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What's Inside
Strategic Planning For Dummies is divided into six
parts for easy reference and use.
Part I: Laying
the Foundation for Your Strategic Plan
The chapters in this part are packed full of who, what, how,
and why you should care. You look at a number of concepts in
this part: The strategic planning process; Who should be involved;
How long the process takes; How you facilitate a strategic planning
process; When the right time for planning is; What the differences
between business plans and strategic plans; and When your organization
shouldn't embark on strategic planning
Part II: Looking
Backward to Move Forward
Hold on a second. Don't move past this part too quickly. I know
you want to. Whether your organization has been around for two
years or 200 years, you have important knowledge to build your
strategic plan on. I like to call that knowledge tribal knowledge.
Chapter 4 asks you to bring that tribal knowledge into the forefront
of your planning. Chapter 5 digs into the hard subject of what
you do best and is about identifying, developing, and sustaining
your organization's competitive advantage. Additionally, Part
II provides you with advice on making sure the foundation of
your business is solid. Chapter 6 includes a discussion about
mission, vision, and values.
Part III: Sizing
Up Your Current Situation
Part III focuses on collecting information that's critical for
your strategic decision making. Organizations can't plan without
gathering the right data, so Chapter 7 looks at internal data
collection and analysis; and Chapters 8 and 9 extend past your
business to external data collection on the environmental, customer,
industry, and competitive levels. A set of tools is provided
for synthesizing the data so it's more useful in strategic decision
making.
Part IV: Moving
Your Organization into the Future
The main reason you need to do strategic planning is to look
into and plan for the future. In this part, you determine how
you grow by looking at the different types of value-creating
strategies as well as the more specific strategies surrounding
growth, integration, and diversification. Most importantly,
you identify and evaluate opportunities and then select a strategy
to move in that direction.
Part V: Creating
and Making the Most of Your Plan
No matter how good the plan, if it sits on the shelf, it's going
to be useless. In this part, you put all the elements of the
plan together in an organized fashion. You develop strategic
objectives, goals and tactics, and scorecards. After your plan
is organized, you assess the financial viability of the plan,
how to communicate the plan, methods to hold people accountable,
and how to adapt the plan to an ever-changing environment. This
Part provides a wealth of information about strategy execution
and performance management.
Part VI: The Part
of Tens
Need some quick tips, a shot in the arm, or just a good laugh?
The Part of Tens is a collection of tongue-in-cheek hints, reminders,
observations, and warnings about what to do and not to do. These
chapters focus on giving you a quick set of guidelines for three
key areas: facilitating strategy meetings, getting your plan
done, and executing the strategy.
Added Value
Valuable Savings Inside From the Following Vendors:
- Amplitude
- BizMiner
- Demographics Now
- MyStrategicPlan
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