Strategic planning sets an organization’s long-term direction by defining goals and allocating resources to achieve objectives.

Here are eight common approaches…

1. Corporate Strategic Planning – Corporate strategic planning focuses on defining the overall mission, vision, and goals of the entire organization. It involves setting high-level objectives, identifying growth opportunities, and allocating resources across multiple business units or divisions to achieve the organization’s strategic priorities.

2. Business Unit Strategic Planning – Business unit strategic planning involves developing strategies for individual business units or divisions within the organization. It focuses on understanding the unique competitive dynamics, market opportunities, and challenges facing each business unit and identifying strategies to achieve sustainable growth and competitive advantage within their respective markets.

3. Functional Strategic Planning – Functional strategic planning focuses on defining strategies and objectives for specific functional areas within the organization, such as marketing, finance, operations, human resources, and technology. It involves aligning functional strategies with overall business objectives and priorities to ensure coordination and integration across different functions.

4. Market Entry Strategic Planning – Market entry strategic planning involves developing strategies for entering new markets or expanding into new geographic regions. It includes assessing market potential, identifying target segments, evaluating entry barriers, and developing entry strategies such as market penetration, market development, product development, or diversification.

5. Product or Service Strategic Planning – Product or service strategic planning focuses on defining strategies for developing, launching, and managing specific products or services within the organization’s portfolio. It involves conducting market research, identifying customer needs, defining product features and specifications, and developing marketing and distribution strategies to drive product or service adoption and success.

6. Competitive Strategic Planning – Competitive strategic planning involves analyzing the competitive landscape, identifying key competitors, and developing strategies to gain a competitive advantage in the market. It includes assessing competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, understanding industry trends, and developing strategies such as differentiation, cost leadership, or niche targeting to outperform competitors and capture market share.

7. Scenario Planning – Scenario planning involves exploring alternative future scenarios and developing strategies to address potential risks, uncertainties, and disruptions in the business environment. It includes creating hypothetical scenarios, assessing their potential impact on the organization, and developing contingency plans and adaptive strategies to respond effectively to changing circumstances.

8. Strategic Alignment Planning – Strategic alignment planning focuses on aligning organizational goals, strategies, and initiatives with key stakeholders, including employees, customers, investors, and partners. It involves fostering alignment and buy-in across different levels of the organization, ensuring that strategic objectives are communicated, understood, and embraced by all stakeholders, and creating mechanisms for monitoring progress and accountability.

These are just a few examples of the different types of strategic planning approaches that organizations may use to define their long-term direction, drive growth, and achieve competitive advantage. The specific type of strategic planning adopted by an organization will depend on factors such as its industry, market conditions, organizational structure, and strategic priorities.