49 4.4 Strategic Planning Tools

When a company is developing its strategy, it is faced with a vast array of considerations and choices. It needs to take into account its resources and capabilities, the strength of existing customer relationships, the competitive landscape, the economic and legal environments, important societal trends—the list of inputs goes on and goes on. Then, based on that information, it must devise a plan—a strategy—that contains the best options for addressing the inputs. But which inputs are most important, and which options should be included in the strategy? To answer these questions, businesses have at their disposal a number of strategic planning tools that help to simplify, organize, and focus both the inputs and the possible strategy options. In this section you’ll learn about three: the SWOT analysis, the Boston Consulting Group matrix, and the strategic growth matrix.