formats aligned with business goals, so you’re not just cranking out content for content's sake,” Broadbent says.

Broadbent also notes that teams will make mistakes along the way.

He recalls, “‘I've made that mistake! Last year, we invested heavily in podcasts, thinking it would attract our target buyers. Turns out our audience preferred snappy infographics. Our podcast push fizzled out fast without the right strategy in place.”

2. It guides content creation and distribution.

Ayomide Joseph , a freelance content marketer for SaaS companies like Aura, Nextiva, and Trengo, explains the purpose of a content marketing strategy:

“The concept of ‘strategy’ in content marketing is simply to give you a roadmap that’ll guide you from where you are to where you want to be,” Joseph says.

For example, Joseph notes that if you’re looking to drive more inbound leads via content, ideally, creating bottom-of-the-funnel content is the way to go.

“A content marketing strategy answers the questions, ‘How do you go about it? What’s the keyword you’re going to target, search volume, difficulty — and what distribution approach will you utilize?’” Joseph says. “If you don’t have a content marketing strategy, you’ll be working blind.”

A content marketing strategy requires you to plan the type of content to create, such as blog posts, infographics, videos, and podcasts.

You’ll also determine the most effective channels for distribution, whether that be social media platforms, email marketing, or the company’s website.

This planning ensures that content is consistent, timely, and relevant to the audience’s interests and needs, fostering brand loyalty and advocacy.

3. It optimizes resources.

When you map out a fully-fledged content marketing strategy, you’ll be able to allocate resources more efficiently, whether those resources are time, budget, or manpower, to bring the strategy to life.

By knowing the type of content you need to produce and the platforms through which you’ll distribute it, you can direct your efforts and budget toward activities that offer the best return on investment (ROI).

4. It improves online visibility.

A well-executed content marketing strategy can alleviate this problem by improving a brand’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).

High-quality, optimized content is favored by search engines and ranks higher in search results, which leads to increased organic traffic.

By targeting specific keywords and topics relevant to your target audience, you can attract more qualified leads to your website.

5. It builds brand authority and trust.

By consistently producing high-quality, relevant, and valuable content, you can establish your business as a thought leader in its industry.

This authority builds trust with your audience, which is crucial for long-term relationships and customer loyalty.

A content marketing strategy ensures that your content not only attracts attention but also provides value and encourages your audience to return and interact with the brand further.

Since a content strategy plan is a roadmap designed to guide the creation, publication, and governance of useful content, here are some key elements you should include when creating yours.

1. Goals and Objectives

What do you want to achieve with your content?

Do you want to increase brand awareness? Generate leads? Or maybe, improve customer engagement? Is it all three — or something else?

When you define the goals and objectives you want your content to help you achieve, you’re establishing your North Star.

So, if you’re not sure whether to include a certain type of content in your strategy, you can look to your North Star and determine if that content type will lead you in the direction you want to go.

2. Audience Persona

An audience persona (or buyer persona) is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on data and research.

It helps you understand who you’re creating content for.

To create an accurate audience persona, you’ll need to conduct research through surveys and interviews and analyze your social media engagement to gather insights.

These insights include your audience’s demographic information, interests, pain points, and content preferences, to mention a few.

Knowing this information will help you understand the content types, topics, and marketing channels that will help you reach your goals.

3. Content Audit and Analysis

Once you’ve gotten your audience persona down, review your existing content to determine what’s working and what’s not.

This way, you’ll be able to identify gaps and opportunities for content.

In the Content Audit section of your content strategy plan, explain:

• The kinds of content and topics that are already working well for you (e.g., blogs that discuss web development, micro-videos that explain coding tips and tricks, etc.)
• The kinds of content and topics that are not gaining traction (e.g., white papers about the evolution of programming)
• The content gaps and opportunities you’ve discovered

Pro tip: Use tools like Google Analytics and social media analytics to evaluate the performance of your content. Look for patterns in what types of content perform best and use this to inform future content creation.

4. Content Types and Channels

The Feedly RSS feed is a wonderful way to track trendy topics in your industry and find content ideas at the same time.

You start by telling the software what topics you're most interested in, and its AI tool will do the rest.

You won't need to scour the internet to find new content ideas anymore. Instead, you can go through your curated list, compiled from news sites, newsletters, and social media.

2. BuzzSumo

Want to discover popular content and content ideas?

This company offers several market research tools, one of which uses social media shares to figure out if a piece of content is popular and well-liked.

This information helps you see which content ideas would do well if you were to create content about them.

3. BlogAbout

Get your mind gears going with IMPACT's blog title generator.

This tool works a bit like Mad Libs, but instead of joke sentences, it shows you common headline formats with blanks where you can fill in the subject you have in mind.

This brainstorming technique helps you put general ideas in contexts that would be appealing to your target audience. Once you have a headline you like, BlogAbout lets you add it to your “Notebook” so you can save your best ideas.

4. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

You can get blog post ideas for an entire year with HubSpot's Blog Ideas Generator .

All you need to do is enter general topics or terms you'd like to write about, and this content idea generator does all the work for you.

This tool analyzes headlines and titles and gives feedback on length, word choice, grammar, and keyword search volume.

If you have an idea in mind, run a few title options through the Headline Analyzer to see how you could make it stronger.

5. HubSpot's Website Grader

This is a great tool to use when you want to see where you're at with your website and SEO efforts.

The Website Grader grades you on vital areas of your website performance and sends you a detailed report to help you optimize.

With this tool, you can figure out how to make your website more SEO-friendly and discover areas of improvement.

Refine and rank your ideas.

The brainstorming process should be loose and unstructured.

It can be tempting to jump on an idea and start creating content right away. But instead, try to throw out your wildest ideas and see where they lead.

Then, take that list of content ideas and refine them.

To start, break ideas into groups and organize them around your goals, topics, or personas. Then, review each idea in detail and add specifics.

For example, say your topic is AI . One of your content ideas might be image generation. You can break this idea down further with content for image-generation tools, text-to-image prompts, or how to edit existing images.

Another way to refine content ideas is to conduct keyword research .

You can also define your process for refining ideas in your content workflow .

7. Publish and manage your content.

Your marketing plan should go beyond the types of content you‘ll create — it should also cover how you’ll organize your content.

Develop a content calendar.

With the help of an editorial calendar, you'll be on the right track to publishing a well-balanced and diverse content library on your website.

Then, create a social media content calendar to promote and manage your content on other sites.

Featured Tool: Free Editorial Calendar Templates

An ebook here might dive deeper into a particular problem and solution options and include templates or calculators.

[Lastly,] ebooks further down the funnel should become more personalized and offer more sales content. Comparison guides or an ebook of case studies are beneficial for prospects at this stage."

Ebooks are the next step in the inbound marketing process . After reading a blog post, visitors might want more information.

This is where calls-to-action (CTAs) come into play, directing people to a landing page where they can submit their contact information and download an ebook to learn more valuable information for their business.

In turn, the business producing the ebook has a new lead for the sales team to contact.

Featured Tool: 18 Free Ebook Templates

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Strategic Plan Template & How-To Guide

Written by Dave Lavinsky

On this page:

What is a strategic plan, strategic plan vs business plan, what are the key elements of a strategic plan, how to write each section of your strategic plan, how to measure the success of your strategic plan, other helpful business plan articles & templates.

  Over the past 20+ years, Growthink has developed strategic plans for thousands of companies, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. Many of them have gone on to reach incredible success. Below you will find our thinking on the strategic planning process, how to measure progress, and how to create a great plan for your company.

Download the Growthink Strategic Plan Template Here

A strategic plan is a process, most often undertaken by organizations, governments, and businesses to define the organization’s strategy. In simple terms, strategy is a course of action or thought-out method used in achieving an objective or set of objectives. It may also be referred to as a strategic document or strategic outlook.

This type of plan includes the organization’s mission and vision – describing where it is going – as well as its core values, concepts, strategies for achieving the objectives, and plans for evaluating progress towards those objectives. It may also include a supporting action plan that prioritizes critical tasks needed to implement the strategy successfully.

In most cases, strategic planning is a continuous process that helps an organization be successful now and beyond. Planning isn’t just about deciding what to do—it’s also about identifying what not to do so resources can be focused on implementing high-priority initiatives. Consider strategic planning a toolbox full of options from which you select the right tools for your job at hand.

The components of a strategic plan include goals, strategic initiatives (the ways in which you’re going to pursue your goals), and action plans (a list of the specific activities that support each strategic initiative). A business plan typically includes some or all of these components but there are important differences between strategic planning and business planning.

Both types of plans can be created for established businesses as well as any new business ventures.

One way to think about it is that strategic plans address the entire year, providing “big picture” thinking while business plans focus more on the details of day-to-day operations. Strategic planning also tends to look 3–5 years ahead whereas a small business might find it difficult to forecast that far into the future.

Strategic plans typically look at things like management structure, company growth, strategic alliances or mergers, and strategic positioning in the market.

A strategic plan template is useful for organizations contemplating major changes while a small business owner can use strategic planning techniques when making decisions around which new strategic initiatives to pursue.

Business plans are written to present a realistic assessment and roadmap of how well your company could perform within 3–5 years when you take into account factors such as the market demand for your product or service, how much it will cost to produce your product or provide your service, how much it costs to acquire customers, potential risks in starting up your small business, where you will get money if needed and what would need to happen for this plan to become reality.

A business plan is written with the intention of letting outsiders, such as banks or angel investors, see how well your business could perform financially within 3–5 years.

Both types of planning are well worth your time and effort to ensure the prosperity of your business.

Finish Your Strategic Plan Today!

Organizations undertake strategic planning to define their priorities and align their team in pursuit of those priorities. Strategic planning is a crucial tool that can refocus a business’ energies to where they will be best spent.

In spite of the great importance and scope, many times it is ignored or quickly completed each year with no strategic focus. Or it is created, but results are not measured against it. The end result is neither strategic nor even a plan.

Successful companies, on the other hand, have and continue to make use of strategic planning to consistently stay on top of their game. You can too. Below, we offer a comprehensive strategic plan template and examples that can easily be used to initiate and establish effective strategic planning in your organization. The template discusses the 13 elements you must include in more detail below:

Executive Summary

Elevator pitch, mission statement, swot analysis, key performance indicators (kpis), target market analysis, industry analysis, competitor analysis, marketing plan, human resources plan, operations plan, financial projections.

Including a summary is important because it allows you to quickly and effectively present your plan to key stakeholders. It is crucial that you are able to disseminate the plan throughout your organization as its success hinges on everybody’s buy-in and support.

Since an elevator pitch is a short yet striking description of your company, it also helps motivate employees causing them to work hard and take pride in their organization. Such fostering of a positive culture will attract impassioned people to your organization as well. For example, Microsoft in its founding days worked with the following pitch:

“A computer on every desk and in every home.”

Such inspirational statements are the direct result of strategic planning efforts and have wide-ranging benefits for a business.

“Phillips’ mission is to improve people’s lives through meaningful innovation.”

Your plan should include a similarly inspirational mission statement so that business efforts are geared towards that one end goal.

To create a plan that is truly strategic you need to spend a good amount of time conducting a SWOT analysis and thinking deeply about each of its individual elements.

Depending on your objectives you can even narrow your company’s goals down to quarterly, monthly, or even weekly goals. Clearly laying out a business’ goals ensures that people expend their energies towards things that actually matter.

While creating goals keep the following things in mind:

Do Not Go Very Broad

Avoid goals that are sweeping. For example, business objectives like ‘being successful’ or ‘being profitable’ are too broad to be useful. This can instead be reframed as “increasing sales by 20% in the next quarter” for instance. Strategize for goals that are easy to understand and act upon. This will also make it easy to evaluate performances later on and find out how well or poorly the business did. Effective goals are goals that can be measured. Strive for these.

Be Realistic

While setting goals it is easy to get carried away. Setting overly ambitious or practically unattainable goals will cause a significant drop in organizational morale as people get frustrated or even burnt out in pursuing such goals. Instead, set goals that are ambitious but within grasp.

Set Time-Bound Goals

Your plan must include goals with realistic deadlines. Time-specific goals allow employees to plan their amazing work more effectively, making it more likely that the goals will be met.

Figure out what the business needs from every stakeholder in order to improve performance and create separate KPIs accordingly. For example, KPIs for the marketing department will be different from those set for the human resources department and so on.

Your plan is worthless if it tries to win over every customer segment in your target market. It will most probably end up attracting none. Instead, a strategic plan must pinpoint the target customers whose conversion and retention will provide the business with the highest return on its expenditures.

You should discuss the market size and key trends, including if it is declining or growing. You must also identify your current position and desired position in the marketplace.

Competitor analysis coupled with a broad industry analysis also forces you to think about other organizations that might turn into your competitors if industry trends change or markets mutate.

Most importantly, in this section figure out the best positioning of your company in the competitive mix. Importantly, figure out your current competitive strengths that you can exploit, or competitive strengths you need to gain in the coming period and how you will go about achieving them.

If you feel you need to hire more employees or people with certain specific competencies then this is the place where you and your team should deliberate and document your human resources requirements. For instance, if your strategic plan includes diversifying into a new space, then it would be pertinent to start creating detailed job descriptions and interviewing people to execute this initiative. This way you will not impede your diversification plans due to a hiring crunch or having the wrong team trying to execute critical tasks.

Here you must narrow down the overarching strategic aim of the business into smaller tactical goals to be executed by specific departments and/or teams. In this section, you will detail each of these goals along with the action plan for achieving them. We suggest using Gantt charts to map out the way your departments will attain key goals over time.

Creating financial forecasts allows you to estimate the potential results of different strategies and analyze which might have the best impact on your business. Even when they are based on estimates, projections are able to reflect business realities pretty accurately provided your assumptions are realistic.

Importantly, use your projections as KPIs to judge your performance as you execute your strategic plan.

Strategic plans can help you achieve financial and strategic goals over the short-term, mid-term, and long-term. The more specific your strategic goals are, the more likely they are to be achieved. So it’s important to set clear targets for each strategy in your plan and measure your progress over time. Some of the key metrics to track include:

Operational Metrics

These indicators measure how effectively a strategic goal is being executed on an ongoing basis. These types of metrics can be applied at both the business level (e.g., what percentage of orders are filled within 24 hours) or at the corporate level (how much inventory is carried per square foot).

Financial Metrics

Focusing on milestones in terms of achieving financial targets allows strategic goals to be quantified and measured. Some of the most common financial indicators applied within strategic plans include sales volume, sales growth rate, market share, number of new products launched, operating margins, and return on invested capital.

Impact Metrics

Finally, strategic plan metrics should inform how strategic investments will enable an organization to achieve its future business vision. A business vision is typically expressed as an aspirational strategic statement that captures where you want to go (i.e., your strategic direction) over the next five to ten years. Impact metrics can help evaluate if potential strategic investments are likely to deliver on that goal or not.

Establish a clear path and put your company in the right direction by including each of the elements outlined in the strategic planning sample above. Then, at the end of each month review your actual performance against your goals and projections in your plan. If you are on target, continue as planned. If not, consider adjusting your strategy or your plan. Business owners who constantly monitor their performance and adjust their plans reach their milestones and achieve the long-term success they desire.

Finish Your Strategic Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your strategic plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Strategic Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

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Blog Business 15+ Business Plan Templates for Strategic Planning

15+ Business Plan Templates for Strategic Planning

Written by: Joan Ang Feb 17, 2022

If you’ve just had a new business idea that’s worth funding, or come up with a marketing strategy that can double your company’s revenue — it’s time to put your great ideas down on paper using a professional business plan template. 

Take a look at Venngage’s fully customizable, easy-to-edit  business plan templates  that can help you bring that one-of-a-kind idea to life. Simply pick a template you like and start editing for free — no design experience required.

Click to jump ahead:

Detailed & professional business plan samples, crisis management and continuity business plans, simple business plan templates for beginners, faqs about business plans.

If you’ve already got all your data and information ready and just looking to transform them into a compelling, professional business plan, here are the templates for you. All of these templates are populated with meaningful information that can easily guide your inspiration and help you create your own business plan in no time.

Related : 15+ Business Plan Examples to Win Your Next Round of Funding

Monochromatic architecture business plan template

Monochromatic colors allow you to highlight many details easily without making them shine or stand out too much from the other elements. It does take some delicate layout and asset planning, though. Luckily, you can just leave these details alone by editing the name of this report and the data it contains. Easily edit this template using Venngage’s convenient template editor.

If you’re not in love with this color scheme, you can always change it using My Brand Kit . Have your brand colors and logos automatically extracted with Autobrand:

And add them to your business plan design in one click:

Simple interior design business plan template

Image-centric, magazine-style strategic business plans always grab attention without being intimidating. The cover image sells the content that includes your plan’s executive summary, approach and eventually the deliverables. 

If you want to replace the cover photo with one of your office’s, simply double click the photo and upload your own:

Red simple business plan template

Strategic business plans don’t have to look like top-secret government documents that are “for your eyes only.” They can attain magazine-level attractiveness by using a coherent theme, such as this free business plan template that you can fully customize. 

The red, high-contrast appeal of this theme, text layout and overall format make it a splendid choice for a comprehensive strategic business plan template.

Related : How to Create a Business Plan to Win Over Investors (7+ Business Plan Templates)

Green interior design business plan template

The color green is always easy on our eyes  because they’re sensitive to it . The neutral green theme of this template makes it easy to focus on the cover image’s layout and theme. Plus, the paragraphs on the text are easy to understand, thanks to the neutral colors and magazine-style layout. 

Minimalist architecture business plan template

Minimalism is a beautiful design concept because it showcases the power of layouts when it comes to documents and presentations. The concept is pleasing because it gives low visual stimulation while maximizing the focus on vital information in your reports. 

Design consultant business plan template

While it has a strong magazine feel to it, this Venngage template has a topic-oriented characteristic because of its text-heavy sections that still appear pleasing to view and read. The template relies on the clever use of images, white spaces and icons. Exchange these assets easily by using Venngage’s web-accessible editor.

Return to Table of Contents

Crisis management requires swift organization and work. We know you’re under a lot of pressure when you’re going to use these templates for your presentation, so we made sure that they’re presentation-ready that require minimal edits. They’re all free business plan templates as well!

Simple crisis communications plan template

Here’s a quick crisis communication plan you can use in any impending report. 

If you’re not familiar with creating a crisis communication plan, this free business plan template already contains all the sections you need: table of contents, escalation frameworks, roles and responsibilities, and tips to maintain an effective response plan.

Related : 10+ Crisis Communication Plan Templates for Leaders + Managers

Crisis communications plan template

Urgent planning situations won’t need you to sacrifice style and coherence with a paragraph-heavy layout. Sure, we can do away with the photos to maintain our reader’s focus, but we can use a bullet layout with subheaders, bullet points and more. 

A light-colored theme makes it easy for readers to comprehend the colors. While this template focuses on crisis control, you can change its purpose by customizing its elements using Venngage’s built-in web editor.

Emergency response plan template

This Venngage template is perfect for plans on how to deal with emergency situations. The template focuses on content and uses minimal colors and contrasts to set the reader’s focus on each data detail. 

If you’re in a hurry to set up your strategic business plan, you can edit this template’s content with Venngage’s easy-access editor within minutes before your presentation.

Not sure where to start with designing your business plan? No graphic designer to help you out? These beginner strategic business planning templates for Venngage guarantee a presentation-ready report in no time. Just use its built-in editor to change some small details to suit your brand, and you’re all set!

Yellow simple business plan template

Readers want a seamless reading experience, which means authors must have an excellent document layout with related photos that don’t take away the spotlight from the project data. This Venngage template is perfect for such a purpose because it has an excellent balance of content and images. Fully customize it with Venngage’s built-in editor.

Simple gaming business plan template

You’re probably too busy testing games or even playing games to make a layout. But, your department needs you to create a games-related strategic plan. Say no more because here’s a template that’s made just for this purpose. If this layout isn’t perfect enough for your needs, you can always use the web editor to switch out assets and data.

Contracting company business plan template

If you’re quite busy with your daily work, you can always use pre-made layouts for your upcoming strategic planning presentation. This Venngage template is text-heavy and uses icons, but construction contractors will want to use these so that their clients have complete information on the project. Customize this as your project needs with the help of Venngage’s powerful web editor.

Professional business action plan template

Beginners can have an excellent magazine-style report appeal using this Venngage template. With an attractive cover photo and excellent use of negative space, this template can help you make professional reports without sacrificing time and substance. You can fully customize this template with Venngage’s top-notch web editor.

Colorful hospitality business plan template

The hospitality industry knows plenty about design, layouts and the effective use of assets. This Venngage template uses a wide color palette that gives it a basic appeal to readers and helps the latter focus on the topic and data. If the colors don’t work for you, or you have a better idea about the fonts and layout, you can fully customize this template with Venngage’s convenient web editor.

Business consultant continuity plan template

Need to present a plan on how to continue operations during emergency situations? This template should help. Photos have a great role to play because they set the mood and background for the report. Some reports are suitably photo-centric, while some, such as this Venngage template, work well with minimal or background use. 

You can switch out the template’s banners, data, and fonts using Venngage’s built-in editor.

Got some questions about business plans? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

What’s a long-term strategic business plan?

Everyone makes plans that have a set of steps and approaches that lead to your ultimate goal. It’s the same for business plans.

A business plan is a written document that outlines a company’s strategy for success, including its mission statements, its vision, operational plans and financial projections. These plans give your business a clear, short-term direction with dedicated sets of processes and procedures that can improve the business’s production and efficiency to meet its short and medium-term goals.

What’s included in an effective business plan?

A professional business plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

A business plan can span a dozen or more pages because it presents the big picture, as complete as possible, to reassure others to invest in you.

For more information on how to create the best business plan, visit our post: How to Create a Business Plan to Win Over Investors (7+ Business Plan Templates)

In summary: Unlock your business’s potential with these business plan templates

It can be difficult to create the right business plan, especially when you’re not sure what it should look like. Rest assured, because we have tons of business plan templates that are full of meaningful information to help you.

Choose one of Venngage’s professional, fully customizable business plan templates and start adding your data, and you’ll have your own business plan in no time. No design experience required.

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What Is Business Strategy & Why Is It Important?

• 20 Oct 2022

Every business leader wants their organization to succeed. Turning a profit and satisfying stakeholders are worthy objectives but aren’t feasible without an effective business strategy.

To attain success, leaders must hone their skills and set clear business goals by crafting a strategy that creates value for the firm, customers, suppliers, and employees. Here's an overview of business strategy and why it's essential to your company’s success.

Access your free e-book today.

What’s a Business Strategy?

Business strategy is the strategic initiatives a company pursues to create value for the organization and its stakeholders and gain a competitive advantage in the market. This strategy is crucial to a company's success and is needed before any goods or services are produced or delivered.

According to Harvard Business School Online's Business Strategy course, an effective strategy is built around three key questions:

• How can my business create value for customers?
• How can my business create value for employees?
• How can my business create value by collaborating with suppliers?

Many promising business initiatives don’t come to fruition because the company failed to build its strategy around value creation. Creativity is important in business , but a company won't last without prioritizing value.

The Importance of Business Strategy

A business strategy is foundational to a company's success. It helps leaders set organizational goals and gives companies a competitive edge. It determines various business factors, including:

• Price: How to price goods and services based on customer satisfaction and cost of raw materials
• Suppliers: Whether to source materials sustainably and from which suppliers
• Employee recruitment: How to attract and maintain talent
• Resource allocation: How to allocate resources effectively

Without a clear business strategy, a company can't create value and is unlikely to succeed.

Creating Value

To craft a successful business strategy, it's necessary to obtain a thorough understanding of value creation. In the online course Business Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee explains that, at its core, value represents a difference. For example, the difference between a customer's willingness to pay for a good or service and its price represents the value the business has created for the customer. This difference can be visualized with a tool known as the value stick.

The value stick has four components, representing the value a strategy can bring different stakeholders.

• Willingness to pay (WTP) : The maximum amount a customer is willing to pay for a company's goods or services
• Price : The actual price of the goods or services
• Cost : The cost of the raw materials required to produce the goods or services
• Willingness to sell (WTS) : The lowest amount suppliers are willing to receive for raw materials, or the minimum employees are willing to earn for their work

The difference between each component represents the value created for each stakeholder. A business strategy seeks to widen these gaps, increasing the value created by the firm’s endeavors.

Increasing Customer Delight

The difference between a customer's WTP and the price is known as customer delight . An effective business strategy creates value for customers by raising their WTP or decreasing the price of the company’s goods or services. The larger the difference between the two, the more value is created for customers.

A company might focus on increasing WTP with its marketing strategy. Effective market research can help a company set its pricing strategy by determining target customers' WTP and finding ways to increase it. For example, a business might differentiate itself and increase customer loyalty by incorporating sustainability into its business strategy. By aligning its values with its target audiences', an organization can effectively raise consumers' WTP.

Increasing Firm Margin

The value created for the firm is the difference between the price of an item and its cost to produce. This difference is known as the firm’s margin and represents the strategy's financial success. One metric used to quantify this margin is return on invested capital (ROIC) . This metric compares a business's operating income with the capital necessary to generate it. The formula for ROIC is:

Return on Invested Capital = Net Operating Cost After Tax (NOCAT) / Invested Capital (IC)

ROIC tells investors how successful a company is at turning its investments into profit. By raising WTP, a company can risk increasing prices, thereby increasing firm margin. Business leaders can also increase this metric by decreasing their costs. For example, sustainability initiatives—in addition to raising WTP—can lower production costs by using fewer or more sustainable resources. By focusing on the triple bottom line , a firm can simultaneously increase customer delight and margin.

Increasing Supplier Surplus & Employee Satisfaction

By decreasing suppliers' WTS, or increasing costs, a company can create value for suppliers—or supplier surplus . Since increasing costs isn't sustainable, an effective business strategy seeks to create value for suppliers by decreasing WTS. How a company accomplishes this varies. For example, a brick-and-mortar company might partner with vendors to showcase its products in exchange for a discount. Suppliers may also be willing to offer a discount in exchange for a long-term contract.

In addition to supplier WTS, companies are also responsible for creating value for another key stakeholder: its employees. The difference between employee compensation and the minimum they're willing to receive is employee satisfaction . There are several ways companies can increase this difference, including:

• Increasing compensation: While most companies hesitate to raise salaries, some have found success in doing so. For example, Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, increased his company's minimum wage to $80,000 per year and enjoyed substantial growth and publicity as a result.
• Increasing benefits: Companies can also decrease WTS by making working conditions more desirable to prospective employees. Some offer remote or hybrid working opportunities to give employees more flexibility. Several have also started offering four-day work weeks , often experiencing increased productivity as a result.

There are several ways to increase supplier surplus and employee satisfaction without hurting the company's bottom line. Unfortunately, most managers only devote seven percent of their time to developing employees and engaging stakeholders. Yet, a successful strategy creates value for every stakeholder—both internal and external.

Strategy Implementation

Crafting a business strategy is just the first step in the process. Implementation takes a strategy from formulation to execution . Successful implementation includes the following steps :

• Establish clear goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
• Set expectations and ensure employees are aware of their roles and responsibilities
• Delegate work and allocate resources effectively
• Put the plan into action and continuously monitor its progress
• Adjust your plan as necessary
• Ensure your team has what they need to succeed and agrees on the desired outcome
• Evaluate the results of the plan

Throughout the process, it's important to remember to adjust your plan throughout its execution but to avoid second-guessing your decisions. Striking this balance is challenging, but crucial to a business strategy's success.

Learn More About Creating a Successful Business Strategy

Business strategy constantly evolves with changing consumer expectations and market conditions. For this reason, business leaders should continuously educate themselves on creating and executing an effective strategy.

One of the best ways to stay up-to-date on best practices is to take an online course, such as HBS Online's Business Strategy program. The course will provide guidance on creating a value-driven strategy for your business.

Do you want to learn how to craft an effective business strategy and create value for your company's stakeholders? Explore our online course Business Strategy , or other strategy courses , to develop your strategic planning skills. To determine which strategy course is right for you, download our free flowchart .

About the Author

How to create a comprehensive strategic marketing plan

A strategic marketing plan optimizes your marketing spend and maximizes ROI, ensuring every dollar contributes to business success.

Our free ebook exclusively for marketers. Discover how no-code eliminates developer bottlenecks and empowers modern marketing teams to truly own the website.

Unlock your marketing budget’s full potential through strategic marketing tactics.

Maybe you’ve been here: Your marketing team has wide-ranging ambitions, and the budget gets stretched across an eclectic range of channels and campaigns, with the hope of capturing your audience’s attention. But, despite best intentions, the results are underwhelming. And you can’t help but notice gaps between effort and impact. The culprit? This approach lacks focus.

Strategic marketing addresses these challenges by grounding marketing activities in data and research. By developing a marketing strategy that targets the right audiences, grabs attention with compelling messaging, and aligns with business objectives, you’ll ensure every dollar spent delivers tangible results.

What’s strategic marketing?

Strategic marketing involves thoughtfully aligning all marketing efforts with your company’s overarching goals. Instead of focusing on immediate sales and short-term gains, you craft initiatives that build enduring customer relationships and brand loyalty.

At its core, this approach involves:

• Market segmentation: Identifying and targeting smaller, manageable consumer groups within a broad market based on shared characteristics
• Target audience identification: Further refining market segments to pinpoint the specific groups most likely to engage with your products or services
• Competitor analysis: Evaluating competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to craft differentiation strategies and prepare for market threats
• Product positioning: Establishing a unique value position for your offerings to stand out from competitors
• Pricing strategy: Developing pricing that reflects your offering’s perceived value, considers the competitive landscape, and meets profitability goals
• Distribution channel selection: Choosing the most effective marketing channels (both online and offline) for reaching potential customers

Marketing strategies versus marketing plans

A marketing strategy might sound very similar to a marketing plan. But think of these related concepts as two connected approaches for marketing success.

A marketing strategy outlines the overall, big-picture direction for reaching your company's marketing goals. Use it to define your target audience, competitive positioning, and value proposition to differentiate your company's offerings in the market. For example, an electronics company aiming to lead in smart home technology might have a marketing strategy focused on reaching tech-savvy homeowners with easy-to-use products that enhance their quality of life.

And a marketing plan is more granular. Use a marketing plan to detail the specific actions, timelines, and resources needed to execute the overarching marketing strategy. It includes a roadmap of tasks, projects, budgets, and timelines for the strategy’s execution.

A marketing plan for that same electronics company might involve:

• Conducting market research and competitor analysis: To identify smart home trends and gaps in competitor offerings
• Segmenting the market: To focus on tech-savvy homeowners, positioning their smart devices as premium solutions that integrate well with existing smart home ecosystems
• Establishing distribution channels: This could include partnerships with retailers and ecommerce platforms
• Launching a multi-channel marketing campaign: To message across social media, email, and search engines to promote their smart devices
• Setting competitive pricing : To reflect the product’s premium quality and appeal to the target audience's willingness to invest in advanced technology
• Measuring the plan's efficacy: To track success, use key performance indicators (KPIs), like revenue growth, market share expansion, customer acquisition rates, and customer satisfaction
• Learning and tweaking: Making data-driven adjustments based on KPIs to refine the approach

What are the benefits of strategic marketing?

Regardless of your industry and company size, strategic marketing can pay off. With this approach, you’ll:

• Better understand the market: The strategic marketing process begins by diving deep into current market dynamics to spot business opportunities and marketing challenges . With this knowledge in hand, you can target the right audiences, allocate resources more effectively, and uniquely position your offerings against competitors.
• Set clear objectives: Strategic marketing involves setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goals. These SMART goals provide a framework for establishing precise targets and evaluating performance. ‍
• Improve your product and services: Thoroughly understanding customer needs and industry trends forms the core of strategy marketing. This knowledge helps you develop products and services that better meet your audience’s evolving preferences, ensuring market relevance and sustainability.

What are the most effective marketing strategies?

Here are a few approaches to consider when planning marketing strategies. Take a look and see which methods align with your company’s goals.

Content marketing

Content marketing strategies involve crafting and sharing valuable content to captivate and retain a targeted audience. You can use this approach to draw visitors in and provide informative, engaging material that addresses their interests and needs. In doing so, you’ll gently promote your brand and offerings while weaving in your unique value proposition — without overt selling.

For example, a design firm could release relevant content, like blog posts and whitepapers on the latest industry trends, eye-catching design techniques, and product innovations. By sharing expert insights and practical advice, the firm establishes itself as a thought leader, enhances its brand reputation, and attracts more organic website traffic .

Social media marketing 

By using platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to engage with audiences, you can boost brand visibility and encourage interactions, such as likes and comments. This involves creating a customized sales funnel that turns social engagement into tangible conversions. By guiding interested followers to your website and landing pages , social media marketing motivates visitors to purchase your products and services. 

For example, a digital marketing agency might share valuable case studies, success stories, and actionable marketing tips on Instagram and LinkedIn. This tactic lets the agency demonstrate its expertise and, at the same time, attract potential clients (aka people seeking marketing solutions). Beyond positioning the agency as an authoritative resource on the subject, this strategy also helps establish trust, which can encourage more people to sign up for their services.

Product marketing 

With product marketing, you highlight how your product solves your target market’s needs. Marketing materials — like online advertisements and demos — emphasize why customers should choose your offering over others. 

A company specializing in cybersecurity software, for example, might spotlight their password protection feature. By highlighting how their password manager offers more robust features compared to others, the company effectively speaks to data privacy-conscious individuals seeking safe options.

Email marketing

Email marketing harnesses the power of personalized communication to connect with customers. With this approach, you can nurture leads , boost conversions, and re-engage existing customers by delivering messages that speak to their specific needs and interests.

For example, a company offering financial advising services could use email marketing to send subscribers educational emails about managing personal finances, investment strategies, and retirement planning. By segmenting their email list based on where users are in their life stages and financial goals, the company offers more relevant content. With AI-powered hyper-personalization , they can send targeted emails and special offers to visitors based on their website browsing history, segmentation surveys, or newsletter signups.

Search engine optimization

With search engine optimization (SEO) strategies, you can improve your website’s ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs) — and drive organic traffic and customer engagement. Optimization involves refining your content, site structure , and on-page elements, like metadata tags and descriptions, to ensure search engines index and highly rank your site. Conducting keyword research is crucial here because it helps you align your content with what your target audience is searching for.

How to get started with strategic marketing in 4 steps

Strategic marketing requires a focused approach. Follow these four steps to begin.

1. Align marketing and business goals

Start by identifying SMART goals and KPIs that support your business objectives. Establishing clear, quantifiable targets with a set timeline will guide your marketing initiatives and provide benchmarks for assessing progress and success. If your goal is to enhance online visibility, you might aim to publish 50 posts over the next quarter and increase website traffic by 25%. 

2. Identify your target audience

After establishing in-house goals, conduct market research to understand your target audience. Tools like Google Analytics and data visualization platforms can help your team gain insight into your audience’s demographics, geographic locations, and preferences. During this research phase, keep an eye out for emerging trends and patterns that you can use to refine your products, services, and brand messaging — and better meet your audience’s specific needs and interests.

3. Develop content

Now, use the data you’ve collected to craft targeted, optimized content that improves brand visibility and addresses your audience's pain points. 

Say a tech company, for example, aims to position itself as a leader in sustainable technology. Its marketing team might create videos and infographics that illustrate their technology’s positive impact on the environment, highlight sustainable innovations, and showcase their eco-friendly solutions. Beyond engaging and educating its target audience, this content supports the company's strategic objective of establishing itself as an industry pioneer. To make sure their target audience sees this content, the company could use market and target audience research to determine which social platforms their target audience frequents and which keywords (such as “eco-friendly data storage options”) to incorporate throughout their blog and social content. 

4. Allocate resources

To make it all happen, you’ll need a budget that supports your strategic marketing vision and overall business goals.. Thoroughly analyze your marketing channels, your audience’s preferences, and previous campaign performance to ensure every dollar spent achieves maximum impact.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to do this, take this example: A company offering time management software could analyze social media insights. If the marketing team discovers that a significant portion of their audience engages with them through Instagram Stories, they could funnel more of their budget to paid social advertising that features new-customer promotions. This targeted approach can boost user engagement, and it aligns with the company’s goal of acquiring more customers. 

Boost your marketing strategy with Webflow

Arguably, the most crucial channel for any marketing strategy is your website. With all roads leading back to your company’s hub for content, products, and services, creating a website that attracts and retains customers is essential to achieving your marketing goals — and overall business success.

Webflow Enterprise offers a comprehensive toolkit for crafting an exceptional website that drives results. With a visual-first approach, you can collaboratively design and customize every aspect of your site to reflect your brand identity and welcome customers.

Webflow Enterprise gives your teams the power to build, ship, and manage sites collaboratively at scale.

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Embedding competitiveness and growth

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The PRA's latest Business Plan , covering 2024/25, was published on 11 April. The programme of work is intended to maintain the resilience of the UK's banking and insurance sectors and deliver against the same four strategic priorities as last year. The key areas of focus, as expected, are financial and operational resilience, enforcement policies, and diversity and inclusion. Emerging risks called out include the financial risks of climate change, the impacts of artificial intelligence and machine learning, and digital money and innovation.  

There is nothing inherently new or surprising in the Business Plan for firms as it follows relatively soon after the 2024 supervisory priority letters for international banks , UK deposit takers and insurers . However, it is interesting to note the PRA's ongoing concerns about the potential impacts of NBFIs on financial stability and its continuing ambition to become a more dynamic and responsive regulator. 

Competitiveness and growth

This will be the first full year in which the PRA operates under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA 2023), which expanded its rulemaking responsibilities and gave it a new secondary growth and competitiveness objective (the SGCO) in the UK. A significant portion of the plan considers how the PRA will balance the SGCO with its primary commitments to safety and soundness of the banking and insurance sectors. 

The following key initiatives underpin the PRA's work to promote UK competitiveness and growth:

• The 'Strong and Simple' (SDDT) regime  — simplifying regulatory requirements for smaller, non-systemic banks banks and building societies, in order to reduce compliance burdens without compromising on robust prudential standards.
• Reforms to bank ring-fencing  — following the independent Skeoch Review .
• The 'Solvency UK' reforms of insurance capital standards  — aiming to reduce bureaucracy in the regulatory regime, while allowing insurers to invest in a wider range of productive assets.
• Insurance special purpose vehicles (ISPVs)  — consulting on reforms to allow a wider range of transaction structures in the UK regime, improve the speed of the application process, and clarify expectations of UK insurers who cede risks to ISPVs.
• Improvements to the authorisation processes  — building on progress in improving the speed and efficiency of authorisations. Also, introducing a new 'mobilisation' regime to facilitate entry and expansion for new insurers from 31 December 2024. 

Strategic Priorities

The PRA's four strategic priorities (SPs) are to:

• Maintain and build on the safety and soundness of the banking and insurance sectors and ensure continuing resilience.
• Be at the forefront of identifying new and emerging risks, and developing international policy.
• Support competitive and dynamic markets, alongside facilitating international competitiveness and growth, in the sectors that it regulates.
• Run an inclusive, efficient, and modern regulator within the central bank.

SP1 — Maintain and build on the safety and soundness of the banking and insurance sectors and ensure continuing resilience.

Financial resilience priority areas for banks include:

• Basel 3.1  — implementation is due to start in 1 July 2025, with a transitional period of 4.5 years to 1 January 2030. This is in line with the previously communicated timeline. The second near-final policy statement, on the remaining elements of credit risk, the output floor and Pillar 3 disclosure and reporting requirements, will be published `in due course'.  The PRA expects both sets of near-final rules to be made final later in 2024, once the relevant parts of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR) have been revoked.
• Stress testing  — in 2024 the Bank of England (BoE) will carry out a desk-based exercise, supported by the PRA. The BoE and PRA will also review and update the framework for concurrent stress testing. Stress tests based on firm submissions will resume in 2025.
• Exposures to non-bank financial institutions (NBFI)  — particularly private equity financing and private credit — the PRA will look for further improvements in firms' ability to identify and assess correlations across financing activities with multiple clients. 
• Model risk management (MRM)  — banks are expected to embed and implement the expectations set out in SS1/23 which takes effect on 17 May 2024. The PRA will also focus on the `hybrid' approach to mortgage modelling, the IRB repair programme and continued assessment of the adequacy of post-model adjustments (PMAs).
• Liquidity risk management  — the PRA will follow up on how firms are responding to lessons learned from market events. It will continue its engagement on authorised firms' access to the BoE Sterling Monetary Framework and monitor closely how how firms consider changes in depositor behaviour and future changes in bank funding and liquidity conditions.
•   Credit risk management  — focus will be on the evolution of credit risk management practices, whether they can be `robust and adaptable' in changing conditions, whether there is appropriate consideration of downside and contagion risks, and firms' monitoring and planning for the impacts of customer refinancing. There will be a thematic review of smaller firms' credit risk management frameworks. The PRA will monitor changes to firms' business mix and credit exposures and exposures to vulnerable segments (e.g. cyclical sectors, key international portfolios, and traditionally higher-risk portfolios such as buy-to-let, credit cards, unsecured personal loans, small to medium-sized enterprises, leveraged lending, and commercial real estate). It will also continue to assess whether the policy framework for trading book risk management, controls, and culture is adequate, robust and accessible. 
• Capital  — the PRA will review its Pillar 2A methodologies once the Basel 3.1 rules are finalised and aims to consult on proposed changes in 2025.
• Securitisation regulation  — simultaneously with the FCA, the PRA will publish final rules to replace or modify the relevant firm-facing provisions in the Securitisation Regulation and related Technical Standards. It also intends to consult on draft PRA rules to replace firm-facing requirements, subject to HMT making the necessary legislation. 

Financial resilience focus areas for insurers include:

• Solvency UK implementation  — the PRA is consulting on how to transfer remaining Solvency II requirements from assimilated law into the PRA Rulebook. It will also streamline internal model and matching adjustment approval processes, supported by the establishment of dedicated, specialised teams, and publication of templates to facilitate firms' implementation of new requirements. 
• Matching adjustment (MA) reforms  — publication of final policy in June 2024. The bulk of the reform will take effect at end-June, with the remainder on 31 December 2024. This staggered approach is in response to insurers' concerns about ability to produce attestations in time for mid-year results. The PRA will also explore creating 'sandboxes' to allow for either self-certification or further expansion of MA-eligible assets.
• Single regulatory reporting insurance taxonomy  — this will be published in Q2 2024, followed by industry roundtables to support implementation by year end.
• Stress testing  — the next stress test will take place in 2025. This will be the first time that the PRA publishes the individual results of the largest annuity-writing firms and the first time an exploratory scenario will be included to assess exposure to the recapture of funded reinsurance contracts. In 2025, the PRA will run its first dynamic stress test for general insurers — details will be published in 2024.
• Cyber underwriting risk  — there will continue to be supervisory focus on cyber exposure. The PRA is monitoring the risk landscape, including contract uncertainty.
• Model drift  — in 2024, the PRA will address perceived systemic trends that may weaken the robustness of internal models across the market as a whole, and continue to address firm-level model drift.
• Funded reinsurance  — this continues to be a key policy and supervisory area of concern. In 2024, the PRA will finalise and implement its policy expectations. Assessing resilience of funded reinsurance arrangements is also part of the 2025 life insurance stress test.
• Impact of claims inflation  — the PRA will continue to monitor data throughout 2024 to assess if further work is needed.  Concerns remain around optimistic assumptions.
•   Liquidity risk management  — following market events, the PRA will develop liquidity reporting requirements for insurance firms most exposed to liquidity risk. 
• Credit risk management  — as insurers' exposure grows, the PRA will monitor how firms' credit risk management evolves as a result. Areas of focus are concentrations in exposure to internally valued and rated assets.

Other regulatory reforms:

• Operational risk and resilience  — the PRA will continue working with the FCA to assess firms' progress on their ability to deliver important business services within defined impact tolerances during severe but plausible scenarios (no later than March 2025).
• Critical third parties to the UK financial sector  — the PRA will continue working with other authorities to develop a final policy and oversight approach in 2024 on CP26/23 (Operational resilience: critical third parties to the UK financial sector).
• Review of enforcement policies  — following the principles of PS1/24 (Bank of England's approach to enforcement).
• Diversity and inclusion in PRA-regulated firms  — the PRA will continue industry engagement and provide a further update in due course.

 SP2 — Be at the forefront of identifying new and emerging risks, and developing international policy

The PRA will continue to use its horizon-scanning programme to focus on:

• International engagement and influencing regulatory standards — participating actively in bodies such as the BCBS, IAIS and FSB.
• Promoting supervisory co-operation  — via colleges and existing memoranda of understanding (MoUs).
• Overseas bank branches — consulting on targeted refinements to its approach to banks branching into the UK, reflecting lessons from the failure of SVB.
• Operational and cyber resilience  — continuing its work on the G7 Cyber Expert Group and other similar bodies.
• Managing the financial risks of climate change  — publishing thematic findings in 2024 on banks' processes to quantify the impact of climate risks on expected credit losses and commencing work to update SS3/19.
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning  — the third joint PRA/FCA survey on machine learning in UK financial services will be conducted in Q2 2024.
• International policy on digitalisation  and managing associated risks.
• Digital money and innovation  — continuing to work with HMT and the FCA on issues such as a regulatory regime for crypto-assets, and wholesale payments/ settlements and their interaction with retail payments.

SP3 — Support competitive and dynamic markets, alongside facilitating international competitiveness and growth (in the sectors that it regulates)

In addition to the areas mentioned above, the PRA will focus on developing proportionate and efficient prudential requirements including:

• Regulatory change  — embedding its approach to rulemaking, using its new powers under FSMA 2023 to repeal and replace assimilated law relating to financial services. 
• The Banking Data Review  — intended to reduce the burden on firms by focusing our data collection on the most useful and relevant information.
• Ease of exit  — the policy statement on solvent exit planning for insurers is expected in H2 2024.
• Remuneration reforms  — the PRA will consult on any changes in H2 2024.
• Changes to the Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SM&CR)  — consulting alongside HMT and the FCA on proposed changes in H1 2024.
• Improvements to the PRA Rulebook and Cost Benefit Analysis  (CBA) framework. 

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5 Tools to land your DREAM Job!! TIME TO UPGRADE your job hunt!

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• © Yersong Digital

Top Podcasts In Business

Europe Greens Fight to Save the Climate Plan They Helped Launch

Bas Eickhout, Dutch member of the European parliament and the party’s lead candidate in upcoming elections, says the challenge is reconnecting with people who feel left behind by economic forces beyond their control.

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(Bloomberg) — Barely two years ago the European Greens were riding high, negotiating a policy package to create the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 after their strongest-ever electoral performance. Then Russia invaded Ukraine.

Europe Greens Fight to Save the Climate Plan They Helped Launch Back to video

The ensuing energy crisis exacerbated a cost-of-living crunch for Europe’s citizens who had barely recovered from the Covid-19 pandemic. The fallout has put the Greens are on course to lose a third of their seats at next month’s European parliamentary elections. Surging support for climate skeptical right-wing political groups leaves the future of the landmark Green Deal uncertain, even though over 50 laws have been passed over the last three years.

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“What we started in 2019 was of course a transformation of our entire economy — we started the marathon in 2019 and we are now probably five kilometers into it,” Bas Eickhout, the Greens’ lead candidate, told Bloomberg Green’s Zero podcast. “The wind has changed, there is more resistance.”

The question is whether Europe can maintain its ambitious green targets without losing competitiveness. Some analysts have pointed to the growing popularity of far-right parties — for example, those linked to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and French Presidential hopeful Marine Le Pen — as evidence of a backlash against the EU’s efforts to cut emissions by 55% by 2030.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who relied on support from the Greens last time round, is turning increasingly toward the right to help secure a second term. Europe’s former climate czar, Frans Timmermans, has said that the issue of stopping climate change is now part of the “culture wars.”

Europe’s industry, scarred by the energy crisis, has called for “corrective measures” on swathes of environmental regulation it says risks pushing businesses out of the region. Citizens are becoming aware that the transition will directly affect their lives, from the type of car they drive to how much they have to insulate their homes. Farmers have driven into Europe’s capitals in tractors to protest what they see as punishing bureaucracy that puts their livelihoods on the line.

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“We have had to deal with a regulatory tsunami in agricultural matters with the policies arising from the Green Deal,” Christiane Lambert, President of the farming lobby Cogeca, said during a launch of the group’s election manifesto last month. “We want less regulation but better ones.’”

More seats means more power to sway the agenda of the commission, the EU’s executive branch, where post-election horse-trading between member states and political groups determines who takes which post. Progressives are worried that von der Leyen’s pivot to the right could mean that, at best, green policies are put on the back burner. A worst case scenario could see them watered down, with some of the most hard-hitting policies, like a carbon border levy and an expansion of carbon markets onto road transport and heating, still to come.

Laws that are already in place, such as phasing out the combustion engine in new cars by 2035, are set to be reviewed in the coming years. While the trajectory is fixed, there may be more flexibility introduced on how to get there depending on the ferocity of opposition.

Whatever form the next European Parliament takes — and there are signs support for the far right is plateauing — there is broad approval of an EU industrial strategy that moves beyond the rather toothless Net-Zero Industry Act, which was rushed through as a response to the US Inflation Reduction Act. But it’s less clear what it will look like.

“It’s going to be difficult to win this subsidy race,” Eickhout said. “We are only going to develop a credible carrot for industry if there is a credible European strategy behind it.”

The Greens are also calling for an EU-wide tax of up to 3.5% on the top 0.5% of wealthiest individuals, while ending almost 500 million euros of fossil fuel subsidies so it can channel those funds into an industrial strategy. The group also wants the climate neutrality target to be brought forward by a decade, to 2040. The power to make such changes will be slim even if it holds onto the seats it won last time round.

Recently, several elements of the Green Deal aimed at restoring nature and cutting pesticides have been dropped in a bid to appease farmers. Eickhout worries about such concessions, arguing that the energy transition will be a fundamental part of the EU’s competitive advantage in the coming years. His party wants to create a Green and Social Transition Fund worth 1% of the region’s economic output to support green industries and prepare citizens for the transition.

“The green agenda is probably the best agenda for the future of our industry,” Eickhout said. We “are the better ally of industry than what conservatives claim to be.”

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Economic Policy Institute: The Evolution of the Southern Economic Development Strategy

The Southern economic development model has failed to create shared prosperity in the region. In fact, this model was deliberately designed to do the opposite—to extract the labor of Black and brown Southerners as cheaply as possible. This report examines the racist roots of the model and provides the necessary context to challenge the enduring racial hierarchy in the South.

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