Strategy and Planning - National Tourism Development ... · PDF file Strategy and Planning Guide . Every tourism business plans ahead to some degree, but historically the greater focus

Strategy and Planning

A guide to help you look to the medium and longer term future and take concrete steps to ensure that the

envisaged future actually materialises

Strategy and Planning form an important component in Strategic Management (see Strategic Management Guide) and are designed to ensure that, first, your business is looking to the medium and longer term future and, second, that you are taking concrete steps to ensure that the envisaged future actually materialises. It is a filter- down process whereby the strategic plans are developed and then implemented through your annual plan; it is important to emphasise that strategic and annual planning is not about ‘hitting and hoping’, but is based on making decisions about the future direction for your business following a comprehensive research and analysis phase.

Strategy and Planning Guide

Every tourism business plans ahead to some degree, but historically the greater focus has been on short- term or operational planning, which is of course important but is never enough. Operational planning can help to ensure that you ‘do things right’ in the sense that you manage the business day to day, week to week, in an effective way. But, you also need to ensure that you ‘do the right things’ with regard to moving the business in the right direction, and this is where strategy and planning comes in. This guide covers the following information:

The Phases in Strategic and Annual Planning ...................................................... 3

1 Managing Profit and Performance – Strategic & Annual Planning ............................................. 4

1.2 Agree Vision, Mission and Values statements ...................................................................................... 4

1.3 Conduct an Environmental Analysis .................................................................................................... 4

1.1 Engage with Primary Stakeholders ..................................................................................................... 4

1.4 Define Goals and Prepare Strategies .................................................................................................. 8

1.5 Prepare Annual Business Plan ............................................................................................................ 9

2 Managing Profit and Performance – Strategy Execution and Evaluation Phases .................... 11

Activity – Reflect upon your current approach to strategic and annual planning ......................................... 12

Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 12

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The Phases in Strategic and

Annual Planning

1. Managing Profit and Performance – Strategic & Annual Planning

Prepare Annual

Business Plan

Define Resource & Competence

Requirements

Prepare a Strategic

Plan

Define Strategic

Goals

Conduct an Environmental

Analysis

Agree Vision,

Mission and Values

Engage with Primary

Stakeholders

How will we know

we are getting there?

How will we

get there?

Where are we now? and

Where do we

want to be?

3. Managing Profit and Performance – Review & Evaluation

Define Financial & Non- Financial Key

Performance Measures

Agree Review Intervals (weekly, monthly, quarterly

etc.) and Allocate Responsibilities for each

Review and Analyse Performance at Agreed

Intervals

Conduct External Results

Benchmarking Activities

2. Managing Profit and Performance - Execution

Management Performance

Define Leadership

Competences

Set Individual Performance

Targets

Review Management Performance

Continuously Develop your Management

Team

Incentivise High Performance

Provide for Succession

Planning

Maintain High Visibility &

Approachability

Employee Performance

Manage Recruitment &

Selection

Adopt a strategic

approach to HR

Enhance Employee

Communication

Provide Continuous Training &

Development

Optimise Employee

Engagement

Recognise High Performance

Monitor Employee Feedback

Sales & Marketing

Conduct Effective Market

Research

Develop the Product &

Service Offering

Agree & Resource Marketing

Plans

Devise & Implement an

e-Business Strategy

Optimise Direct Selling Effectiveness

Align Advertising &

Promotion Activities

Customer Relationships

Manage Quality Standards &

Efficiency

Encourage Product &

Service Innovation

Manage Customer

Relationships and Reward

Loyalty

Implement a Service

Recovery Processes

Provide on- going Service

Training

Capture and Analyse

Customer Feedback

Operational Productivity

Assign Process

Owners & Agree Targets

Identify Key

Operational & Support

Processes

Devise an In- Company Innovation

Framework & Continuously

Implement Process

Improvements

Conduct Operational Efficiency

Audits

Organise Process

Benchmarking Activities

Financial Management

Agree Investing &

Financing Strategies

Build Financial & Information

Systems

Establish & Maintain

Business-wide Controls

Agree Financial Reporting Intervals

Agree and Manage Pricing

Strategies

Enhance Budgeting & Forecasting Capabilities

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As outlined in the Understanding Strategic Management guide, Strategic Management is an all-encompassing activity with your business. One of the reasons why strategic and annual planning hasn’t been as widely applied within tourism as it might have been is that from a distance it can seem like a very unwieldy and complicated process. But it doesn’t need to be, and when you understand the strategic management process presented above, you quickly recognise just how important strategic and annual planning is as part of that and this guide will primarily focus on that aspect of the Strategic Management model.

1 Managing Profit and Performance – Strategic & Annual Planning

In laying the foundation for your strategic and annual planning efforts you should address a number of issues here:

1.1 Engage with Primary Stakeholders

Stakeholder Engagement means engaging with your key stakeholders to better understand their needs and expectations and to plan accordingly. A separate guide on Stakeholder Engagement is available on Business Tools. Some questions to help you here include:

 What do your owners/investors/lenders expect? How supportive of you are they? What do they think about issues like service quality and employee engagement?

 Who are your customers? Can you divide them into different key segments? What are your customers’ needs by segment? Are you meeting and more importantly exceeding them? What do your customers think about you at present? How do you know? When customers do give you feedback, how often does the word ‘excellent’ feature?

 Are your employees competent, committed and motivated? Do they play an active or passive role in day to day decision-making?

1.2 Agree Vision, Mission and Values statements

As a result of engaging with your primary stakeholders you will have a clearer understanding of their needs and expectations. Truly having a stakeholder focused business means that you should develop, or revise your Vision, Mission and Values statements to capture what you are seeking to deliver for your key stakeholders. Details on how to do so can be found in the Leading your Organisation online guide.

Many businesses pay lip-service to the issue of stakeholder focus but best in class companies have Vision, Mission and Values statements which genuinely guide business activities and serve as the foundation to all strategic and annual planning efforts.

1.3 Conduct an Environmental Analysis

Like any decision-making process, which planning at all levels essentially is, you need facts to guide you so strategic planning begins with a research phase. It is often assumed that strategic planning is only the concern of senior management but everyone in the business has a role to play in the process, appropriate to their level of course. In essence, you and your senior

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