The strategy is a system of choices regarding the resources to be used and the actions to be taken at the production, commercial, administrative, financial and organizational level so that the company can achieve its objectives.
Approaching a strategy, therefore, means having before oneself a series of objectives and key results that define which actions to perform and which resources to use; a sort of connection between the company and the external environment.
The most important company objectives to be determined are the strategic ones, which is objectives that must guide the action of the management and of the entire company in the long term.
The objectives can be divided into three categories: the mission, the long-term goals and short-term goals. Before seeing the objectives, you need to plan the strategy to achieve it. Plan your entire business in a systematic, explicit and global way. Strategic planning with Workboard software is the process by which the long-term objectives of the company are defined and the strategies that allow achieving the objectives are elaborated in terms of resources, operations and behaviors.
The mission
The mission broadly expresses the aims that the company pursues, its culture, its philosophy, its key values and therefore ultimately its basic strategic orientation.
The company mission must show, in a detailed way, how the company objectives are to be achieved. The mission tends to focus on the present and to provide an operational guide to the organization’s action. It must be as concise as possible and be composed of some key elements such as: the history of the company; the management and property preferences, the resources available to it. Furthermore, it must clearly and concisely describe why the organization exists, its uniqueness (how it differs from other competing companies), the values that guide its action, the target to which it is addressed, the tools it uses, the needs to which it responds, the resources on which it relies.
Long-term goals
The long-term objectives express the results that, within a given business mission, the company management aims to achieve in the long term, using the resources available or that it intends to procure on the market.
Long-term objectives can be traced back to the following fundamental strands:
- Profitability objectives: to produce wealth over time.
- Development goals: business expansion
- Leadership objectives: achieving or strengthening a leading position in technological innovation.
- Social objectives: to associate some objectives in favor of the community with one’s own objectives.
- Objectives of balanced financial structure.
Long-term goals must be measurable and link to short-term goals; they then serve as a reference point for evaluating the results obtained a posteriori and for defining the organizational structure necessary to develop the strategies.
Short-term goals
Short-term goals are the intermediate goals to be achieved to achieve long-term goals. They are assigned to specific organizational areas, they must be able to express themselves “quantitatively” and be within a defined term.
The analysis of the general environment
Analyzing the environment in its general aspects means considering the political, economic, social, cultural, technological and natural environment.
As for the political environment, the entrepreneur will have to foresee whether in the future laws will be issued that will change the scenarios and put new constraints on the strategies themselves. Also forecasts relating to the evolution of the social environment surrounding the company and to the future trend in relations with workers, consumers and society are useful to the company for formulating strategies.
Once you have defined the mission and objectives of your company, you can begin to work to understand what actions to take to achieve them.
Defining your strategy clearly is one of the most delicate aspects of planning a business idea: many people fail to do so. Those who, on the other hand, manage to invest a little of their time to clearly define their goals, trace a well-defined path within which to make their activity walk.
