On April 27, 2022

Integrating Strategic Plans into Operating Plan

Strategic plans and operating plans are both crucial for major financial shifts or changes, but the key is integrating from strategic planning to action-based operating plans.

Strategic Planning

Strategic planning involves discussing what the long-term goals are for your business or company. This includes deciding on a strategy to achieve that long-term vision. In the financial world, the long-term plan is typically centered on higher profits and lower costs, and therefore strategic planning involves coming up with a strategy to manage finances better and ensure maximized return on investments.

Operational Planning

Alternatively, a business’ operation plans involve the actual steps and components that must be completed in order to achieve the long-term vision for the company. Simply put, operational plans are based on strategic actions that must be taken to reach milestones and goals. Financially, this could include reengineering, analyzing rolling forecasts, or setting up new budgets for different departments.

A business typically follows a specific format when making major company-wide plans:

  1. Strategy development
  2. Strategy planning
  3. Aligning the company with the strategy (communicating strategy to employees)
  4. Operations planning
  5. Aligning the company with the operations (reviewing potential concerns/problems that might occur)
  6. Adaptation/action (setting plans and processes into motion)

This type of planning ensures that any shifts or changes are made with proper planning and feedback sessions to ensure that decisions are taking into account how to benefit the company as a whole.

In order to successfully move from the strategy planning phase to the operational planning phase, a business must establish clear-cut goals and expectations, communicate these to stakeholders and employees, and allow for feedback and insight from those that are invested in the business’ future success.

From a financial standpoint, the strategic phase must take into account past financial records and any forecasting data that has been collected, and should involve analyzing where the largest profits and losses occurred. This gives planners the ability to pinpoint where changes can, and should, be made. In the operational planning phase, plans can be drawn up about how to actually make solid changes to financial processes (raising product prices, redistributing workloads, increasing productivity, etc.).

When integrated together, strategic planning and operational planning allow a business to maximize their profits and assets and minimize their losses. It is only through both these critical planning stages that a business can achieve their long-term goals.

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