HOW TO MAKE A GOAL PLAN FOR COMPANIES: DETERMINE THE DIRECTION TO FOLLOW

It is a well known fact that the first step in achieving results is clarifying the objectives and having specific and well-defined goals.

This is true both in our professional and personal lives.

Therefore, we do not speak of planning as just a purely formal action or an end in itself.

The objective is setting goals for the company to develop its business and identifying the direction in which everyone should follow, according to their position and role within an organization.

Developing your business is not the result of random choices, but the result of an accurate business plan and its implementation.

However, companies don’t always operate like this.

In reality, when things are going well, it is often the results were achieved without much clarity on exactly what led to those good figures.

In other words, there wasn’t a formalized strategy and this, at the business level, means not having a systematized organization.

Therefore, it won’t be possible to learn from this example and communicate how to replicate a successful business model and it’s procedures.

However, the problem arises when things go wrong. Lack of a clear project and the following of a strategic path don’t provide the capacity to read where the gap between the expected results and real results were implemented.

This means that we don’t know the necessary moment to correct the direction and calibrate.

And in the absence of this understanding, attempts will be made to correct the situation, often making things worse.

Therefore, knowing  how to make a goal plan for the company and especially, to monitor its results, is fundamental for a business. That’s what we’re going to learn in this post.

Also check out this article from our blog: Discover the canvas tool to illustrate your business plan

What is a company goal plan? How to start setting business goals?

Before we talk about how to make a goal plan for a company, it is important to know what it is.

Some businessmen or owners just don’t know what it means to make a goal plan.

They don’t know how to plan the company’s goals and, consequently, they don’t know  how to make a goal plan for a business.

Strategic planning is a methodology, a process that allows you to define the objectives of a company, identifying the means, instruments and actions to achieve them within a medium to long term perspective (3 to 5 years for example).

In other words, it helps us to establish the objectives and strategies for achieving them, taking into account the starting point and clarifying what are the resources that we need to achieve those goals.

We can summarize in a few steps the drawing up of the goal plan:

• Establish the objectives (strategic, tactical and operational and their indicators);
• Define the operational plan to achieve these objectives;
• Measure the real results of the plan already in action (control);
• Correct the direction (if necessary).

Eventually it becomes clear that this process is in fact, continuous.

Because once the results are analyzed and corrective procedures are redefined, the new budgets, procedures and processes are adjusted to enable the objectives to be achieved.

The action plan is not a static document, it is alive and subject to change.

As Ram Charan would say:

“Select the ideas and execute them. 80% of the ideas are in the execution. ”

That is: it is only when the goal plan is being executed that 80% of the best decisions to achieve the goals will actually be discovered.

 how to make a goal plan for companies in 4 steps

And in practice, how to develop a goals plan for a company?

A) Define objectives (strategic, tactical, operational and indicators)

The strategic objectives are medium to long term and refer to a time horizon of 3 to 5 years.

For example, a medium to long-term goal could be to double turnover in 2 years; or get out of debt within 3 years.

To define the medium and long term objectives, it is necessary to start from the analysis of the initial situation and its possible evolution, identifying and analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the company and formalizing the objectives and strategies on how to get there.

To achieve this several analysis tools are used, see more here: Analysis of scenarios for strategic planning: know the best tools

B) Define the operational plan and budget to achieve these objectives

It’s clear that after having planned the medium and long term objectives, it’s going to be necessary to plan decisions and strategies to achieve them.

And to implement you need to:

• Define the Operational Plan. That is, the short-term decisions that will operate to achieve the medium and long-term objective. These are short-term operational objectives (1 year);
• Convert these goals into numbers. Objective performance indicators that are easy to measure and understand, building the company’s budget related to annual goals in terms of turnover, marketing investments, operating costs and overheads, defining margins and liquidity.

C) Measure the actual results of the plan (control)

The definition of strategic and operational objectives are useless if gradually, the real results are not measured and compared with those expected in the operational plans and budgets.

Therefore, it is necessary every month, or in periods and times of crisis, to collect the real data and results of the plan in operation.

D) Correct the direction

Building the plans on the one hand and collecting the results on the other, makes it possible to highlight the differences, showing the critical areas where the planned objectives have not been achieved.

All of this is designed to highlight the performance gaps as quickly as possible. To be able to intervene and correct the direction, thus allowing the achievement of the initially planned objectives.

It is through this operation of measurement and adjustment that allows us to always be as close as possible to the planned goals and to continuously improve the processes.

Summarizing the process and a plan of goals in a schematic way:

STRATEGIC PLAN> OPERATIONAL PLAN> RESULTS EVALUATION> CORRECTIVE MANEUVER

Don’t know how to access all these indicators in real time?

With STRATWs One from Siteware you have business management software that allows you to access the information you need, uniting and integrating teams and increasing engagement around the company’s goals.