Strategic Planning definition

A coherent planning strategy whereby businesses define their values, objectives and needs and then allocate resources and organise processes to help the business achieve these values and objectives. Strategic planning is a major part of formulating three-year, five-year and 10-year plans.

A variety of techniques exist to help businesses plan strategically, including SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) and situational analysis. According to J. Scott Armstrong (1986), businesses must consider what they do, who they do it for, and what they excel at, when undertaking strategic planning.

Strategic planning software offers organisations tools and techniques that walks them through the strategic planning process, and may be able to highlight additional variables. HR software is particularly useful for comparative analysis and benchmarking as a basis for strategic planning.