Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue

this strategy. In order to determine the direction of the organization, it is necessary to understand its current position and the possible avenues through which it can pursue a particular course of action. Generally, strategic planning deals with at least one of three key questions[1]: 1. 2. 3. "What do we do?" "For whom do we do it?" "How do we excel?"

Vision: outlines what the organization wants to be, or how it wants the world in which it operates to be

(an "idealised" view of the world). It is a long-term view and concentrates on the future. It can be emotive and is a source of inspiration. For example, a charity working with the poor might have a vision statement which reads "A World without Poverty."

Mission: Defines the fundamental purpose of an organization or an enterprise, succinctly describing why

it exists and what it does to achieve its vision. For example, the charity above might have a mission statement as "providing jobs for the homeless and unemployed".

Values: Beliefs that are shared among the stakeholders of an organization. Values drive an organization's culture and priorities and provide a framework in which decisions are made. For example, "Knowledge and skills are the keys to success" or "give a man bread and feed him for a day, but teach him to farm and feed him for life". These example values may set the priorities of self sufficiency over shelter.

Strategy: Strategy, narrowly defined, means "the art of the general." A combination of the ends (goals) for which the firm is striving and the means (policies) by which it is seeking to get there. A strategy is sometimes called a roadmap which is the path chosen to plow towards the end vision. The most important part of implementing the strategy is ensuring the company is going in the right direction which is towards the end vision.

The "Walkman", music system is the best example of the mission of Sony, as seen of reality in action. Stated below are the Vision statements of some highly focused and successful organisationsSIEMENS: Where technology touches lives DU PONT: Better things for better living through Chemistry HYUNDAI: Building a better world through innovative technology NOKIA: Connecting people XEROX: The document company IBM: Solutions for a small planet PHILIPS: Let's make things better BPL: Believe in the best

The ITC Vision & Mission

Sustain ITC's position as one of India's most valuable corporations through world class performance, creating growing value for the Indian economy and the Companys stakeholders To enhance the wealth generating capability of the enterprise in a globalising environment, delivering superior and sustainable stakeholder value

Mission Statements
My positive outlook will bring me closer to friends, family members, co-workers, and send a ripple of positive energy into the world." Shari

Vision Statements
"Customer Experience: To give the Customer reasons to smile:)

"Airtel SWOT Analysis

Strengths Very focused on telecom. Leader in fast growing cellular segment. Pan India footprint. The only Indian operator, other than VSNL, that has an international submarine cable Weakness Price competition from BSNL and MTNL Untapped Rural Market Opportunities Fast expanding Indian cellular market. Latest and low cost technology

 Huge market Threats Competition from other cellular and mobile operators Saturation point in Basic telephony service

Strengths

Weaknesses Vodafone's strength is its global scale. Vodafone is the Most Trusted Service Brand in [list] India. [*] Negative return on assets (ROA) "excellent signal strength" underperform key competitors like Diversified geographical portfolio with AT&T, BT Group, Deutsche strong mobile telecommunications Telecom operations in Europe, the Middle East, [*] US business not nearly as strong Africa, Asia Pacific and to some extent as European/rest of the world the US operations Network infrastructure [*] 80% of its business is generate Leading presence in emerging markets in Europe (see below for such as India explanation) Large customer base [*] WTF network failure Favorable company policies Internationally renowned co. Threats
[list] [*] Highly competitive market [*] Still lags behind major competitors in the US [*] Extremely high penetration rates in key European markets [*] European Union regulation on cross-border cell phone usage by customers [*] Expansion and Europe concentration vulnerable to EU recessionary situation

Opportunities

Diversification Watermelon and chicken Toystory and Sunscreen

Synergy, also known as synergism, refers to the combined effects produced by two or more parts, elements, or individuals. Simply stated, synergy results when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. For example, two people can move a heavy load more easily than the two working individually can each move their half of the load. Synergy can be a positive or negative outcome of combined efforts. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the term "synergy" is derived from the Greek wordsunergos, meaning "working together." Positive synergy is sometimes called the 2 + 2 = 5 effect. Operating independently, each subsystem can produce two units of output. However, by combining their efforts and working together effectively, the two subsystems can produce five units of output. Negative synergy can be called the 2 + 2 = 3 effect. Again, individuals operating alone can each produce two units of output. However, with negative synergy, the combination of their efforts results in less output than what they would have achieved if they had each worked alone. Negative synergy can result from inefficient committees, business units that lack strategic fit, and from other poorly functioning joint efforts.

Corporate Level Strategy Corporate level strategy occupies the highest level of strategic decision-making and covers actions dealing with the objective of the firm, acquisition and allocation of resources and coordination of strategies of various SBUs for optimal performance. Top management of the organization makes such decisions. The nature of strategic decisions tends to be valueoriented, conceptual and less concrete than decisions at the business or functional level. Business-Level Strategy. Business-level strategy is applicable in those organizations, which have different businesses-and each business is treated as strategic business unit (SBU). The fundamental concept in SBU is to identify the discrete independent product/market segments served by an organization. Since each product/market segment has a distinct environment, a SBU is created for each such segment. For example, Reliance Industries Limited operates in textile fabrics, yarns, fibers, and a variety of petrochemical products. For each product group, the nature of market in terms of customers, competition, and marketing channel differs. There-fore, it requires different strategies for its different product groups. Thus, where SBU concept is applied, each SBU sets its own strategies to make the best use of its resources (its strategic advantages) given the environment it faces. At such a level, strategy is a comprehensive plan providing objectives for SBUs, allocation of re-sources among functional areas and coordination between them for making optimal contribution to the achievement of corporate-level objectives. Such strategies operate within the overall strategies of the organization. The corporate strategy sets the long-term objectives of the firm and the broad constraints and policies within which a SBU operates. The corporate level will help the SBU

define its scope of operations and also limit or enhance the SBUs operations by the resources the corporate level assigns to it. There is a difference between corporate-level and businesslevel strategies. Functional-Level Strategy. Functional strategy, as is suggested by the title, relates to a single functional operation and the activities involved therein. Decisions at this level within the organization are often described as tactical. Such decisions are guided and constrained by some overall strategic considerations. Functional strategy deals with relatively restricted plan providing objectives for specific function, allocation of resources among different operations within that functional area and coordi-nation between them for optimal contribution to the achievement of the SBU and corporate-level objectives. Below the functional-level strategy, there may be operations level strategies as each function may be dividend into several sub functions. For example, marketing strategy, a functional strategy, can be subdivided into promotion, sales, distribution, pricing strategies with each sub function strategy contributing to functional strategy.