Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7

Assessing Your Business and Its Capabilities

In This Chapter

• Summarizing your strengths and weaknesses
• Evaluating how to hire, develop, and retain your best and brightest employees
• Checking out your capabilities and resources and linking them together
• Assessing your profit margins

Imagine you're setting out on a road trip. You hop on Google Maps or turn on your GPS to select the quickest route from your home to your destination. With your trip plan in mind, you consult your friend because he traveled that road before. After you're feeling good about your route, you check your resources against your trip plan to make sure that you have enough time and gas to get there. Then, you assess your fuel-efficient SUV to ensure that it's in working condition and that you've loaded up your most recent podcasts to your iPod. You pack your bags and invite two friends because they're fun to have around.

Sound familiar? This situation may seem too methodical, but more than likely, you went through all those steps before you headed out on the road. Mapping a strategic plan is just the same: Your company needs a road map or plan to make the strategic plan work. This chapter focuses on your SUV (or company). More specifically, this chapter takes a look at the following points:

• How does being on your SUV feel? How it feels on the SUV is your company culture — teamwork, leadership, and climate for action.
• Are the right people on your SUV and in the right seats? Are you keeping them ...