Strategic Planning

Successful organizations develop short- and long-term success through the constant evaluation and revision of future-focused goals. Great organizations become great through a disciplined – and courageous – assessment of their capabilities in the context of the developing business environment and their commitment to sustained strategic planning efforts supported by their corporate values.

By reviewing current operational realities and working with you to analyze current and future business realities, BreakPoint Consultants are able to offer action-oriented, strategy solutions to address your goals.

We tailor all of our strategy consulting engagements and recommendations to the needs, timelines, and objectives of your business. More importantly, we believe it is critically important to understand your organizational culture and values and how they impact your strategic options. BreakPoint recognizes that each business is unique and, as a result, each strategic plan should be too.

BreakPoint Solutions helps clients integrate all key components in the strategic planning process to support the establishment of an effectively developed and executed strategic plan through the following stages:

•  Strategy Research and Incubation
•  Strategy Formulation
•  Strategy Execution
•  Strategy Evaluation and Modification

Strategy Research and Incubation
This stage of strategic planning represents a critical and often undervalued component of the planning process. Yet, a failure to truly appreciate your business’ internal strengths and challenges alongside its external threats and opportunities can effectively neuter a strategic plan before the ink is dry on the paper. We believe that the importance of effort spent up front in appreciating internal and external factors, including the influence of organizational culture and values is not to be underestimated. From our perspective, you pay now or pay later and investing up-front in an appropriate research and incubation stage pays off in the end.

This stage includes consideration of political, environmental, competitive, and financial forces at play over a defined time horizon. These forces are factored into strategy formulation through scenario and contingency analysis. Aside from helping your business define a strategy going forward, exploring the possible influence of these factors also helps you to establish ways of thinking that promote flexibility. This flexibility is crucial in  the event that key planning parameters change during the life of the strategic plan.

Strategy Formulation
Based on the understanding gained in the Research and Incubation stage, the Strategy Formulation phase requires narrowing down your options. From the wide variety of options and opportunities identified in the previous stage, this stage is characterized by hard choices based on defined parameters (e.g., financial resources, human resource capacity, legislative requirements, etc.).

Strategies are filtered down to a few key and critical elements that will drive organizational effort going forward. Key planning directions will then be broken down into sub-plans in key areas like finances, human resources, information technology, capital planning, and organizational design. Similarly, individual leadership accountability and timelines are established to support operational planning and reporting all in support of achieving the prioritized strategic initiatives.

Strategy Execution
Once the strategic plan is established, it is time for execution. Preparations for executing the plan will have been contemplated in the formulation stage; in particular, management of stakeholder expectations and communications planning would have already commenced prior to the roll out of the strategic plan. At this stage, however, communications and managing expectations intensify; execution is tied to individual, unit, and departmental performance expectations. Reporting frequency and formats are also established and allow for the efficient management of implementation.

Strategy Evaluation and Modification
It is said that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. In a similar vein, no strategic plan can anticipate all contingencies or changes in the expected behavior of competitors and other forces; however, the mindset created throughout the first two stages of the strategic planning process allows our clients to respond confidently and assertively in support of their long-term strategic goals regardless of the short-term detours that may be required. Strategy evaluation and modification takes into account a need to evaluate not just the strategic plan and its implementation, but also the process of formulating the plan in the first place. Identifying opportunities for improvement allows for adjustments in subsequent efforts and similarly ensures that the pursuit of strategic goals becomes a central focus of planning efforts. 

Our Commitment
Utilizing this approach, taking advantage of our consultants’ experience in similar endeavors, and supported by your intimate knowledge of your business and competitive environment, BreakPoint Solutions can assist you to achieve your long-term objectives faster, more efficiently, and more consistently.