Strategic planning is a company procedure of making directions, policies and procedures of assigning its resources including capital and people in order to compete in the competitive market. Usually strategic planning deals with four questions:

• What to do?
• For whom to do?
• How to excel?
• How to compete rivalry?

Strategic plan is used as guidance to identify divisional and functional strategy, consist of marketing, budget, technology and so on. It is significant to formulate strategic planning for a new business enterprise or developing into new region, in order to predict likely problems, affects, and methods to dealing with these problems. In strategic planning sessions a time line will have to be established because many projects generally have large scope. It is good to have strategic planning in advance as this will save money and eliminate confusion while working on the project. Company plans can formulate a larger venture by itself or by hiring strategic consultants.

In order to begin a project, every project has a team. This project team compromise of project managers, group members and planning software and tools use in the project. Implementing or making use of a software or technology is one of business strategy that helps in tracking the group member’s advancement, tracking financial planning and also helps in tracking the time lines in order to complete the project on time. Once the project team decision is taken next step is to divide different tasks among different group members. Project managers know the strengths and weaknesses of the group as a whole and also of each group member; and then tries to match the task with team member’s abilities and expertise.

Business Plans:
Every project has a business plan and these business plans should describe:

• Group members involved.
• Financial planning.
• Technology planning.
• Marketing planning.
• Time lines.
• Project phases and so on

Business plans are written in many ways but most of the companies use business plan software. This software not only save time but is easily to handle and update the information in no time. In order to write a business plan some companies hire strategic planning consultants which give recommendations and suggestions on how to mark a business plan and evaluate it to make sure all issues are tackled.

Financial planning:
Strategic planning has many levels but the most significant one is financial planning because finances depict the number of people who will work on a project and the time in taken in order to complete the project. For this many companies hire a financial planner, from inside the company or may outsource, in order to help in organizing and prioritizing each stage of a project. After reviewing the different phases of the project the financial planning professionals will give recommendations on how to make or save capital, where to use funds, and what is the right time to spend the money.

Financial planning is very important for all kind of businesses either small or large to keep track of financial spending. The strategic management teams try to keep the expenses within the resources and budget. If the budget falls short they also try to find additional funding resources. The financial planning is very significant in every business because if there is no proper tracking of budget, the budget can fall short and it might be the cause of project delay. It is a good business strategy to do financial planning on each project phase in order to complete the project without any delays.

The Financial Planning has following tasks:

• Assess the business surroundings.
• Verify the business objectives and goal.
• Classify the kinds of wherewithal required in order to accomplish these objectives.
• Quantify the quantity of resource including equipment, labor, materials and so on
• Estimate total expenditure of each resource.
• Sum up the expenses in order to generate a budget.
• Identify any hazards related to the set budget.

As financial planning cannot calculate the end results of the final cost for all projects but it can give projected results to project mangers in order to give guidelines of how much they can spend without disturbing the their financial status.

Technology planning:
As the world is advancing every day new technologies are coming in the market, people use them in their business as well as in every day life. There are numerous engineering programs, business writing programs and tracking programs that are used to facilitate project managers and team members in accomplishing their tasks. In order to compete in competitive market and to improve employee’s productivity companies should invest in these kinds of soft-wares.

Business planning is hectic, yet necessary for companies in order to remain successful. Therefore most of the companies hire strategic consulting experts who offer opinions and suggestions that are fair and supportive. They search and suggest some best strategies for a project by having an in depth analysis of project strengths and weaknesses.

Once the project is finished, business strategic plan is evaluated in order to ensure that each point is covered and how strategic planning procedures are followed. Projects whose budget fall short, were shorthanded, or planned too fast will come under inspection. Business strategies might be reviewed and improved strategic planning will be made in future. This is the reason, project managers and strategy consulting agencies stress on the significance of appropriate planning.

Strategic planning committees will make recommendations after examining all the research, including opportunities and threats, relate to the project. A business will invest wisely in future which utilizes the strategic planning techniques and strategy management as a tool to evaluate the project worth. Without carrying out these strategies a company can spend carelessly on projects and will eventually lead to disasters.

Strategic planning and financial planning are useful techniques utilized by loads of companies. Employing consultants have helped many companies to become more profitable. They assist in organizing resources, directing planning, and giving opinions. It is important to have a proper documentation of all phases of project. This will ease the companies to learn from their howlers and from their achievements. So it is up to document managers to protect and store these documents for potential use.