Strategic Plan Form

A strategic plan form is a template that helps an organization explain their plan to meet their corporate goals. This form is important regardless of whether you plan to seek out a business loan or investments. Strategic planning involves listing a mission statement as well as clearly documenting business goals.

Table of Contents

What is a strategic plan template? Components of a strategic plan template Types of strategic plan templates How to create a strategic plan

What is a strategic plan template?

A Strategic Plan will be used to outline the purpose of an organization. It will also include the organization’s goals for the company and how the organization plans to meet these goals. The plan is very important, as investors and stockholders will look at the plan to determine how likely it is to achieve success.

The first part of a Strategic Plan typically includes a mission statement. The mission statement will list the intent of the organization. This can be followed up with more specific goals. Following this, more detailed information about the organization can be included. This may include a SWOT area, or Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats section. This section can help possible customers, investors, and advisors better understand your company and how it will operate.

What is strategic planning?

Strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its mission, goals, objectives, and plan for achieving them. Strategic planning can be used on a large scale to plan business growth over a number of years or may be used on a smaller scale to help one department or a small business achieve a particular goal within a set period of time.

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Components of a strategic plan template

A strategic plan template will generally include the following parts:

Introduction - The introductory statement will include a brief description of why the plan was developed, what time period it covers, and who wrote the plan.
Background Information - This area will include information about the organization and/or applicable department. This section may include a brief description about the business.
Organizational Structure - Include any relevant information about your business or organization’s management structure and staffing.
Mission Statement - Briefly describe the purpose of your company.
Vision Statement - Briefly describe what your company would like to achieve or become.
Values - List the core values or principles that your organization stands for.
Problem Statement - Outline key issues that need to be addressed.
SWOT Analysis - A SWOT analysis analyzes a company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Goals - A strategic plan may include specific long-term and/or short-term business goals. All goals should be measurable and broken down into actionable steps. Each step should indicate who is responsible for completing that step, provide a time frame for the actions, and describe how the result will be evaluated.
Evaluation - Any methods for evaluation should be spelled out in the strategic plan. This could include tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and evaluations of the progress steps at set intervals.
Executive Summary - A final summary will help readers quickly understand the key elements of your plan.

Types of strategic plan templates

Strategic Business Plan - A strategic business plan may include company information, SWOT analysis, industry analysis, and information about your company’s goals, risks, and growth plan.
Nonprofit Strategic Plan - A nonprofit strategic plan will emphasize a nonprofit’s mission, values and objectives. The plan may include areas for measuring financial resources, marketing, and organizational objectives.
HR Strategic Plan - A strategic plan for human resources may focus on one particular area such as recruitment or employee relations. The HR strategic plan should be used to reorganize goals into measurable action plans.
IT Strategic Plan - A strategic plan for information technology will cover the planning of an IT department, providing a guide for managing and purchasing new assets, aligning your IT goals with business objectives, and understanding your technology usage.
Strategic Marketing Plan - A strategic marketing plan template will consolidate the information that you have on your target market and formulate an effective plan to reach that audience.
Social Media Strategic Plan - A strategic plan for social media will be used to ensure that you are using your time and resources effectively. The plan will summarize your brand, your target audience, and competition and determine the best networks and types of content to best engage your audience.
SWOT Analysis Strategy Template - A SWOT analysis examines the relationships between your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and lists strategies to achieve your goals.
One-Page Strategic Plan - A one-page strategic plan is used by smaller companies or to offer a quick overview of a more complex planning process. The one-page offers a quick overview of mission, values, strengths and weaknesses, goals, and action items. This is a great tool for project management.

How to create a strategic plan

There a different methodologies for strategic planning and no set rules about how to go about the process. However, the strategic planning process usually involves these key steps:

Identifying the mission and strategic objectives of the organization.
Evaluating the current status of the organization.
Creating a strategy for the organization.
Implementing the strategy.
Evaluating the strategy and modifying it based on results.

You can create your own strategic plan from scratch or use a strategic planning template that you find online. You may find it easiest to create your plan in Excel. If you are creating your own plan, you should look at sample strategic plan outlines to see how they should look. We also recommend including the following information: