What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning in small business management is the process of documenting and establishing a clear sense of direction by assessing both where you are and where you’re going. A strong plan helps you define your strategic vision, set realistic goals and align your team’s efforts so everyone works toward the same objective.

Not sure where to start? In this guide, we’ll outline what a strategic plan is, why you need one and explain how effective strategy execution drives growth and long-term business success.

What Is a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan is a roadmap that defines a company’s long-term direction and how it will achieve its goals. The specifics of a strategic plan vary by company and industry, however, the key components of strategic planning initiatives include:

• Mission
• Vision
• Values
• Long-term goals
• Action plans

A well-written strategic plan plays a pivotal role in your small business’ growth and success because it tells you and your employees how best to respond to opportunities and challenges.

It’s essential to note that a strategic plan is different from a business plan. A business plan is typically used to help start your business and acquire the necessary funds to open its doors. A strategic plan focuses on your company’s strategy for growth and achieving long-term success using existing resources.

If you haven’t been focusing on a long-term strategic planning process until now, it’s not too late to think differently. And your future success could depend on this kind of effective organizational strategic planning. It’s also important to remember that strategy development involves your entire organization. The best business strategy is based on a practical analysis and sets realistic goals and strategic objectives. Discussions with employees, managers and other stakeholders can lead to meaningful improvements in daily operations and key priorities. The ultimate goal is to create a formal document that lays out your company’s views and strategic goals for the future.

What Are the 7 Basic Elements of Strategic Planning?

While every company’s goals and approaches will look different, most plans include seven core elements:

1. Core Values: The principles that guide business leaders and employees alike, shaping your organizational culture and defining how your company operates.
2. Vision Statement: A clear definition of your organization’s strategy, acting as the driving force behind decision-making.
3. Mission Statement: A description of your organization’s mission and purpose, outlining why your business exists and how it creates value for customers.
4. Strategic Methodology: The processes and strategic planning tools you’ll utilize as you work toward the desired outcomes.
5. Strategic Objectives, Goals & Metrics: The key performance indicators (KPIs), targets and milestones you’ll use to measure and track progress.
6. Action Plans & Tasks: The specific initiatives and actions that must be performed to ensure successful implementation.
7. SWOT Analysis: A thorough situational analysis of your internal and external environment focusing on strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

When each of these elements is aligned, your strategic plan becomes a powerful roadmap that connects daily actions with your company’s long-term success.

Who Manages Organizational Strategic Planning?

In most small businesses, the owner or CEO leads the process, but successful strategization often involves multiple strategic planners. Key contributors typically include senior leadership and department heads. One of the things to note is that collaboration is essential. By involving a cross-section of your team, you encourage clear communication, create a stronger overall plan and ensure everyone understands their role in achieving your organization’s goals.

Why Is the Strategic Planning Process Important?

It may take a little time to get it right, but strategic planning is an ongoing process that benefits everyone. It helps business owners define priorities, manage resource allocation effectively and prepare for potential challenges. Likewise, effective strategic planning in management teams improves cross-department collaboration. Meanwhile, it fosters an increase in productivity among other employees, which keeps your business adaptable and focused on the bigger picture.

Increase Productivity

Involving your employees in the strategic planning process also means they feel more accountable, which can increase productivity. Whether they contributed to the process or were informed of the business’ long-term goals and objectives after the strategic plan was created, they’ll be more likely to want to help you achieve those targets.

Identifying Strengths and Weaknesses

You can conduct a SWOT analysis and generate a balanced scorecard of what your business does well and what areas it needs improvement. Review your internal environment (operations, resources and processes) alongside external factors like market trends, competitor activity and customer behaviors that influence performance. Proactively identifying strategic issues, addressing potential challenges and setting priorities that positively impact long-term growth will make your business much more durable.

Setting the Direction of the Business

Strategic planning gives you and your business time to figure out how to grow and how to address new opportunities and challenges. Think about the challenges or issues your business may face over multiple years and plan accordingly. By the end of the strategic planning process, you and your employees should have a clear direction for where you want the business to go in the future. The discussion and planning processes themselves are often integral to putting your business in the best position to succeed.

Communicating Your Strategic Plan

The sooner everyone is involved, the better. Seeking early feedback from employees can unearth valuable insights into what may not work and highlight any specific project plans that need improvement. Input from vendors, advisors and other stakeholders can be equally valuable in highlighting market trends, opportunities and potential risks you may not have considered. When sharing your plan, focus on timelines and how responsibilities will be communicated across business units so that everyone understands their role in achieving the company’s goals.

The 3-Step Strategic Planning Process

Most plans can be broken down into the following distinct phases:

• Discussion
• Development
• Review and updating

Let’s take a closer look at what each step involves and why it matters.

1. Discussion Phase

The discussion phase is designed to gather as much information, opinions and input as possible. Set up a regularly scheduled meeting with the employees and any other stakeholders in your business who will be involved with strategic planning. Make sure you have an agenda and clear expectations of what you want to accomplish in each meeting. This will keep discussions on track and help prevent distractions.

In the first few meetings, try to answer questions that will help you define mission-critical criteria, such as “Where are we now?” and “Where are our competitors?” Once you have a realistic idea of where the business is, you can focus on specific details in future meetings.

When you’re conducting a SWOT analysis as a team, strengths should be easy to identify. When you’re discussing weaknesses, don’t be afraid to be candid. Every business has weaknesses and things to work on. Besides, anything that stands out is something you’ll aim to improve on with a detailed initiative outlined in the strategic plan. Likewise, opportunities may be pretty clear, while identifying threats can be more difficult. So, in addition to regular meetings with your employees and stakeholders, you can also gather information from people outside your company, like:

• Vendors
• Investors
• Analysts

External people will have a unique perspective on not only your business, but also the industry you’re operating in. Getting their opinions on where they think the industry is going and what they think will change can help you put together your strategic plan and determine where you want your business to be.

2. Development Phase

This is when you’ll start putting together your strategic plan based on the seven key elements we outlined above.

The first step is to decide what you will use to create the strategic plan. Are you going to purchase software to help you create and house the plan? Or are you going to create the plan yourself and save it in the cloud for easier access?

When you’re creating goals and objectives for your business, make sure they’re realistic and measurable. Work with your employees to create goals and objectives for at least the next one to three years and discuss how they will be measured and tracked. For example, if you have a goal of increasing sales by 10% in the next year, you can track this by measuring sales numbers.

Equally important is having an action plan to achieve your goals and objectives. Using the same example of increasing year-over-year sales by 10%, you can pursue more marketing and social media outreach as part of your action plan.

The bottom line? If an action plan doesn’t help your business achieve its goals, the plan needs to be rewritten.

3. Review and Updating Phase

Designate someone to be responsible for reviewing, updating and sharing any strategic planning changes with the rest of the company. Whether it’s you or another employee, you’ll want to make sure everyone in the business is aware of the changes and how they affect the overall strategic plan.

Your strategic plan takes time and effort to finalize, so don’t fall into the trap of ignoring it once it’s done. Schedule a time for review that won’t slip through the cracks. For example, if your action plan requires you to put in sales numbers every quarter to track revenue, you could take that time to review the rest of the plan. You can also set an alert to check the strategic plan every few months, every quarter or every year.

When reviewing, don’t panic if you discover you’re not on track to meet an objective or goal. Reassess the situation and return to the discussion phase to figure out what went wrong. If a particular goal was too ambitious or unrealistic, change it and update the action plan to help you get back on track. You also may find that your small business has met a goal or objective earlier than you thought you would. If so, you can create a new goal or objective to work toward, or try to maintain the progress you’ve already made. Discuss ideas with your employees to see what they think is possible.

Strategic Planning Examples for Small Business

A small business strategic plan focuses on solving real challenges that affect growth, productivity and profitability. For example, if you’re struggling with talent attraction and retention, your plan might include launching a targeted social media campaign to boost recruitment. You could also outline initiatives to improve your workplace culture and enhance employee benefits to remain competitive.

Whatever your challenges, the key is to define clear objectives and accurately measure progress against them, making adjustments when necessary to ensure your strategy supports long-term growth.

According to a recent survey of small business owners, these are the top challenges for small businesses in 2025:

• 22% said inflation/price increases
• 17% said they expect challenges with recruiting/retention of employees
• 18% said lack of capital/cash flow

Nonprofit Strategic Plan Example

Just like small businesses, nonprofits also benefit from a clear, well-defined strategic plan. However, nonprofit plans often focus more on the internal and external factors that can affect funding, programs and services. Because organizational structures and priorities can shift quickly, the plan must remain flexible enough to adjust when needed.

For example, the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits has a strategic plan with in-depth descriptions, outlines and strategies covering the ‘what’s’, ‘hows’ and ‘whens’ of the organization’s:

• Vision
• Mission
• Community it serves
• Goals for the four-year period

The plan also lists the people responsible for working on the strategic plan.

IT Strategic Plans

The IT industry is continually evolving in response to increasingly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. While other business strategic plans may focus on the next three to four years, it’s not uncommon for an IT strategic plan to look at only the next 12 to 16 months.

For an IT or tech company, a robust strategic plan may include upgrading critical infrastructure, strengthening cybersecurity or migrating systems to the cloud. Specific project plans might include data analytics initiatives to improve decision-making or explore opportunities to integrate AI and machine learning tools that enhance customer experiences.

However often you review and update your IT strategic plan, it’s important to involve your business’ Chief Information Officer or technology lead. Remember to always include details on how to make a decision when it comes to investing in new equipment or technology.

Marketing Strategic Plans

A marketing strategic plan is essential because 73% of small businesses lack confidence in the effectiveness of their marketing strategy. Whether it’s increasing sales numbers by 15% or increasing the number of customers in the next quarter, a marketing strategic plan helps businesses generate more revenue and increase their customer base.

A strategic marketing plan can include marketing technology, software or web-based platforms to help track your business’ progress toward its goals. The plan also could address the specific types of marketing that the business will pursue—for example, whether your business will pursue traditional print advertising or digital ads.

Because a strategic marketing plan aims to increase your business’ exposure and numbers through different techniques and methods, it’s a good idea to include the budget in the document. This way, you and your employees will work toward the marketing goals and objectives you want to achieve without spending too much money.

Strategic Planning Template Checklist

 A good strategic plan template, sometimes called a strategy mapping template, is like a checklist. It includes different sections for you to complete, ensuring you cover a variety of topics and develop a comprehensive strategic plan for your business.

There are plenty of ways to get started. You can build your own template in Microsoft Word or Excel or use dedicated strategic planning software.

Here’s a strategic planning template checklist:

• Executive Summary: Provide a brief overview of your business and the purpose of your strategic plan. Include the time period it covers—for example, a three, four or five-year outlook.
• Your Company: Outline your mission statement, vision, core values and the key leadership information that defines your business’ identity and direction.
• Research & Insights: Include information and statistics about your customers, competitors, market share and any other key pieces of data driving your strategy.
• Products & Services: Detail what you offer, your pricing strategy, delivery channels, capabilities and supplier relationships to provide a full picture of your operations.
• Measurable Goals: List the specific objectives you aim to achieve within the plan’s time frame, and list the KPIs you’ll use to measure progress and track success.
• Action Plans: Break down the specific initiatives that will help you achieve your goals. Define responsibilities, timelines and the resources required to deliver results.
• SWOT Analysis: Include a summary to act as a baseline for comparison when you revisit your plan.
• Review & Updates: Explain how often your strategic plan will be reviewed and identify who is responsible for updating the plan and sharing changes with the broader team.

What Makes Strategic Planning Successful?

As we’ve learned, successful strategic planning involves a team effort among you and your employees, as well as among you and your vendors and other outside people. The more you engage your employees with strategic planning, the better they’ll understand the strategy you want to have for your business.

Strategic planning concepts also need to be flexible. While it’s necessary to have goals and objectives for your business, you also have to be able to adapt to changes. For instance, it’s vital for small businesses to cater to growing online shopping trends. Industry reports reveal that 92% of small business owners say a website is essential for brand authority, yet 27% still don’t have one. If yours is one of them, that might be something to add to your strategic plan sooner rather than later.

When strategic planning is successful, everyone in your business is on the same page with the business’ direction and goals. Each individual understands what makes the business stronger and what needs to be worked on. And it’s more likely that each person wants to contribute to the business’ growth and success.

When Should Strategic Planning Be Done?

When it comes to strategic planning, you want to start it sooner than later. It doesn’t necessarily have to be done in the first few days or weeks of the company’s life—you may want to be in business for a few months to give yourself a better idea of what is and isn’t working.

Even if you’ve owned your business for a long time, it’s not too late to get started on strategic planning. It’s never a bad time to sit down and think about the current status of your company and where you want to be in the next five to 10 years. When you’re ready, gather your team together and schedule regular meetings dedicated to strategic planning.

Reviewing and Updating Your Strategic Plan

A strategic plan is a living document, so there’s little point in going to the effort of creating one just to put it on a shelf to collect dust. Instead, live by it and update it regularly.

Remember, if your business works in a fast-paced industry and can be affected by changing outside factors, you should review and update your strategic plan on a more frequent basis. But, at the very least, you should revisit it once per year.

Here are some top tips to follow when making reviews and updates:

• Set a Review Schedule: Check your plan regularly—quarterly, annually or when major changes occur.
• Measure Progress: Compare actual results against your KPIs to see what’s on track and what needs adjusting.
• Reassess Goals: Update objectives when priorities shift or unexpected strategic issues arise.
• Allocate Resources: Confirm that time, budget and talent still align with your updated goals.
• Communicate Changes: Share updates with the team so everyone understands the revised direction and responsibilities.

By keeping your plan current, you give your business the clarity and flexibility it needs to sustain growth and success in the long term.

Strategic Planning FAQs