What does the strategic planning process look like?

Director of Consulting Hank Harris answers the question in this installment of Consulting Conversations.

The strategic planning process for most companies,...you might think of it in three phases.

The first phase is going to be what's commonly called a situational
analysis and sometimes people boil that down to the SWOT analysis, which is just an acronym for the company's current situation.

The second phase is going to be some form of using that situational analysis to actually develop a strategy for the company, and that takes all kinds of different shapes and forms depending on what the client is trying to accomplish; and; what the process is that's being used but for.
Simplicity's sake, let's just call that a planning process.

And then, the third phase would be actually implementing the plan that's developed.

We'd love to hear from any private business hunt owner in North Carolina that thinks we could be of some help to them in understanding how their business gets better or where it might go in the future.