▷ Tools to implement strategic planning

Strategic planning, like all planning, It is a methodical and systematic process.; therefore, there are many useful tools that allow companies to implement strategic planning successfully.

Each of these tools designed to achieve a specific purpose such as business growth, create market opportunities, minimize weaknesses of the entity, among other purposes.

These tools are extremely valuable for business management, that is why we will dedicate this article to telling you what those are. 5 tools to implement strategic planning effectively.

360° analysis of the company

It is a very useful tool for planning strategies in organizations. based on a feedback process within its different hierarchical levels; analyzing the weaknesses and strengths of each of the employees and their customer interaction capabilities.

This allows developing strategies to take advantage of the potential or strengths of the staff, just as This way facilitates the elaboration of training and development programs to improve their weaknesses in the business.

For it The following factors are analyzed:

1. Immediate boss.
2. Colleagues.
3. subordinates.
4. Customers.

Basically, this tool improves teamwork through the feedback process, allowing to know the strengths of employees and teams to develop plans based on strategies.

Porter's 5 forces analysis

It is a strategic planning tool Very useful for management tasks., allowing the company to stay one step ahead of the competition in those markets that represent great challenges.

This tool helps to plan competitive strategies that maximize the entity's profitable potential, taking into account five elements known as Porter's five forces, which are:

1. Bargaining power with suppliers.
2. Bargaining power with customers.
3. Threats from new competitors.
4. Threats of new products.
5. Rivalry between competitors.

By analyzing these elements, the company can analyze the competition in the industry to detect market opportunities and based on said environment, measure its resources to develop strategic plans.

SWOT Matrix Analysis

Also known as a SWOT or SWOT matrix, which is a diagnostic tool very useful for strategic planning whatallows to know in what situation the entity is, analyzing both internal and external factors, What are they:

1. Strengths.
2. opportunities.
3. Weaknesses.
4. threats.

The analysis of each of the variables that make up these factors is described in items, which facilitate the development of a strategic plan for counteract weaknesses and threats with strengths and opportunities.

Ansoff matrix analysis

It is a planning tool for business management that facilitates the development of strategies to solve growth problems based on the analysis of the market environment.

Strategic planning using the Ansoff matrix focuses on bivariate analysis What are they the product and the market, essential variables for strategic analysis, and Taking these two variables into account, four scenarios are studied:

1. Market penetration: arises from combining current products and markets.
2. Development of new markets: It is generated by combining current products and new markets.
3. Development of new products: it is the result of crossing new products with current markets.
4. Diversification: it is the result of the combination of new products with new markets.

These factors are represented graphically by combining four quadrants; on the horizontal axis, new products and current products are reflected, and on the vertical axis new markets and current markets are represented.

this tool helps to know the degree of participation of the company's products or services in the market to plan a route to follow to achieve the entity's growth objectives.

BCG matrix analysis

The BCG matrix is ​​a strategic marketing planning tool based on growth analysis and level of market share, what focuses on the analysis of the most profitable products for the company, which facilitates the planning of strategies to increase the level of profitability.

this tool allows planning a viable business portfolio, based on the most commercial products for the company, for this Two factors are taken into account as guide routes for the planning of strategies that are:

1. The growth rate of the market, is represented on the vertical axis of the matrix and reflects the attractiveness of the industry in which the entity participates, as well as the level of market demand.
2. The market share rate: it is reflected on the horizontal axis to represent the share of the company in the market in which it participates.

These two factors combined allow to create four quadrants which are represented by symbols that are: the star, the question mark, the cow and the dog; allowing planning 2×2 strategies, that is, combining different degrees of growth and participation to group different business strategies and develop the company's portfolios.

The symbols to use are:

1. Star: It represents the high growth of the market and the great participation of the company in it.
2. Question mark: It reflects the high growth of the market and the small participation of the company in said market.
3.  Cow: It represents the little growth of the market and the high participation of the company in it.
4. Dog: symbolizes that there is no growth in the market and participation in it is low.

However, in order to plan this strategy it is necessary for the company to have the necessary information and reliable to be able to proceed to calculate the share of the market, as well as the growth of the same.

To determine the market share, the following formula is applied: Market share = total company sales / total market sales.

In order to determine the growth of the market, the information must be taken in the statistical reports of the behavior of the demand in the industry in which it participates.