Each company must find the game plan for long-run survival and growth that makes the most sense given its specific situation, opportunities, objectives, and resources. This is the focus of strategic plan.
A strategic plan is the company’s plan for how it will match its internal strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and threats in order to maintain competitive advantage.
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Strategic plan is the process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities.
The essence of strategic planning is to ask, “where are we now as a business, where do we want to be, and how should we get there? The manager then formulates specific (human resources and other) strategies to take the company from where it is now to where he or she wants it to be.