Term Paper Sample: The Importance of Strategic Management and Marketing Plans in Business

Companies emerge every break of dawn and the target for enjoying longevity in the market is usually very essential to entrepreneurs. The existence of strategic management and marketing plans is very important as it gives future projection of where a company wants to be within a given period of time (Teece, 2014). Business planning has thus been in existence for ages as successful companies use it to scale higher in their businesses and enjoy competitive advantage over others. Just like the common adage of Failing to plan is planning to fail, reiterates, when entrepreneurs fail to plan, the door they are unknowingly opening is the exit door, which is literally failure since their duration in the business market would be thwarted due to poor planning. Strategic Management as the tool to achieve our company objectivesStrategic management gives a business a plan for operation. Business planning is therefore, a pace setter. It sets companies a notch higher and acts as a sailing ship towards the shore, which is success through profitability and employee and consumer satisfaction. The benefits of successful business management through planning needs no rocket science to understand, it is plain that with an effective business plan, operations within a company can be effectively carried out without conflict of opinions (Eickhoff & Jakob, 2013). A business plan is a framework that acts as a benchmark for a company to measure its success through the achievement of its goals. This is also a critical part of business management that every company should put in place to ensure success and sustainability in the market. Business management requires planning as it is the backbone of every successful organization. Managers who invest more on planning have great stories of success to tell the world. Emerging businesses borrow so much from management strategies developed and implemented by world-leading business firms since they know there exists a secret on how they manage their business through strategic planning, marketing, training, and service production (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013).

Business is a growing economic activity and attracts many investors across the globe. A business that is strategic and can tap into the changing trends globally, stands a better chance of gaining a larger consumer and investment base. In this respect therefore, in business management, innovation is key. It thus, goes hand in hand with business planning through proper strategies to achieve company goals. Innovation is every companys best shot when it comes to enjoying a competitive advantage over others. Innovation sets a mark that makes competitors salivate for the level of performance leading companies exhibit in their businesses (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013).

Proponents of business planning on innovation argue that through planning, innovative approaches of a company can be fulfilled within a short period of time unlike working with a plan. Planning gives strategic tools for investing on innovative ideas and implementing them in due course for maximum productivity and profitability. Planning on innovation as the best approach to achieving goals and overcoming obstacles guides a business in resource allocation, and fosters communication concerning the innovation under development. However, critics argue that, it is the managements responsibility in any organization to ensure that they are flexible with current event. This means that businesses should not focus on a written guideline in the name of a plan to carry out their innovations. Some posit that planning may prove irrelevant due to the iterative development and that innovation changes in numerous ways thus doesnt require a rigid documentation.

Eickhoff & Jakob (2013) adds that, creativity is a focal aspect of every business in regards to management. No company would survive the waves of a competitive market without creativity. Having a team of creative members is a plus for any company that projects a higher growth within a period of time. Scholars differ on the relationship between creativity and strategic business management since these two concepts require different approaches. Business management requires creativity for it to be functional and effective as creativity cannot be without proper management strategies to build on employees skills and proficiencies in a company. Creativity varies depending on the emerging trends in the market. Many researchers argue that business planning distracts a firms efforts to carry out valuable actions to grow their fledging businesses. They view business planning as a cage that ties companies to set plans without looking out for greater opportunities. This implies that the management in any business firm should strive more to improve creativity on its employees than working with a rigid documentation in the name of a business plan (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013). However, other scholars support business planning on creativity positing that it is an essential precursor to action for businesses. It helps firms make decisions, balance supply and demand of resources, develop concrete operational goals from abstract goals, minimizes the likelihood of disbanding ventures, accelerates development, diversification, and differentiation of products.

The success of a business is heavily reliant on how best it carries out its plans. Business planning is an integral part of any business venture (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013). It acts as an anchor that guides a company and aims at protecting its assets through successful growth and expansion. Business planning has close links with innovation, creativity and organizational culture. The three aspects require planning to achieve maximum profitability, employee satisfaction and motivation, and consumer satisfaction and retention. Every business should thus consider planning an effective strategy for expansion, differentiation, and longevity in the market. Planning helps overcome organizational cultures that may bar development or accommodation of organizational culture for successful completion, implementing innovative ideas and encouraging creativity at all times (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013). Planning therefore, backs up the management team in any organization.

In management, there are several factors that would ensure strategic management in our organization. One important tool is through self-assessment. It is in very critical as it affects an organizations strategic planning processes since it is the best way to discover the loopholes in the company and strategically implement ways of controlling them enabling a company envision its future position, thus plan effectively on its resources, man power, and objectives. Self-assessment reveals the effectiveness of a companys human resource segment using its current resources and work force (Kennington, Olinick & Rajan, 2011). HR managers have the responsibility of ensuring a company has the proper will power to survive in the competitive market, in an event therefore that any gap arises following self-evaluation, he or she is thus mandated to fill the gaps through recruitment, retrenchment, incentives, job evaluation, and performance management among others.

Secondly, strategic management is effective through Performance management. It entails collective and effective collaboration of managers and employees to realize the objectives of a company through proper monitoring, planning, employee appraisal, training, and development. The goals of a company, performance results, and analysis process are integral parts of performance management since they gear a company towards better performance (Eickhoff & Jakob 2013). Objectives are a companys sailing ship, they lead the way, performance feedbacks are drawing boards for evaluation, and the evaluation process is the stepping-stone for improvement. When performance management is effectively used in an organization, productivity and performance levels are increased. Employees performance can be evaluated through performance appraisals, which involve different methods of evaluating employee performance. These methods include, self-evaluation tests, which involve use of structured questionnaires that are individually answered by the employees; 360 Evaluation, which involves reports from the managers on overall performance of their department; Graphic scale representation of the companys overall performance, Critical incident reports, these are logs kept by the managers on the happenings in the company. All these methods help in keeping tabs of employee behavior that is very instrumental to the growth of any company.

Moreover, employee satisfaction is an important aspect of ensuring effective employee performance. Employee performance problems are associated with employee dis-satisfaction; evaluation of the companys performance is possible through appraisals. Management may play a major role in the demotivation of their employees through, improper stipulation of duties, lack of communication between employees and unfair treatment of employees (Divya Gomathi, 2015). Putting these factors into consideration enables a company rectify employee conflicts and issues by ensuring that its employees are motivated and satisfied. It is necessary for each company to record the performance of their employees. Documentation is intensive and involves keeping of records on both the positive and negative practices done by employees concerning the company and its policies. This is very important since it assists the management and company to be aware of employee behavior that is very instrumental to the organization and company activities, i.e. in cases where there is need for actions such as promotions, salary increment, or even disciplinary action such as termination.

We prospect a positive trajectory in the coming years when we implement strategic management strategies for our company. Our technology is the tool of the todays business. We will not be left behind, we will use technology as our sailing ship for creativity, communication and innovation. The negative impacts of technology are crystal clear, however, as a team, we will ensure that in suing technology, we operate on fully protected servers through advanced and approved cyber security measures, protect our brand thus not use tec...