“Strategy is just a fancy word for coming up with a long-term plan and putting it into action.” Ellie Pidot
Strategy may just be a fancy word but for any organization, it is THE word that matters the most. It gives the company direction and without direction, anybody is lost.
A Business Strategy Roadmap outlines company’s vision for the next 5 years and the strategies to be followed to achieve those goals. It has to be guided as much by your business philosophy and values as much by market reality and industry trends. The long term vision pushes team members to work harder, take new initiatives, explore new market opportunities, set goals for the coming year as well as the next 3-4 years, and also continuously measure performance. For as Churchill remarked, “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”
If all this was to be condensed and presented in a single page, then your business strategy template would look like this:
Download Business Strategy Template Here
As trends change year after year and business initiatives meet or fail to meet targets, you continue revising your strategic plan. It is a continuous process and should never be halted. So, it is obvious that every business will have a different strategy based on its mission and market realities.
That said, formulation of any business strategic plan should follow a process so that a crucial factor (no matter how simple and obvious it may sound) is not overlooked. Here is the basic business strategy plan outline shared by experts. Include these 11 strategic planning templates to ensure you have a strong strategy capable of delivering the wanted results:
P.S. Download the Complete Business Strategy Presentation
Constituents of Effective Strategic Planning
Template #1- Executive Summary
This is the starting when you present your strategic plan. However, it is prepared the last. For executive summary is simply a summary of all the sections of the strategic plan. Why have it in the beginning of the deck? So that the stakeholders can at a glance know your strategic plan for the next 3-4 years.
Do not, however, stuff this slide with text and numbers. Just have the main sections- current sales, future target, and your marketing plan. If you want to add more sections, continue the same in next slide.
Download the Executive Summary Template
Template #2- Company Background
The investors might not be fully aware about your company history and services offered. Have a slide on your company introduction showcasing the products and services you offer, journey from start till present, and a landmark achievement that everyone should know about.
Think of this slide like an elevator pitch. If you meet someone in an elevator and have 30 seconds to tell about your company, what would you say? That pitch should be the crux of this slide.
Download Company Introduction PPT Template
Template #3- The Managing Team & Staff
For a person new to your company, include a slide on the management board and staff so that the decision making process in a company can be known. Have an organization chart template so that the hierarchy followed in a company and roles and responsibilities can be understood. Accountability is fixed and there is no ambiguity regarding the roles of each person.
Download this Hierarchy Chart Here
You can also showcase brief profile of key team members in your business strategy presentation. This will help in fixing team goals and set targets for each team member for the coming year (although setting targets will be done in later stages). This section is simply to introduce the faces of your company to outsiders.
Grab this Team Introduction Template
Template #4- Mission Vision Values
These are crucial to outlining your business strategy. All your set targets are simply a means to realize the mission and vision of your company. What is the difference between the two? While your mission statement summarizes the purpose of your organization - what it does, why and for whom, the vision describes what you want to be become in the future. Put simply, mission focuses on the present, vision on the future.
Company values are the moral principles and beliefs that govern the company’s dealing with its internal and external public. All three - mission, vision, and values - are centric to the strategy you are formulating. Although they can be revised according to the changing environment, changes to these are done rarely as they are the foundation of your company.
While designing your business strategy deck, you can either have a separate slide for each of the three or put all in one as they are closely related to each other. Like in the mission, vision, values slide below:
Download Mission Vision Values Slide Here
Related Blog: Mission PowerPoint Templates to Create a Strong Impression
Template #5- SWOT Analysis
SWOT is a must in any planning activity. It involves both internal evaluation (strengths and weaknesses) and external evaluation (opportunities and threats) of your company. An effective strategy formulation requires that you do SWOT analysis of not just your company alone but of your competitors as well.
This analysis has to be updated regularly as you might have overcome some of your weaknesses, new threats might have emerged and new opportunities might come knocking. You might also need to develop certain strengths to survive in the competitive market or strengthen already existing competitive advantage. The key to successful SWOT Analysis is to be brutally honest while doing it and involve both internal and external audience.
Grab this SWOT Analysis Template
Template #6- Current Performance
Any targets for the coming year will be based on the company’s current performance in the market. This section includes your total sales, revenue by region, top performing markets, leads generated and converted into sales, profit and sales, cost per employee, revenue per employee, and other financial figures.
Download the Financial Summary Slide
Use data visualization tools like column charts, line graphs, funnels, and maps to showcase data. Do not dump numbers on the slide.
Use this Sales Dashboard Template
Download the World Map Template
Template #7- Set Targets
Now is the time to set realistic targets for the next three to five years. These targets are aimed at realizing the company mission and vision shared in the beginning. You may also set up short term goals and long term goals to be achieved. This section, therefore, needs to be continuously tracked, updated and revised so that all stay on the same page.
Each team- engineering, marketing, sales- should have their specific goals so that all teams are aligned to achieve the organization targets.
Grab this Target Slide From Here
You can also include a table to compare the present figures versus target goals. That ways the audience won't have to go back to the previous section and compare the figures.
Download Current Versus Target Slide Here
Template #8- Key Performance Indicators
Choosing the right Key Performance Indicators is another crucial step as these will measure how successful you are at attaining your targets. The KPIs you have to choose have to adhere to the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Bound) criteria.
Each company as well as each team within the company will have its own set of KPIs. The KPI of an enterprise can be total revenue while for the HR team, the KPIs would be profit per employee, cost per employee, employee turnover rate, and training hours per employee. A call center would choose KPIs like average handle time, average abandonment rate, average time in queue and so on.
Keep measuring your KPIs in quarterly reviews, update the same if any KPI seems non-relevant and communicate to the entire team. Use a dashboard like the one below to depict the performance against the selected KPIs:
Download KPI Dashboard Slide Here
Template #9- Marketing Plan
How will you attract new customers and generate more leads? The marketing team has to explore new channels to bring in more traffic, increase the returning visitors traffic, bump up the signs ups, and thus provide the sales team more qualified leads to turn them into customers. Including marketing plan in your strategic plan is a good practice.
Use this Marketing Plan Template
Here's another digital marketing roadmap template you can use to track all initiatives at one place:
Access the Digital Marketing Plan Template From Here
Template #10- Operational Plan
Strategic Plan provides an overall direction to the company. How will you reach that destination? What is exactly required from each team to achieve the strategic goals?
While strategic plan is usually for 5 years, Operations Plan covers only 1 year. The operational plan tells in detail the initiatives each team will take to attain the larger goals and who will be held accountable for the results. You can use this operations plan template to make everyone aware what is expected from each team:
Download Operational Plan Template
Operations plan should also include a timeline of project deliveries so that projects are managed smoothly and completed on time:
Download the Gantt Chart Here
If the manpower is less to attain the new goals or new skill sets are required, a Hiring Plan should be outlined over here so that the HR team can quickly recruit the required staff and close the gaps:
Use this Hiring Plan Diagram
Template #11- Budget and Financial Projections
What will be the operating costs of the strategies you outlined? Let the stakeholders be aware of the budget needed to achieve results using an Operating Cost template:
Download Operating Cost Template Here
Lastly, you can also include a section on financial projection to have a rough estimate of the revenue you will generate, costs you will incur, and other stats that the stakeholders may be interested in knowing:
Access the Financial Projections Slide
Your strategic plan can include more sections, depending on your company requirements. We have shared a general format prescribed by business experts to get started and proceed methodically. Save time in searching for the perfect templates to describe your business strategy by going through the list of 5 complete decks. These are complete presentations that will accommodate all the business strategies formulated by your organization. Therefore, download these ready-to-use, professional Strategy presentations now!
5 designs for strategic planning
Template 1
An organization’s success- no matter what size or industry- depends on the thoroughness of planning initiatives taken by the staff members. This is why strategic planning holds a significant place in every organization. This template is one such example that puts forth a mini-guide to make your planning a huge success. Use it as a roadmap to accomplish your goals and targets with a single layout that tops the list of great designs. Not only is this complete deck professional, but also extremely user-friendly considering its editable feature.
Download Structured Planning Framework PowerPoint Presentation
Template 2
SlideTeam has no dearth of innovative designs and templates to help every business enthusiast. This strategic planning is one such design that trains your mind to present a well-formulated proposal. It inspires both the presenter and viewer to take timely actions and get the project approved. Since landing a new proposal to devise plans and formulate strategies is difficult, this template acts as a comprehensive real-time execution guide. With many slides and valuable content, it is a great template to download and use. Apart from this, it comes with an editable structure, so adapting it to your needs is very easy.
Use this Strategic Planning Proposal PowerPoint Presentation
Template 3
Identify whether your business is living up to the expectations or not with this comprehensive guide. It assists you in studying the thoroughness of your plan and vision with many slides and features, all pointing towards its efficacy. This template design provides a great opportunity for the presenter to showcase his explanation skills as it is ready-to-use and highly-user-friendly. Additionally, it empowers the presenter to plan better, manage, optimize and report his strategic initiatives in a well-structured format. The most profound quality of this strategic planning deck is that every element is modifiable to the extent that you can craft a completely unique design whenever you have to present it in front of the audience.
Grab this Strategic Planning Gap Analysis PowerPoint Presentation
Template 4
Having a well-formulated strategic plan is a pre-requisite for every business and thus it can be avoided or ignored. However, developing an efficient system takes time and most importantly due diligence of the people involved in the process. This strategic planning template is designed to help you plan, manage, and communicate your initiates in the best possible manner. With many slides and templates, each induced with valuable information, this is a great bundle to achieve all your long-term goals and objectives. Not only is it a complete package, but also offers a unique design every time you present it because of its fully-editable feature.
Download Strategic Business Plan PowerPoint Presentation
Template 5
Strategy is more than achieving business goals and targets, and this complete deck is designed on this basic principle. It not only helps you plan better but also mitigate the discrepancies in developing strategies to meet the changes in the business environment. It creates clarity, engagement and trains the user’s mind to give a thorough explanation of the topic, with its prefabricated structure. Not only this, the template contains additional slides that you can use as per your needs. Therefore, download this complete bundle that spells the future of your organization and its strategic initiatives- all with a single layout.
Download Annual Strategic Planning PowerPoint Presentation
In the end, your business growth will depend on how you marry execution with strategy. Strategic plan is the starting point and the foundation; spare no effort in crafting the perfect one!