by Melissa Brenes-Bastos, mbrenes@vt.edu
Since 1960s, there had been a lot of terms to describe Strategic Planning, such as, comprehensive corporate planning, comprehensive managerial planning, comprehensive integrated planning, corporate planning, formal strategic planning and other combinations. According to Steiner (1997) formal strategic planning has to be defined from four points of view:
- Futurity of current decisions: it means to look at cause and effect consequences of an actual or future decision that the manager is going to make, in other words if the manager do not like the consequences ahead the decision those can se change. (Steiner, 1997)
- Process: Steiner 1997, mentions that it begins with setting organizations aims, define strategies, policies to accomplish them and detail plans to implement the strategy correctly, in more cases the plans are set for a certain amount of time, not to change every day, but it has to be appropriate for unexpected changes and actions.
- Philosophy: this point refers to an attitude, a life stile, it refers that the organization have to believes in the strategic plan, the manager and coworkers need to believe that is worth doing and must want to do the strategic planning in the company. (Steiner, 1997)
- Structure: the last but not least point Steiner 1997 mention is referring to integrate strategic plans, medium-rage programs and short-rage budgets and operating plans, it is focus in the linkages of those plans into a management strategies that will translate to current decisions.
Pophal 2009 describe a step by step approach to developing a strategic marketing plan which will include terms such as: (1) Situation analysis ‘compound with Industry analysis, Market analysis and Competitive analysis’, (2) SWOT analysis, (3) Quantifiable objectives/goals, (4) Strategies and tactics to meet objectives/goals, (5) Responsibility/ accountability, (6) Develop a budget and (7) Ongoing monitoring and adjustment.
Researchers Cohen & Smith (1991) study two different marketing strategies for the Forest Products Industry: (1) International marketing and (2) Global marketing. The first marketing plan consists in selling different products of the same resource to international markets using different method to each market. The second marketing plan refers to selling the same standardized product to many markets using the same method.
The International and Global marketing represent to completely different points to approach a strategic marketing plan, even though Cohen & Smith (1991) conclude that the appropriate strategy combination have an substantial impact in the success of wood products exports, they also mention that choosing the correct strategy is not a simple process (it’s linked to tactical decisions, product mix, promotional efforts, specific export targets, etc.) and finally they concluded that: “ Understanding the strategic options available to an exporting company or region is the first step towards developing appropriate exports strategies”.
References:
- Cohen, D. & Smith, P. (1991) Global marketing strategies for forest product industries. Canadian Journal of Forest Research, Volume 22, Issue 1, pp. 124 – 131. Retrieved February 18, 2013 from: http://www.nrcresearchpress.com.ezproxy.lib.vt.edu:8080/doi/abs/10.1139/x92-017#.USZ2zaUZfww
- Pophal, L (2009). A step-by-step approach to developing a strategic marketing plan. Strategic Communications, LLC. Retrieved October 18, 2012 from: www.stratcommunications.com.
- Steiner, G. (1997) Strategic Planning; What every manager must know. Free Press Paperbacks. New York, NY.