Strategic Business Plan
TOPIC: SUCCESSFUL AND SOLUTIONS TO BUSINESS
TEXTBOOK: ISBN 978-1-259-29707-6
plan
Title page and table of contents, course, name and date, name of company, name of instructor
The objective of the Strategic Business Plan is to develop a business strategy that incorporates the key learning objectives covered in the course and is focused on a individual
strategic business issue of importance to you. Students often develop strategic business
plans to launch a new business venture they have been thinking about or to resolve a
strategic problem or take advantage of a strategic opportunity at their place of work.
The plan should be approximately ten (10) pages in length. You may add attachments to
the ten page plan if you feel it is additive and/ or provides explanation of parts of your
plan
Write your plan using a business writing format similar to what you see in the text that
can include paragraph format, bullet points and/ or charts, tables, diagrams, references
Your Final Strategic Business Plan is due as a post attachment no later than Thursday
April 19, 2016 by 11:59 PM EST
Plan Sections
Executive Summaryo Write a paragraph describing the business situation/ problem that you are addressing in the plan and basic outline of how you intend to resolve it. The executive
summary represents an important checkpoint that you will refer to as you construct the plan. All elements of the plan should be supportive of the executive
summary. You may want to do a rough outline of the executive summary as you
start the plan to identify the “big picture” and then rewrite a finished version once
you have completed the plan. Remember to answer the three tests of winning
strategy in your executive summary:
Strategic fit
Competitive advantage
Identify the problem and the solution “what problem am I solving and
how”
Measurable performance objectives (financial, strategic and/or operational) “will the business have a sustainable competitive advantage as a result of the plan”
Strategic Visiono What is your vision statement for the business? This should give the reader a
sense of the “desired state” of the business once the plan has been successfully
implemented and answer the question “How am I creating long term shareholder
value”
o Describe your strategic and financial business objectives. Consider the examples
given on page 28 Table 2.2 of the text. Develop objectives that are relevant to
your business issues. Strategic/financial objectives should be both short term (1-3
years) and long term (1-5 years).
Business Objectives
o Identify strategic, financial and/or operational objectives. These objectives must
have a time frame and be measurable, (achieve X by Y time frame)
External Environmental Analysis
o Construct an external environmental analysis and describe the factors that you
feel will impact your business environment. These may include technical, financial, operational, human resource, regulatory, legislative issues or others
Industry and Competitive Environmental Analysiso Assess the competitive environment. Use Porter’s Five Forces Model to describe
the competitive situation you are facing. Consider the seven industry analysis
questions that apply to your business situation when constructing your industry
and competitive analysis
Internal Environmental Analysis – Competitive Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats-
o Construct a SWOT analysis. Translate the output from your SWOT analysis to
construct your business strategy
Business Strategy
o Using the output from your SWOT analysis state the business strategy(s) that respond to your environmental analysis, leverage your strengths and opportunities,
offset your weaknesses and external threats and are realistic as solutions to the
stated business objectives. Refer to the five generic competitive strategies discussed on pages 118 Figure 5.1.
Implementation Plano Describe, in detail in chart format, the steps you will take in implementing your
business plan strategy.
Who will do it
How will it be implemented
Your implementation time frame
How you will incentivize strategy execution and performance
Standards in place to ensure ethical implementation
How will you use information tools to monitor implementation progress
against plan objectives
A process to make real time changes to your plan as necessary
o Construct your Implementation Plan in chart format with prioritized actions down
the left margin and a time line with deliverables on the top margin
Strategy Expansion Plano Consider what strategy you would use to expand your business plan assuming
success of the core plan and strategic value of expansion to other geographic locations or other business units of the company
o Consider the different strategic expansion options described in Chapter 7 of the
textbook
o A secondary form of business expansion is diversification into related and unrelated business areas. If this option offers strategic growth then describe how you
would use it in your plan
* Remember, a winning strategy addresses:
Strategic fit
Sustainable competitive advantage
Measurable performance
* Put your Strategic Business Plan through a Spell and Grammar check before submitting as fi nal
* Read your Strategic Business Plan thoroughly to ensure that all sections of your plan are connected and support each other
Work cited
