corporate plan business def

Corporate planning is setting long-term objectives and goals within the organization’s scope to enable an environment conducive to growth in terms of revenue and profit margins. It includes defining strategies, decision-making, and allocating resources. The corporate planning strategy aids the whole team to work in one direction- the organization’s goals.

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A corporate planning cycle is a dynamic and continuous process throughout the organization’s life. Through planning on a corporate level, hurdles that might hinder the growth towards the pre-determined goals come to light, and the management can provide solutions to solve them. Moreover, it allows the company to manage its resources more efficiently.

Corporate planning process explained.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

#1 – Information

The first step towards creating a foolproof corporate plan is collecting information, regardless of whether the data paints a good or bad picture of the company’s current status. Moreover, similar information about competitors gives an even better view of the areas that can be improved to gain a more significant market share .

#2 – Objectives & Strategies

Objectives refer to the overall outcome of the plan. On the other hand, strategies are specific steps taken to reach organizational goals. For example, objectives could be an increase in sales by 25% or responding to customer support issues within 2 hours. Making a product the market leader by the end of the financial year through influencer and social media marketing could be an example of a strategy.

#3 – Devising a Plan of Action

Once the objectives and goals are devised, the company must articulate a step-by-step plan that helps its employees gain significant insights into the plan’s intricacies. This part of the process could be fulfilled by employee training, a new approach to production, or a change in marketing strategy.

#4 – Implementation

The action is taken toward the objectives and goals of the pillars of the organization’s growth story. Irrespective of how well-planned a strategy is, it will deliver average results unless implemented or executed to perfection. The implementation comes in different forms depending on the specifics of the plan.

#5 – Monitoring

Once the implementation process is underway, the corporate planning manager monitors the progress or decline in following the procedure. Since the plan is not a one-time action, it must be supervised and monitored regularly.

#6 – Evaluation

After a certain period, the manager can check for differences after implementing the corporate planning strategy. The check will provide the management insights into the progress, decline, or stagnancy toward organizational goals.

Since each organization is bound to have different plans based on its organizational framework, management style, and product, naturally, they might want to implement a plan that fits their work style better rather than opting for a generic method. Therefore, let us discuss different types of corporate planning through the points below:

#1 – Tactical Planning

A tactical plan is usually implemented after a strategic plan has been set in motion. A tactical plan is a short-term goal to address immediate goals, which over time, contribute to the bigger plan. Typically, a short-term goal helps tackle hindrances that prevent the company from achieving its medium or long-term goals.

#2 – Contingency Planning

A contingency plan is when a company develops strategies that help them tackle an event from stopping its operations. This strategy is carried out in an adverse scenario, such as a natural calamity or pandemic. However, a contingency plan can also be initiated for positive events, such as a high inflow of unexpected client funds.

#3 – Operational Planning

Operational planning is a form of action where the daily tasks of each employee and manager are specified and monitored. It is usually planned for a period beyond one year. However, to reach short-term objectives that aid the enormous growth of the business, operation planning is a wise choice as it optimally allocates financial, physical, and human resources.

Let us understand the concept with the help of the examples below:

Audacity Corporation manufactures microphones and is one of the market leaders in the domain. They have produced studio and live performance microphones for over half a decade. Their CEO Brendon wanted to ensure that their range of microphones for streamers and gamers were market leaders by the end of the financial year.

To ensure their product was top-selling in the market, they studied their competitors in the domain and found that most of them produced these microphones in-house, and their cost of raw materials was high.

Audacity tied up with companies in China and Taiwan to procure raw materials at lower prices and trained their employees to assemble these products more efficiently.

That year, their streaming and gaming microphones sold 20% more than any competitor.

ExxonMobil is one of the largest oil and gas companies internationally. In their announcement about their corporate plans in 2022, they declared that they plan on increasing their investments in emission reduction solutions.

By 2027 , they plan to increase investments by $17 billion in this domain to gain a competitive advantage over other layers in the market and tackle climate change and carbon emissions.

Advantages And Disadvantages

The extensive planning for the future allows businesses to tackle quite a few situations better. However, they have their set of disadvantages too. Let us discuss the advantages and disadvantages of corporate planning through the points below:

Disadvantages

Difference Between Corporate Planning And Strategic Planning

Let us understand the difference between corporate planning and strategic planning through the table below:

Difference Between Corporate Planning And Functional Planning

Let us understand the difference between corporate and functional planning through the points below:

Functional Planning

A corporate plan is a process that maps out a path through which companies grow in terms of profits, brand identity, and revenue. It is a tool that organizations use to ensure an upper hand over their competitors. Moreover, a corporate plan is a foundation on which a macro-level strategy is built. This macro plan is called strategic planning.

It helps the organization face uncertainties in the future in a better manner as they have planned for contingencies well in advance. Moreover, a clear plan and an objective for each employee give them a sense of belonging and unity.

Since a corporate plan involves the organization’s overall growth, it is vital to ensure that the resources are being used efficiently and there is minimal to no wastage in the process.

The very nature of planning is to ensure the whole process is forward-looking. Moreover, it is a continuous process and a big goal consisting of smaller goals for the short-term that helps the employees and their managers to quantify the growth effectively.

This has been a guide to what is Corporate Planning & its meaning. We explain its process, elements, examples, and advantages and comparison with strategic and functional planning. You can learn more about finance from the following articles –

What is corporate planning?

It might seem frivolous to generate business plans for the next three to five years when it seems like we’re facing a new disruption every three to five days. But during times like these, intentionality and planning are most important. When faced with uncertainty, a comprehensive, flexible corporate plan can actually help the business and its various branches stay on course.

The corporate planning process is essential to executing your business plan. Here’s what you need to know to engage in corporate strategic planning.

Why Corporate Strategic Planning Matters

There are different types of planning in the business world, and they can sometimes run together. But a corporate plan isn’t just a business plan by another name: They’re two separate items, and each one plays an essential role in moving your company forward.

Here are some of the differences between business planning and corporate planning, as well as why corporate planning is essential for bringing the business plan to life.

Business Planning vs. Corporate Planning

The business plan typically covers the business’s long-term goals, especially concerning the industry and other external forces. The business planning stage often occurs at the company’s inception or before a significant change is made. The business plan should be reviewed and updated frequently (at least once every one or two years).

Exercises like strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis are deployed at the business planning stage to get a sense of the business compared to competitors.

Corporate planning , on the other hand, looks internally. Corporate planning answers the question of how you’ll carry out the business plan. Corporate plans should span three to five years. Their goal is typically to align business units that have traditionally operated in silos and govern core services like HR, payroll, accounting, IT, and security.

Corporate strategic planning uses similar exercises (such as the SWOT analysis ) to arrive at broad operating principles and strategic actions to carry out the business plan.

The Importance of Corporate Planning

Your corporate plan may seem less important than the broader vision set out in the business plan. But without the corporate plan, the business plan has no movement. The principles and actions laid out in the corporate plan are necessary to bring the business plan to life.

If one of your business goals is to increase company profits by 25% within the next five years, for instance, you need a corporate plan to visualize the steps you’ll have to take internally to get there. One key aspect of turning a profit is reducing operating costs. HR can work with other department heads to evaluate employee efficiency, spot weaknesses, and develop a plan to increase profit per employee.

3 Types of Corporate Planning

Your overarching corporate plan should connect areas that have historically existed in silos. Develop corporate plans that cut across and pull together the different types of work within the company.

Here are three types of corporate planning to implement at your company.

Strategic Planning

The corporate strategic planning process evaluates the resources available to the company and identifies gaps that you will need to fill to drive business results. These could be gaps within tangible resources (inventory, technology, or headcount) or intangible (institutional knowledge or role-specific skills).

Strategic planning usually starts in the same place as the business plan: the C-suite, with critical internal stakeholders present. Business and department leaders need to have a conversation to identify the resources the company will need to carry out the business plan.

The strategic planning process provides a high-level blueprint of your corporate plan and feeds into the operational and project planning processes.

Operational Planning

Operational planning takes the business plan and lays out the actions you’ll need to take internally to reach those goals. Within the operational plan, you’ll assign individual people to take ownership of those actions.

An objectives and key results (OKR) framework can help take the high-level business plan down to the level of individual actions. Using this model, business leaders set strategic goals at the top, moving down the organization from corporate management to individual team members.

At the team level, managers and employees review the business’s strategic goals and craft their objectives that drive these priorities forward. This process results in clear ownership over each smaller objective feeding into the company’s larger business goals.

Additionally, bringing employees into the process to identify how they can support the business strategy often results in creative solutions to challenging problems. Employee innovations can be standardized and fed into the next round of corporate planning.

Project Planning

Project planning breaks down the business plan into individual projects with defined objectives. The project plan provides a blueprint for project managers to keep costs, schedules, and resources on track to deliver the plan’s results. Where operational planning bridges the strategic and project planning processes, project planning is purely tactical.

With your company OKRs in place, bring project managers on board to help execute them efficiently and effectively. Work with your project managers to evaluate your resources and create a realistic plan for achieving company priorities.

3 Stages of Corporate Planning

Corporate planning is a complex process that requires time and dedication at each stage. The corporate planning process follows three defined stages:

Formulation

Forming the corporate plan is the first step. It should build on the business plan and will require input from critical stakeholders. At this stage, be sure to incorporate some scenario planning. The process of setting long-term objectives for the business plan should have anticipated potential future scenarios. Work contingencies into your final result to account for these scenarios as you form your corporate plan.

You need to create a plan that can flex without breaking, so return to the different types of corporate planning as you form your plan. What skill gaps might be amplified, for example, if the economy rebounds and the demand for your product or service doubles? How might that scenario change the actions you’ll have to take or the resources at your disposal?

Formulating a flexible plan on the front end requires a lot of work but improves your ability to implement and execute successfully.

Implementation

Putting the plan into action requires clear roles and defined ownership over each objective. Before you can implement your corporate plan, you need to confirm buy-in and commitment from each person involved. Without a firm commitment, implementation often fails.

Implementing the plan comes down to setting all of the processes into motion at a high level. This could include authorizing the use of agreed-upon resources, for example, or consulting with team leads as they begin to execute their portions of the plan.

Your job isn’t complete just because you’ve set the plan into motion. You must constantly evaluate your corporate plan as it’s in progress and after it’s done. Check in frequently with department heads and managers to monitor their progress toward their portions of the plan.

Once you have completed your corporate plan, conduct a post-mortem to review what worked and what you need to improve as you design and implement your next plan. At this point, it’s a good idea to revisit your SWOT analysis. How have your strengths and weaknesses shifted? How have your opportunities and threats evolved?

The answers to these questions can feed into the next planning round, providing essential data and a frame of reference from previous experience executing a corporate strategy.

5 Elements of Successful Corporate Plan

The stages of corporate planning inform your process at a higher strategic level. But taking that process down to the tactical, day-to-day level is as important (if not more so) as the process of setting the plan at the top.

Drafting and implementing a successful corporate plan requires a steady tactical process and effective communication across organizational levels. Here’s a framework for outlining and executing your corporate plan.

Establish the Plan’s Objectives

Start with the business strategy and plan. What are the business objectives that the corporate plan needs to achieve? Drive these objectives down to the lowest levels of the company. Everyone must get an opportunity to think strategically and offer suggestions for achieving the larger business strategy.

Don’t be too proud to consult employees on the front lines regarding better and more effective working methods. Front-line employees often have the most significant insights into the processes and actions that bring the most value and drive the best results.

Develop Strategies for Achieving Goals

Break the larger plan down into specific projects and actions, with metrics indicating the success or failure of each venture. Using an OKR framework, each objective should have defined key results that show whether the company has met its objectives. This makes it easy to track progress toward larger business goals.

This is where you can get creative with operations and resources, especially human resources. Don’t confine your objectives to existing teams or departments. One of the keys to harnessing enterprise agility is assembling cross-functional teams to cut across silos.

Cross-functional teams can be risky, especially if the team members have never worked together. Such teams bring together different viewpoints and ways of working that can cause friction. But with the right facilitator, that healthy conflict can bring your corporate plan to life.

Implement Your Corporate Plan

Successfully implementing a corporate plan requires effort and input from every team member. To get that buy-in, employees at all levels — especially the front lines — need to see their role in moving the plan forward.

An OKR framework gives the sense of a flattened hierarchy where individuals can see their roles much more clearly. And when employees can see how they move the needle on business results, they bring more engagement and productivity to achieving them.

However, poor management can snuff out that engagement. To support the plan’s tactical implementation, train managers to manage work by outcomes rather than managing the employees themselves.

Keep Track of the Plan’s Performance

Just because you’ve implemented the plan doesn’t mean you’re done with it: Consult each team lead with ownership over each objective. Ask for their honest input on how the plan is progressing. Make sure that the owner of each objective knows that it’s better to admit that something isn’t working than to keep concentrating employee efforts on the wrong results or no results at all.

With a flexible corporate plan, you can course-correct if it isn’t producing the results you anticipated. In this case, you may need to implement one of your scenario plans to keep things moving forward and in the right direction.

One clear metric for tracking a plan’s performance is to align the key results with employee performance metrics. If employees are achieving their outcomes and are connected with the plan’s outcomes, you can see at a glance when something is off track.

Analyze the Impact of the Plan

After you have executed the plan, spend time analyzing its impact. Did it create the intended results at each point? What could you and your team have done differently to make a more significant impact?

Bring individuals in from across the organization to help with this post-mortem. Ask them to share their insights and experiences regarding the plan’s strengths and where it was weakest. Then, gather input on overcoming these challenges in future corporate plans.

Once you’ve gathered input from a representative slice of the workforce, sit down with the leadership team to apply these insights to the next planning process.

Achieve Your Vision

We can’t know the future, but we can set clear directions we want our companies to take. And, with a clear sense of our business plan and desired business outcomes, we can anticipate the potential challenges to getting there. The corporate strategic planning process takes our vision for the business and makes it possible to achieve.

Corporate planning isn’t an easy process: It forces you to be intentional, seek out new perspectives, and implement innovative ideas. But when successful, your corporate plan drives actual business results, helping you turn your business vision into reality.

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Corporate Planning Definition – Strategy, Importance, Objectives and Elements

March 30, 2021 By Hitesh Bhasin Filed Under: MANAGEMENT

Corporate planning is a type of strategic planning, responsible for mapping out a course of strategies and their implementations to empower top-management. It optimizes exposure, reach, leads, sales, profits, credibility, loyalty, sustainability, and opportunities of a business.

With the help of corporate strategic planning, a business can efficiently channelize corporate management by leveraging its resources with better acumen than the other market players.

Businesses of any size should incorporate such strategic planning, as it offers-

All in all, corporate planning empowers any kind of business to accomplish its business goals in a more effective and organized manner.

Table of Contents

Corporate Planning Definition

Corporate Planning is defined as forming long-term goals and objectives within the organization’s strengths and weaknesses in the existing and prospective environment.

This is done to ensure the achievement of their plans by combining their short-term and long-term objectives or bringing amendments in the structural working in the organization’s composition.

In the words of David E. Hussey, writer of the book- Corporate Planning: Theory and Practice-

Corporate planning includes the setting of objectives, organizing the work, people and systems to enable those objectives to be achieved, motivating through the planning process and through the plans, measuring performance and so controlling progress of the plans and developing people through better decision-making, clearer objectives, more involvement, and awareness of progress.

What is Corporate Planning Strategy?

Corporate Planning is a strategic process applied by several business organizations to form a roadmap to grow in the market, enhance profits, gain industrial exposure, and strengthen brand identity.

It is a vital tool that successful business organizations use to leverage their existing resources better and more analytically than competitors.

It is the determination of business goals, formulation of diverse strategies for attaining objectives, transforming the goals into tactical plans, implementing and reviewing it to find out the progress of strategies, and finding out loopholes.

Different factors around which corporate planning is channelized via effective SWOT analysis and process of corporate management are-

Importance of Strategic Corporate Planning

In the current modern era, corporate planning holds a crucial position in a business organization, be it large-sized, medium, or even a new entrant.

The importance of corporate planning can be justified because some companies even hire departmental corporate managers to check the industry’s current scenario and the current status of the organization in the market.

Some of the points that describe the need and importance of corporate planning are mentioned below:

1. Long-term goals

Corporate Planning broadly focuses on long-term goals and sets a blueprint to achieve them in a stipulated period. Long-term goals help an organization keep its core focus on maintaining its efforts, workforce, and efforts on a pre-decided target.

Corporate Planning keeps the employees engaged in their respective tasks with deadlines and ensures effectiveness and efficiency. It also brings harmony, peace, and cooperation among the employees and supervisors in a firm as they all smoothly work towards a common objective.

A strategic business plan helps a business organization provide a focal point not to get deviated or distracted from its end goal. The first and foremost step of corporate planning involves devising a mission statement that tells the world its roles and objectives.

Formulation of a mission statement aids the firm stick to its focus, do all the requisite tasks, assign responsibilities to the employees, and evaluate their work to achieve that final destination.

3. Better Decisions

Developing a strategic plan helps a company make better decisions that are beneficial and helpful in attaining the mission statement. A corporate plan should be structured to spell all the information in the organization’s interest, like the skills required with the employees, machinery or equipment required, etc.

Forming a roadmap to achieve the final goal helps the business people hire the best personnel for their form, arrange funds according to the tasks, and further invest in the most viable propositions.

4. A Measure of Success

Corporate planning also acts as a yardstick to determine an organization’s success in achieving its goals. A firm shall periodically analyze its work to check its progress and make further amendments like replacing personnel, hiring more employees, arranging more funds, upgrading the machinery, etc.

Finding, evaluating, and analyzing the loopholes periodically that block the ways of achieving the mission statement helps in the upgradation of the work and ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the tasks devised. The touchstone function of corporate planning works best in the organizations that devise plans that allow for changes in attaining the tasks.

5. Saves money

The extra benefit associated with corporate planning is that it forms budgets that help save substantial sums. Budgeting allows a firm to allocate its financial resources to the projects that require it the most by cutting out unimportant expenses.

Having a detailed budget tells how much cash is earned, spent, or lent. This wipes out confusion regarding the amount of money allocated to different projects.

Objectives of Corporate planning in Management

Following are the basic objectives of corporate plans:

1. Setting a strategy

The fundamental objective of framing a corporate plan is setting a business strategy. At this stage, companies should look at the opportunities and analyze the threats in the market. For this, they can make a SWOT analysis and select viable propositions for investing their funds.

2. Planning the operations

Once a firm knows its mission statement, it can use these objectives and find ways of attaining them. The sole purpose of corporate planning is to help a firm plan and prepare a list of resources it requires to deliver to achieve its goals.

3. Monitoring and Control

There should be measurable indicators present in a strategic plan to evaluate the progress of the work rate vis-à-vis the initial plans. It mainly includes financial theory related to accounts, the value of output, etc.

Establishing and forming well-devised instruments to devise annual reports is a crux to a successful corporate plan. Since the market environment constantly changes with events happening in the economy, a company regularly needs to review its plans, policies, and even rules and regulations associated with the operations.

Elements of Successful Corporate Plan

There are six elements in a successful corporate plan:

1. Gathering information

Having all the information related to the firm, industry, and competitors are the primary step towards a well-defined corporate plan. Either a business is big or small, it should be aware of the happenings in the market in its sectors, find out opportunities, grab them at the right moment and beware of the threats.

2. Set the objectives of the plan

Having a well-devised mission statement helps a firm stick to its focus of achieving it and keeps all the strategic work smooth in operations. Setting objectives helps form a clear mind about the work done, and the purpose of doing the work makes it fascinating.

3. Devise strategies to meet goals

Having a blueprint helps in effectively achieving the objectives. Forming strategies define the work to be done by the employees. Managers and leaders mainly devise strategies considering the funds available, personnel in the organization, and the deadline to achieve the requisite target. It brings efficiency to the operations of a business.

4. Implementing the plan

The next step is to implement the plans effectively. It involves the execution of the assigned tasks by the personnel within the guidelines and deadlines set. It involves the execution of the assigned tasks by the personnel within the guidelines and deadlines set.

5. Monitor plan performance

An organization should monitor its work by forming progress reports, finding the drawbacks, and work on them immediately.

6. Evaluate the effectiveness of the plan

In the end, a firm should see if the corporate strategy devised by it is competitive or up to the market standards. A plan should be challenging to achieve. A plan that is easy to achieve may not be a viable option in the existing scenario. This may require the organization to reset its plans and considering the market standards.

What to include in a Strategic Corporate Plan?

1. vision statement.

The vision statement of a business talks about business goals that it is supposed to achieve. While planning your corporate strategy, it is important to focus on your vision statement. You should also plan as per your short as well as long term goals. Your goals should be backed for your strategic planning, plus your goals should also be SMART.

2. Mission statement

Next thing upon which you should pay heed while making corporate planning is a mission statement. It tells you how you are going to achieve your vision statement. It will let you know what you are planning to offer, the target market, and the USP of your company. It will offer an elevator pitch to your corporate planning just in a few lines.

3. Resources and scope

Your corporate planning should also pay attention to things that you have in your organization such as your systems, structures, employees, products, accounting, assets, divisions, programs, finance, etc that play a key role in accomplishing your goals. You need to map the current structural existence of your organization to have a proper view of things incorporated and associated with your organization.

4. Objectives

You should also include different business objectives and the ways you are going to measure success in your corporate planning strategy. Here, your objectives need to be measurable, strategic, realistic, achievable, and time-driven. Including vague objectives in your corporate planning statement is of no use here. Different types of objectives might include financial objectives, customer objectives, internal objectives, learning, and growth objectives.

5. Strategies

Finally, you should include strategies that will help you accomplish your business objectives. Such strategic planning can be for launching any new product, or decreasing labour costs by a certain percentage, but your strategies have to directly address the associated objectives. You should also chalk out a proper plan for implementing those strategies.

Here is a video by Marketing91 on Corporate Planning.

Corporate planning vs. Business Planning

Business planning involves strategies that a business uses and applies to attain its goals and objectives. Corporate planning consists of strategies that the employees follow to meet the objectives of an organization. The following points highlight the difference between corporate planning and business planning:

1. Interdependency

A business plan may exist without a corporate plan, but its strategies are linked with corporate plans. Without business planning, the goals and objectives of a firm would be ambiguous. Thus, both business plans and corporate plans are complementary to each other.

A planning process aids a business to succeed in the market and suggests new directions and amendments as per the industry’s short as well as long-range requirements. Thus, there can be several diversified effects on business and corporate plans.

3. Considerations

Corporate planning reviews each step of the working of an organization devised for achieving the mission statement. However, a business plan focuses on the organization’s overall goals, objectives, and progress. To evaluate the tasks, a business should consider several factors such as progress rate, personnel performance, requisite funds for further operations, and many more.

Corporate Planning Jobs in an Organization

Corporate Planning jobs fall under the broader career category of Chief Executives. Corporate planners are responsible for determining and formulating policies and strategies to offer an overall direction for the companies as per the guidelines suggested by the board of directors.

Strategy planning in such jobs revolves around planning, directing, and coordinating different activities at the top-most level of management by taking the services of staff managers and subordinate executives. Corporate planner jobs are also understood as strategic planner jobs.

Common corporate planning jobs are-

Wrapping Up!

The corporate planning process is an activity that involves a series of steps to be followed to achieve the end goal. Specifically, it involves a process that personnel in an organization does to achieve the mission statement.

The process to attain the end goal involves strategies at each level or department with clear and detailed tasks assigned to them within stipulated deadlines. The employees then execute the tasks assigned by their leaders and mentors following some guidelines.

Then managers and leaders analyze the work, make amendments to that, and suggest further improvement guidelines. The organization then check the viability of its plan in terms of its difficulty, market standards, and check whether it is practically achievable or not. Further changes to plans are made after evaluating previous plans to upgrade the formation of plans.

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About Hitesh Bhasin

Hi, I am an MBA and the CEO of Marketing91. I am a Digital Marketer and an Entrepreneur with 12 Years of experience in Business and Marketing. Business is my passion and i have established myself in multiple industries with a focus on sustainable growth.

Definition of Corporate Planning

by Chelsea Levinson

Published on 7 Jun 2018

Corporate planning is creating a strategy for meeting business goals and improving your business. A corporate plan is a roadmap that lays out your business’s plan of action. It is imperative to write down goals and plan for how they will be achieved. Without planning, business operations can be haphazard, and employees are rarely on the same page. When you focus on corporate planning, you set achievable goals and bring your business one step closer to success.

Corporate Planning Definition

Corporate planning is the act of creating a long-term plan to improve your business. A corporate plan examines a business’s internal capabilities and lays out strategies for how to use those capabilities to improve the company and meet goals. Think of a corporate plan as a roadmap laying out everything you need to do to achieve your future goals and reach new levels of success. The plan looks at each sector of a business and makes sure that all parts are aligned, working towards similar goals. Corporate planning is often looked at through a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats). Further, it usually starts with broad goals and works its way towards a much more detailed analysis, laying out exactly how objectives will be reached. The following elements tend to be in a corporate plan:

Corporate Planning Examples

The needs of your corporate planning will vary depending on your business and industry. For example, for automotive giant GM, CEO Mary Barra’s corporate turnaround strategy included several objectives. The main ones included becoming a leader in product and technology, growing the Cadillac brand, continuing to grow the GM brand in China, continuing to improve GM’s finances and becoming more efficient from an operational standpoint. These objectives are, of course, tailored to GM’s specific needs as a company.

The following are a few examples of corporate planning objectives:

Why You Need Corporate Planning

Every business needs to do corporate planning. Creating a strategic plan gives your company direction and actionable goals to see through. Without a plan, how will you know your priorities or where to place your resources? A business with a plan achieves better results than one that does not have any direction.

The first reason you need corporate planning is because it provides clear objectives for your organization. You wouldn’t leave for a road trip without mapping out your route. Similarly, it’s not advisable to run a business without mapping out your route. Corporate planning puts on paper your focus, and allows you to move forward with purpose. If your business is operating without a plan, you will not be able to achieve your goals. Goals must be written down and broken into parts to be efficiently achieved. Further, they must have clear timelines and deliverables. Corporate planning helps you create a roadmap for success by asking you to answer three crucial questions:

Another reason you need corporate planning is because it can help align your organization and its values. A corporate plan does more than simply keep your employees on a timeline for success. It also defines who you are as a company, and what you stand for. Likewise, when employees get a say in the direction of a business and its objectives, your company culture will improve. Planning for the future brings everyone to the table, promotes the exchange of ideas and creates effective solutions to organizational problems. Making and sticking to a plan ensures that everyone in the organization is on the same page. Small business owners especially will find that strategic planning is a great way to get feedback from employees and improve overall culture.

Finally, a corporate plan helps communicate your brand’s message to employees, shareholders, creditors, partners, investors and customers. Taking the time to hone your vision and mission statements is extremely important for messaging, which is essentially communicating what you are and what you want to be as a company. When your purpose as a company is boiled down to its bare bones and made widely available, the message sticks. Everyone immediately knows what your brand stands for and who it hopes to serve. A solid, clear corporate plan can be used to attract investors, customers and employees.

How to Do Corporate Planning

There are no hard-and-fast rules for how to do corporate planning. Each company has unique needs when it comes to planning for the future. However, there are a few tips to keep in mind for corporate planning success. First, gather input from employees from all different divisions of the company to go into the plan. You can do this through an open forum or employee meetings.

Next, a crucially important step is to bring the right people together to write the plan. Even if you involve many people in the brainstorming process, only a few should be involved in the actual writing process. Wording can become arduous when too many people are involved. For the first draft of the plan, it’s important not to obsess over every word. That will come later as you revise drafts and bring in more players, such as your board members. At first, only concern yourself with getting the main ideas and objectives written down.

After writing your first draft, show your employees, the board of directors and senior management as soon as possible. They will all have valuable insight and feedback as to how you should move forward. Ultimately, your corporate planning draft should include:

Comparing Business Planning and Corporate Planning

The differences between business planning and corporate planning.

two business men in an office discussing

Business Planning: The “What”

Business planning is the “what” of your business. Your business plan should answer questions about what your business is now and where you see it going in the future.

Business planning involves creating preliminary documents, goals, and plans for your business. This may be necessary when you first have the idea for a business or when you’re changing or adding something to the core of your business. Before you can start getting into the specifics of corporate planning, you’ll need to create a more generalized business plan.

Your company’s business plan should include your company mission and your company strengths and weaknesses. You’ll want to define your short-term and long-term goals regarding growth, finances, and more.

Corporate Planning: The “How”

Successful corporate planning involves creating strategies to help you achieve those business goals you’ve defined in your business plan. Specifically , how are you going to support your company’s mission, and what steps will you and your employees need to take to reach those goals?

To get started in the corporate planning process, you’ll want to take a look into your company’s mission, strengths, and weaknesses. Gather any relevant information on your business’s finances and operations. Relevant documents may include cash-flow statements, credit reports, P&L statements, and up-to-date records of business transactions .

Once you’ve gathered all of the necessary information, you can set specific, measurable goals as part of your corporate plan. These may be goals regarding expansion, sales, employee performance, and more. Here are some sample goals to give you an idea of what to include in your corporate planning strategies:

Once your specific goals are defined, then you can devise specific strategies to help you reach those goals.

BUSINESS PLANNING OR CORPORATE PLANNING: WHICH DO I NEED?

Both business planning and corporate planning are essential to setting goals and achieving them. No matter the size of your business, these plans and strategies can serve as the framework for your business’s future. As your business grows and your goals evolve, you’ll also want to review your corporate plans to be sure they are aligned with your goals.

Our attorney and dedicated team can help you develop goals and strategic plans for your business through corporate planning. We’ll help you avoid any legal troubles while creating a plan for achieving your business goals. Our team is well versed in corporate law, and we would love to offer you our expertise. Click below for a free consultation to learn more about what we can do for your business.

What is Corporate Strategic Planning?

Corporate Strategic Planning is a companywide approach at the business unit and corporate level for developing strategic plans to achieve a longer-term vision. The process includes defining the corporate strategic goals and intentions at the top and cascading them through each level of the organization. Many organizations confuse the annual budgeting process with corporate planning. Corporate strategic planning should come first and annual budgeting should be driven by the strategy, not by prior year’s budget spend.

Why is Corporate Strategy Important?

A corporate strategy can focus every employee and resource in a company on the same objectives, and it aims to use them all efficiently. It gives every employee a set of guidelines they can use in their everyday work to move toward certain targets, which promote the vision and mission of the company. Corporate level planning can also improve efficiency within the organization and help identify unseen bottlenecks or pain-points.

The corporate strategy gives leaders and employees ideas to use for the improvement of distinctive activities (processes and operations) that create a competitive advantage. The strategy can also help executives to protect the company from entering into costly or irrelevant opportunities. What are the steps involved in strategic corporate planning? Corporate strategic planning begins by clarifying the vision and mission of the organization and the space the business chooses to compete in. Clarifying the organizations position will help you develop and effective strategic planning framework.

1) Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis needs to be conducted, to understand the trends that could impact the success of your strategy. Common factors that could be analyzed include political, legal, social, environmental, technological. There may be other factors you may want to consider that are relevant to your business and industry.

2) Strategic Goals & Priorities

Once you have completed a competitive analysis, the corporate leadership team will set the overarching strategic goals and priorities for the organization.

Once the strategic goals and priorities are finalized, each business unit needs to define its strategic goals and plans on how it can contribute to the overall direction of the enterprise. That includes not only what is to be accomplished, but how it will be accomplished including high level plans, budgets, human resources, etc.

3) Communication

Once business unit plans and directions have been set, the information needs to be communicated and shared with leadership inside the business unit so that priorities and plans can be aligned and integrated within a single budget.

What is Strategic Business Planning?

At the corporate level, an enterprise develops a portfolio of businesses they choose to compete in. This is a high-level analysis of a business’s competitive and core capabilities, and how each business contributes to the overarching corporate goals. Supported by the corporate strategic business planning process, these businesses are then set up, sponsored, and supported as business units at the operating level.

What Are The Types of Corporate Strategy?

When looking at the types of corporate strategy, it is important to consider a positioning grid that looks at the source of competitive advantage as well as the space where the business competes (markets, geography, size, etc).

Strategy 1: Low Cost Strategy

This type of strategy is one in which your source of advantage is simply competing on cost and being the low-cost provider. With this strategy an organization must exploit all sources of cost advantage. This includes things such as:

Strategy 2: Differentiated Strategy

In a Differentiated Strategy, the focus is on competing by being unique or distinctively different in your industry. A differentiated strategy provides a product or service in more of a niche market where customers see the importance of offerings and are willing to pay a premium price. While this strategy still has a broad focus on how and where it competes (markets, geography, size), it serves its customers in a differentiated way. Differentiation can include factors such as:

Strategy 3: Segmented Strategy

A segmented strategy is one in which you have clearly differentiated yourself from the competition. The space in which you compete has a narrow focus. You serve a distinct group of customers with specialized needs. In this space, there are few product or service substitutes that can be offered and while you may not have the volume of customers, profit margins tend to be higher because of the lack of substitutes. and there are few substitutes for your offerings. It is important for every organization to understand where on a strategic position grid it currently sits and where it may want to be — adapted from Michael Porter

What Is the Difference Between Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy?

Corporate strategy, in contrast, involves the plans that a larger enterprise must form when it is composed of multiple smaller businesses or entities. For example a business unit may need to examine factors unique to the industry or competitive landscape that is fundamentally different than its corporate parent.

As a large enterprise, company, or private equity group takes on more acquisitions, it must work with its respective businesses to craft a business strategy and plan that is unique to them and drive competitive advantage through their products, services, and market positioning.

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COMMENTS

What Is Corporate Planning? Benefits, Types and Tips
Corporate planning is the process by which businesses create strategies for meeting business goals and achieving objectives. It involves
5 essential tips for creating a strong corporate plan
A corporate plan is similar to a strategic plan, but the difference is that a corporate plan guides a more complex company with multiple business units or
What Is the Meaning of Corporate Planning?
Corporate planning is an effective way for you to guide the direction of your business with a comprehensive plan to boost revenue and profit margin by
Corporate Planning
Corporate planning is setting long-term objectives and goals within the organization's scope to enable an environment conducive to growth in terms of
What is corporate planning?
Corporate planning answers the question of how you'll carry out the business plan. Corporate plans should span three to five years. Their goal
Corporate Planning Definition
Corporate Planning is a strategic process applied by several business organizations to form a roadmap to grow in the market, enhance profits
Definition of Corporate Planning
Corporate planning is the act of creating a long-term plan to improve your business. A corporate plan examines a business's internal
6 Elements of Successful Corporate Planning
Corporate planning is a process that is used by businesses to map out a course of action to grow, increase profits, gain exposure
Comparing Business Planning and Corporate Planning
Successful corporate planning involves creating strategies to help you achieve those business goals you've defined in your business plan.
What is Corporate Strategic Planning?
Corporate Strategic Planning is a companywide approach at the business unit and corporate level for developing strategic plans to achieve a longer-term