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Business Planning techniques

Most businesses need to plan ahead to be ready for changes. There are a multitude of techniques and analysis tools available online.

Tags: business planning SWOT PST Balanced scorecard

Most businesses need to plan ahead to be ready for changes. Some planning is for changes initiated by internal drivers – e.g. introducing new services or products, or opening a new location. Others are driven by factors external to the company e.g., changes to regulations, changes to standards, changes in customer expectations. As far as possible, it is better to be pro-active rather than reactive.

There are a multitude of analysis tools to assist in business planning that can be useful in a quality management system, e.g., SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunity, threats), PEST analysis (political, economic, social, technological), Balanced Scorecard (financial, customers, processes, learning & development) to name a few.

Here’s some resources online to learn more:

SWOT:

• http://www.business.qld.gov.au/business/starting/market-customer-research/swot-analysis
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis

PEST:

• https://www.businessballs.com/strategy-innovation/pest-pestle-steeple-market-analysis-tool/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEST_analysis

Balanced Scorecard:

• https://www.businessballs.com/performance-management/balanced-scorecard/
• http://www.quickmba.com/accounting/mgmt/balanced-scorecard/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balanced_scorecard