Overview

Strategic planning outlines the path between the current status of the business and the desired status. It requires the business to identify its objectives and goals and then make the correct decisions to achieve these objectives and goals. Doing so, we need to understand the strategy development process, learn how to conduct internal and external analysis, how to analyze industry scenarios, and how to determine suitable business opportunities.

Systematic Strategic Planning (SSP) describes a framework of phases through which each project passes, a pattern of procedures for straight-forward planning, and the fundamentals involved in any strategic planning project. Designed to be simple to understand and easy to use, the course provides a complete set of practical techniques, case studies, and working forms to guide you through preparing a strategic plan for your existing or future business. It explains how and in what circumstances to use particular tools and how to target them to achieve effective results.

This course content is based on conclusions drawn from different real-world applications and the cause-and-effect relationships within them.

What You Will Learn

At the conclusion of the course, you will be able to:

• Recall the Strategic Planning process to analyze and improve business performance.
• Describe a business' strategic position (vision, goals & strategies.)
• Conduct industry analyses (external analyses of a business' environment & internal analyses of a business and competitors’ capabilities.)
• Formulate realistic industry scenarios, business opportunities and strategies.

Course Objectives

Many courses exhort managers to “think strategically” or prescribe “strategic leadership” to helicopter out of tactical day-to-day management. But, few courses address how to make this happen. Where strategic analysis tools are explained, this is most frequently done conceptually rather than showing how to use the tools for strategic planning.

This course aims to introduce the concepts and techniques used in Strategic Planning without dwelling only on definitions by providing a detailed framework regarding the systematics of strategic planning.

The focus of the course shifts from the narrower single function to the broad, integrative focus of top-level management. Therefore, to develop the attendants’ strategic judgement capability and sensitivity. Accordingly, to expose the attendant to leading edge theory in strategic planning through the implementation of SSP to real life complex and multidimensional strategy instances and cases.

In short, the processes and techniques described can be universally applicable to any type of business. With the learning material, assignments and case studies in this course, you will be well-equipped to create effective strategic plans that drive your business forward.

Is This Course Right for Me?

This course is designed primarily for two groups:

1. One is the strategic planner. He/she is skilled in planning strategic plans, but may not fully recognize that planning strategies of any business calls for a different procedure. His conventional approach must be replaced by the broader analysis, his individual, factual analysis of specifics must give way to group opinions and evaluation of convenience or preference.
2. The second group involves the business owner and/or professional – the person not skilled enough in using the techniques of strategic planning. This second group includes such people as the owner-manager of a small business, the manager who is generally familiar with strategic planning, and the department head who is faced with a job which he plans to do himself.

Therefore, this course is designed to help both experienced strategic planners and other types of professionals who are faced with creating strategic plans for their businesses.

Note on Corporate Groups

This course is ideal for groups of 5-25 within an organization. If you would like to bring this course to your organization, please contact James Swisher for more information.

Teaching Methodology

The method of instruction will consist of participation through group discussions. Several examples and case studies will be used to illustrate the topics. There will be ample opportunity to discuss the learning assignments and implementation of SSP on a real-life sample case through group-cross challenges.

Designed to be simple to understand and easy to use, the course presents techniques, case studies, and working forms to guide you through preparing a strategic plan for any business type. It explains how and in what circumstances to use particular tools and how to target them to achieve effective results.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this course.

Certificate of Completion

Students who complete all course requirements and pass a post-course exam will be awarded a certificate of completion from IISE.