STRATEGIC

Strategic Business Planning

Strategic Business Planning

Task 1a) Characteristics of Strategic Business Planning Activities

Reasonable Time Period

A strategic plan must take into account an organisation's mission, vision and objectives in order to ensure sustainability. An effective strategic plan should be spread over two to five years as the existing market is extremely volatile. An organisation needs to adjust its strategy according to customer needs and requirements. Ryan Air's strategy to drop ticket prices has been a result of changing according to market needs even in major economic downturn.

Future Focused

The plan should incorporate previous growth, and other indicators that can give a good prediction of the future such as a comparison with its competitors. Ryan Air has kept its operating costs low and has thus been able to offer passengers cheap fares to high demand destinations. Ryan Air has decided to expand the door width of the aircrafts to accelerate boarding speed and save time. This strategy is expected to cut down turnaround time by minutes (Milmo, 2012).

Incorporate PEST and other market factors

An effective strategic plan must incorporate external factors such as political, economic, social and technological. An organisation that keeps market trends, changing consumer preference and competitor mindset in mind, can run their business smoothly. Ryan Air's low-pricing strategy has enabled the airline to stay ahead of competitors such as Aer Lingus.

Assess Alternative Scenarios for Optimal Results

Strategists use this to analyse the impact of different factors on business in varying situations. This helps the business to be proactive about possible future obstacles. Also, it enables the strategists to think out possible solutions to ensure smooth flow of business operations. Moreover, strategists can identify dominant factors that affect a business and work to eliminate them to ensure business efficiency.

Particular Target Plan

A strategic plan should have one single point of focus. It should keep in view prospective areas of investment and a full-fledge financial document that gives an account for all costs and revenues required to reach the target mentioned in the plan. Even though, the strategic plan revolves around one single target for growth, it should assess different alternatives to the plan that it may find useful in the future. As the strategy plan is rolled out, there are chances that an organisation may need to change the plan. Ryan Air's single point strategy is low fares. This strategy has made Ryan Air, Europe's most successful no-frills airline (Malighetti, 2009).

Clarify the Don'ts

An organisation must clarify the don'ts in its strategic business plan. This identification helps the organisation realise where it does not want to go and the markets it needs to keep away from. Ryan Air focuses on its single point objective to keep costs low at both the airline and the customer's end. It then has carved out an outline of don't s to ensure the business runs smoothly and it does not deviate from its final goal and vision. It does not compromise on quality of its human resource and its fleet, which is why it has been ...