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• Business Planning
• • Business Planning Resources and Links
  • Business Plans and Financing Proposals
  • Sample Business Plan Outline
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• • Employee vs. Subcontractor: What’s the Difference & Why You Should Care
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  • What’s the Massachusetts WorkShare Program?
  • What's the Real Cost of an Employee?
  • IRS - Independent Contractor or Employee
  • MA - Unemployment Insurance Guide for Employers
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• • Cost Allocation for Nonprofits
  • The New Form 990: What Does it Mean for Smaller Nonprofits?
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Strategic Planning and SWOT Analysis

Business plans often deal with financial issues. Marketing plans are usually developed to improve name or brand recognition or change the image of a company within a target audience. A strategic plan may incorporate both, but is usually broader in scope.

Strategic planning allows a business or organization to set goals for the next year or longer, map out how it will reach those goals, and determine benchmarks to measure success. Smaller organizations may create an overall strategic plan. Larger ones may create separate plans for each major division or group, which tie into an overall plan.

Basic Strategic Planning:

• Review your basic mission statement (you may find it’s time to re-think it)
• Select the goals you must achieve in order to fulfill your mission
• Determine quantifiable ways of measuring success
• Map out the specific steps you must take in order to reach each goal
• Determine what resources will be needed (staffing, equipment, software, etc.)
• Create realistic budgets and timeframes for each step
• Monitor your progress and revise your plan as needed

SWOT Analysis:

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is often done as part of the strategic planning process, and should be updated or reviewed every 1-3 years. Basically, you want to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your organizations, opportunities for new growth, and external threats. Having a clear understanding of your situation before developing your strategic plan makes it much more likely those goals will be effective ones. Until you know your internal strengths and weaknesses, you can’t create obtainable goals, determine which opportunities make sense to pursue, or prioritize outside threats.

Sometimes a SWOT analysis is done in reverse. First outside opportunities and threats are identified, then you work on finding the strengths and weaknesses within your organization that prevent you taking advantage of those opportunities, or make it difficult to respond to threats.

In either case, the end result should be a clearer understanding of your organizational strengths and weaknesses, and what you need to prioritize when setting goals.