How Can B2B Strategic Planning Tools Help You Achieve Your Business Goals?
Creating a well-developed plan and refreshing it is essential for the sustainable growth of every professional service firm. Every business should have proper planning in order to know its current state, future goals, and strategies to analyze and achieve targets. A successful business plan requires commitment, strategy, and the right business planning tools.
Strategic planning is all about the long term goals, big picture decisions, and even the existence of the organization. It acts behind the scenes for a business, and to make the most of it, you must use the B2B planning tools. In this blog post, we are sharing 5 effective and efficient B2B strategic planning tools that you should consider in 2022 and beyond. So, read on to know more about these tools and their benefits in B2B strategic planning.
E.S.T. Tool
PEST stands for Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors. It is a business measurement tool that is used to identify external influences affecting the growth and development of a business.
- Political – The political environment, political stability, next elections, government laws, and policies that may affect the business.
- Economic – The change in interest rate, growth rates, or inflation, and the stability of the current economy are considered.
- Social – The change in lifestyle of people may affect your organization’s target demographic.Education, health, generation shifts, and religious beliefs are some of the important factors that are covered in this category.
- Technological – Understanding the technological changes impacting the business and their pace is necessary for an organization.
The change in the business environment can bring both threats and opportunities for an organization. A business can’t control all these external factors, but this tool is all about gathering the information and using it effectively for the success of the business. It helps to understand these factors and increase the chance of planning for upcoming challenges rather than reactive decisions.
4 Reasons to use PEST Analysis Tool
- It warns you of the upcoming threats and helps spot the opportunities.
- It helps you adapt according to the changes in the business environment.
- It helps you understand the risk so that you can stop working on the things that are likely to fail in the future.
- It helps you make decisions based on facts rather than assumptions.
Image courtesy of Clear Review.
M.A.R.T Objective Tool
Setting achievable goals, and focusing on achieving the goals, is important for an individual as well as a business to be successful. But, another element that is important in order to meet goals is to monitor your progress and make changes in the strategy if required. The SMART business tool provides a structured approach to developing and designing a work plan and helps monitor your progress towards a target. We should consider every element of the SMART tool while setting a goal.
- Specific – Set a clear, specific goal. If you know what and why you want to achieve a goal, you’ll understand how you can achieve it.
- Measurable – Set metrics to track the progress towards your goal. Measuring the progress, rewarding yourself in every small achievement, and evaluating the strategy are important.
- Achievable –Another important thing that you should know before setting a goal is that it should be achievable. It will help you stay focused and motivated.
- Relevant – Is your goal contributing towards your broader objective? Think about it and set a relevant goal that benefits your organization.
- Time – Keep a time frame for every goal so that you can work hard to achieve it before the deadline.But, the time frame should be realistic.
Setting a SMART goal for your B2B business helps you understand the steps and resources needed to achieve that goal. So, if you want to achieve the goal efficiently and effectively, use SMART objective tools to set SMART goals, monitor and measure its progress, and achieve your goal.
Porter’s Five Forces Tool
Understanding your competitors is essential for every business. So, Porter’s five forces is a powerful tool that helps you understand your competition. According to Michal Porter, the five forces representing the key sources for competitive pressure in an industry are –
- Competitive Rivalry – The strength and weakness of your competitors, quality of their products & services may affect your campaigns.
- Supplier Power – Assessment of how easy it is for the suppliers to increase their prices. If you have more suppliers, you can switch to a cheaper alternative, but if there are fewer suppliers, you will have to rely on them.
- Buyer Power – When you have many buyers and little competition, your power increases, but if you have a few powerful buyers, they can dictate and drive prices down.
- The Threat of Substitution – When people get a cheap or easy substitute for what you are offering, it may weaken and threaten your profitability.
- The Threat of New Entry – A business should have a strong barrier to entry to make a favorable position in the market. Otherwise, rivals can enter your market easily and weaken your position.
This tool helps measure competition intensity and assesses the attractiveness of an industry. A business can use it to understand the factors affecting their profitability so that they can make informed decisions and develop effective competitive strategies.
A.C.I. Tool
This tool helps in defining the role and responsibilities of people, which helps improve the chances of success of a project or strategy. The R.A.C.I. is a visual representation of the key stakeholders involved in a process.
- Responsible – It includes people working on a project and making important decisions.
- Accountable – The person approving the task and decisions is accountable for the success and failure of the project.
- Consulted – These people are active participants who give input, feedback, and any future changes.
- Informed – People who don’t contribute to the decision or task but need updates on progress or decisions regarding the project.
The tool helps establish a clear description of the roles and responsibilities of the team members. It allows the management team to identify members responsible for different aspects of a project. The R.A.C.I. tools can be used to find overworked employees, organize the process, assign projects effectively, and train new employees.
Image courtesy of Medium.
SWOT Analysis Tool
It is one of the most popular business assessment tools used by businesses to analyze their strength and weaknesses in a business environment. This tool helps B2B businesses in strategic planning, and here’s all you need to know about this easy-to-use tool.
- Strength – The qualities that make you unique, the tangible assets, or the type of internal assets are some of the strengths of a business. It includes the internal and positive things of an organization that reduce the chance of risks.
- Weakness – The more weaknesses, the greater the risks. These are internal but negative in nature. Some of the weaknesses of an organization are resource limitation, crowded market, or strong competition.
- Opportunity – These are external, so you can’t control them, but opportunities are positive in nature. So, you can take advantage of the opportunities to reduce the risks.
- Threat – Threats can also be not controlled by an organization as they are external. But, they are negative, so it’s important to assess the threats because they can create problems for your business.
Benefits of a SWOT Analysis
- It is data-driven, and you can use the information for the betterment of your organization in the long run.
- SWOT analysisis not only about gathering the data. It also stimulates critical thinking.
- You only have to invest some time in SWOT analysis, and it costs nothing.
- It can be used for various products, services, or the overall growth of the company.
So, these are the five important strategic planning tools that can help you convert your B2B goals into achievements. Planning is the first and most important step towards a goal. Therefore, whether you have short-term goals or long-term, planning is essential for your business.
Strategic planning tools are helpful for every B2B business, and the products of Company Expert can make things easier for you. You can use our business planning tools to create a robust, fact-based business plans for the sustainable growth of your business. Make an informed decision and create a clear road map with us to achieve your business goals.