The importance of strategic planning for startups is a very vital issue for any company to achieve the desired goal. Of economic, social, environmental or financial initiative, a company has to ensure that the company achieves its main objective, which is to generate results. After all, the best way to create a competitive advantage over your competitors is by planning and executing your actions well. Without this direction, the company can end up sailing without north and pass away from the ideal and strategic point.

Regardless of whether your goal is to increase your sales volume or your company size, this goal guide will ensure that your employees know how to take action against any situation on a day-to-day basis, even when the entrepreneur is not present to guide the take of decision-making. So when it comes to doing it, do not forget to keep in mind its importance of strategic planning values and mission of the business, as they should guide every strategy that will be used by the startup.

But attention needs to be paid during the time when you drafting your plan. It is not uncommon for some entrepreneurs to mix up personal planning and business planning, especially those with a very personal business routine. But despite appearing innocent, this is a mistake that can be costly in the future – the entrepreneur has one cycle, the company, another. With this in mind, we will highlight the importance of developing strategic planning for startups in a strategic way, so as to ensure the financial and operational health of the business.

What is the right time to set up strategic planning for startups?

Many people find that there is a specific time period in the year they should plan, but the truth is that this will depend a lot on your business cycle. Imagine, for example, the cycle of a steel industry. In it, the planning will focus on long-term actions, because the scenario in which your company is inserted does not vary that much from year to year.

Reality is very different from the one in which are inserted the startups and the companies of development and technology. After all, companies in this segment basically experience disruption every three months and so it is only natural that the review of your plans needs to be done at that same speed. That’s why your first query before you start planning, should be: what cycle of my company and what is the importance of strategic planning for startups? With this answer, you will be able to define how much time you need to review your planning.

A practical guide to organizing planning

After understanding and defining the business cycle, and with everything we have discussed so far in mind, let’s now review the three key steps that are part of developing this tool:

1. Assemble a responsible team

It’s time to roll up your sleeves and get your ideas on the paper. And the first step in planning is precisely to bring people together who will be responsible for getting you out of theory and turning you into practical action. After all, while engaging all employees is important, people who have decision-making power, such as leaders are essential.

When the team is assembled, it is time to listen and take note of those who know the importance of strategic planning and the future of the company.

Here, the important thing is that everyone participates and aligns their ideas, an opportunity even for the entrepreneur to listen to a balance of the expectations of its main collaborators.

One tip: always seek to have the figure of a mediator, responsible for organizing the moments and ensuring that all points of view are heard. Then, once all the ideas and insights are collected, it’s time to group and organize them. For example, the mediator can separate them into similar groups, such as ideas for technology, ideas for the personal sector, ideas for relationships with clients, and others.

2. Importance of strategic planning is to find the obstacles

All set for the second step: understand what prevents your company from achieving those results. Let’s imagine a practical scenario in which one of the objectives for your company is to improve the collaborative work between the teams. What are the barriers that are preventing this from happening naturally? Is there friction between employees? Is there a need to better define roles and responsibilities? Lack of autonomy? There are countless possibilities, so all scenarios need to be analyzed when you develop strategic planning for startups.

However, in the process, care must be taken not to complicate something that, in essence, is an easily solved problem. This is because, in this example of collaborative work, co-operation between teams may not be happening simply for the sake of company layout. Rather than allocating your employees in cubicles, for example, how about grouping them into a single space, lowering the physical barriers as much as possible?

3. Create actions to solve problems

Finally, after listing all obstacles, the last step involves developing at least one action for each of them. And when we talk about these actions, it is important to emphasize that the entrepreneur does not need to take some miraculous solution of the sleeve. The suggestion is that together with the team that helped identify the obstacles if you think about routes, alternatives and some changes in the routine of the startup that can solve the problem.

In addition, the ideal is that each action has an “owner” and a term. After all, when a task is assigned to a very large team, usually under the pretext that it is a collective responsibility, what one does have is a scenario in which no one is totally responsible for anything, so the choice of these leaders is important. This will ensure that there is always at least one person looking at each action and ensuring that it really gets out of the role – people with the discipline to stop and really think about the future of the company with a more strategic look.

Monitor and control the strategic planning

To help ensure that these actions are met, you need to set goals and indicators that translate to what you want. This is an important part of strategic planning for startups where many entrepreneurs end up getting involved, either by setting goals and indicators that do not match the reality of the company or by confusing the real meanings of goal, goal, and action.

Remember that good planning will guide the steps of your company in the coming months or years and dictate the future of your business. And if you lack security or experience for decision making, the tip is that the best line is that of “simple, objective and direct.” After all, however much the day-to-day routine is a big challenge, it is important to always keep in mind the importance of strategic planning.

After all, if the entrepreneur and his team manage to do an effective job in managing these goals and objectives, the tendency is for the whole team to feel more supported and collaborative as the results are achieved. The reward will be the consolidation of the structure of the business and its force of action, factors that, of course, tend to impact on the increase in the number of clients and a better positioning against the competitors.

Conclusion:

The importance of strategic planning for a new company who want to find a place in the business field is huge. It’s even beyond imagination. This article was all about this vital point. If you and your company need help to work with something or to develop some of the actions that we present here for the formation of your strategic planning for startups, feel free to contacts us! Our team of experts is always on hand to help you!