Building strong business strategy requires:

• Scanning the environment/industry to identify external opportunities and threats which may impact on your company’s future directions and targets
• Articulating operational and financial goals and objectives
• Identifying the internal resources and skills which can support goals and objectives achievement
• Agreeing and documenting an action plan
• Identifying targets and measures
• Reviewing efficiency and effectiveness of your strategy, and using that intelligence to hone and refine the strategy

As well as providing direction and purpose for the company, planning also provides important opportunity to retest assumptions, review capacity and capability within the company to achieve goals and objectives, identify the extent to which the current situation is stable or whether the company needs to factor in significant change or uncertainty in the current planning cycle.

All of these considerations strengthen the Board’s understanding and ‘ownership’ of decisions.
Great planning is about creating effective and achievable strategy with meaningful and purposeful objectives (as opposed to vague or too complex objectives).