Key Trends For Your Strategic Planning

So, you’re doing you are planning the strategy for the new year. Are you falling into too-familiar patterns and relying on yesterday’s news to inform your future actions? Ideally, you’re staying way on top of all the latest developments and advances in your field. If not, your strategy is going to lack key elements - and your organization is likely to suffer as a result.

2019 Trends You Need to Know

As you design your ongoing organizational strategy, keep an eye on these trends for the coming year.

Everything is digital. All the key trends have to do with the continued evolution of technology. Even if you pride yourself on your organization’s old-school principles, there are certain aspects of modern business you can’t ignore. Even companies catering to vintage interests have to do it within the framework of a digital world.

On that note, how’s your website? By now, your organization should have an excellent website that’s not just an afterthought. Your online presence has to be part of your overall strategy. Mobile matters. Speaking of being online, market research shows that the trend toward using mobile technology to conduct internet business is only going to grow. If your site isn’t extremely mobile friendly, you’re likely alienating clients and customers (and probably missing out on attracting new ones).

Get social. Social media still matters, and that’s not going to change anytime soon. If you haven’t embraced social media as a business tool yet, now is the time.

Personalization is so important. As things become increasingly automated, personalized experiences are more valuable to people than ever. Make sure you’re focusing on ways your customer service department can help make people feel less like numbers and more like, well, people.

Get faster. No, faster than that. Along with all these advancements comes more impatience. Whether you like it or not, people are impatient. They want things as quickly as possible - whether it’s a product they ordered, a service they signed up for, or answers to their questions. This responsiveness should be integrated into every aspect of your organization. Consider automating specific areas of your business to keep up the pace the clients expect.

As you develop your strategy based on these trends, here’s what you’ll need to really make it work within your organization.

• Strategic agility: No matter how much you plan and strategize, things happen. Your organization must have the flexibility to bend and not break when unforeseen issues come up.
• Strategic scenario planning: You’ll be ready to face the unknown if you’ve come up with a contingency plan. Practice and plan for what you’d do if faced with hypothetical scenarios that could be real situations in the future. Don’t get drowning however in forever planning and never doing. An executed good plan is far better than a non-executed perfect one.
• Impeccable Communication: You have to keep your managers and staff onboard and aimed in the direction of your goals. To get everyone in line with your organizational strategy, keep open lines of communication within your company. Make sure people know who to talk to when they have questions about what to do next. Cultivate an atmosphere where everyone feels empowered to speak up right away if something’s not clear. Remind everyone often of what your bigger goals are as an organization. Develop a result dashboard that allows people to focus on what matters most.