Stakeholders Improves the Strategic Planning

¶ … stakeholders improves the strategic planning process in several ways. The first is in terms of securing approval. Most plans require some form of approval to proceed, and this approval is often subject to being blocked by one or more groups of stakeholders. Alternately, stakeholder protestations can convince those who have the power to block approval to do so. However, if the various stakeholders are able to outline their needs and desires during the process, two things are accomplished. The first is that those needs can be incorporated into the plan. In lieu of that, the stakeholders will at least feel that they had their voice heard, and they are then less likely to block approval. Management also has the opportunity to prepare for any protestations because they know the views and needs of the different stakeholder groups.

Resourcing is another key way in which stakeholder engagement can improve the strategic planning process. Some of the stakeholders can control over the inputs required to execute such plans. By engaging them in the process, management can get a better sense as to the availability of these inputs, their cost, timeframes, and possible alternatives. This gives management a much clearer picture of the resourcing environment and possibilities for their plans, making those strategic plans stronger.

Implementing strategies is made easier by engaging stakeholders in a number of ways. First, it helps management better manage or eliminate resistance to the plans. The feedback from the stakeholders allows management to improve their plans. Also, the stakeholders are more likely to work harder to make the plans work if they are engaged from the outset in the formulation of the strategy.

2) the basic information needed to define a business would be at least the main revenue-generating activity, the geographic scope, and the target markets. For example, "We market prepaid phone cards to Cuban-Americans in South Florida." From there, you can describe the different functions or future plans, but the person understands, roughly, what you do. It is important to describe this when developing a new strategy so you have a sense of where your organization stands today. This can help to either keep the strategy focused on tasks within the scope of this definition, or it forces the organization to create think about a new definition prior to launching a strategy, for example "We market prepaid phone cards to Latin-Americans in Florida," ahead of an expansion strategy.

Vision statements should be motivational for two reasons. One, they are not functional - they do not outline any particular task nor do they inform. So the only thing they can do is motivate. Also, they communicate to the world a sense of where the organization wants to be. Work tends to be more productive and focused if there is an end goal in mind, and those goals flow from this vision. The vision motivates all stakeholders to try to achieve the goals. An organization's ability to reached a desired end state depends on the desire of the stakeholders to achieve that state. They need to know what that state is, why it is desireable, and how it is to be achieved. Mission and vision statements contribute to this. Values help guide the stakeholders towards the vision in the manner that management deems most appropriate. This gives a certain consistency to actions, not just a consistency in the desired end state.

3) the essential components of the strategic management process are: mission, objectives, situation analysis, strategy formulation, implementation and control. The mission is the basic reason for being, what the organization hopes to accomplish. The objectives are more concrete goals that the organization feels will allow it to achieve its mission. The situation analysis takes stock of the internal and external environment, so that the organization has adequate information on which to base its decisions. This information allows the organization to understand what it has, and what opportunities exist.

Strategy formulation involves outlining the strategy to be undertaken to achieve the objectives. This is undertaken based on the knowledge gained in the situational analysis, the idea being to devise a strategy that achieves the objectives within the parameters of the opportunities in the market and the capabilities of the organization. Implementation is the execution of the strategy. It is a set of specific actionable plans, identifying how the organization will make the strategy happen. Control is measuring the results of the implementation vs. The objectives. From this, the organization can identify specific areas of success and of failure. The latter can then be analyzed, and either the problems dealt with or the organization may decide to go back to the analysis and formulation stage and rework the strategy from the start.

4) Leadership, culture, stakeholder interests all help to determine strategic outcomes. Strategy is typically based on the interests of at least one key stakeholder. If stakeholder interests are aligned, the strategic outcome can be expected to be similar to what was planned, as each group of stakeholders is working for the same common goal. When stakeholder interests compete, however, strategic outcomes may fall short of plans. The different groups of stakeholders may work towards their own interests, creating a disconnect between the strategy formulated and the strategic outcome.