Strategic planning is critical to a firm's success in today's competitive environment. Strategic planning helps to identify both the threats and the opportunities facing your firm now and in the longer term, and to chart viable courses of action.

The benefit of strategic planning is that a firm is obliged to analyze all aspects of its business--sales, marketing, operations, and financial--and draw conclusions based on facts. It is only then that a company can formulate strategies to cope with or alter the conclusions uncovered.

Below are just a few benefits of creating a good plan:

• Clarify the long-term vision of the firm

• Revisit and determine the Mission Statement for the firm

• Set clearer goals and priorities for each person and each department within your organization

• Re-evaluate and discontinue activities that are no longer consistent with the mission

• Identify the driving force of the firm

• Determine the scope of markets, activities, products and services for the future

• Determine the firms areas of specialization and expertise

• Decide how and why your firm is superior to your competitors

• Determine exactly "who?" is the customer/client and who should be your customers/clients in the future

• Decide what the client really considers valueable

• Set priorities on the expenditure and use of resources, especially people and money

• Segment the markets and identify the most important customer/client groups

• Identify goals, strategies, and objectives for the firm, as well as your departments and upper level managers

• Determine what it is your firm does, or can do, extremely well

• Concentrate single mindedly on exploiting and developing your best people and services

• Focus on satisfying your key customer/client segments

• Anticipate the future and create possible scenarios to guide long term planning

• Identify core competencies you will need to dominate the markets of tomorrow.