Strategic Planning – Essential Now More Than Ever

The Business Trendsetter Podcast

From 2012 through 2019 most small and mid-size organizations started to see the need for more strategic planning, especially related to growth. But then the pandemic happened, and their business either caught an unexpected growth wave – or hit a wall. Either way, many stopped planning and began reacting to current events. Then in 2021 the economy tried to restart, and supply chain disruptions left many businesses struggling to get back on track. In 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine, causing massive threats to world peace. We awoke to a changed world where the former high growth BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries were controlled by dictator-like autocrats often opposed to globalization. And all of this led to 8%+ inflation, and the Federal Reserve driving risk free interest rates from nothing to nearly 4%, with promises of even higher rates, sure to cause a domestic and global recession.

Wow, with so many punctuated equilibriums happening so fast many, many companies quit doing strategic planning at all. Leaders became reactive, wanting forecasts only weeks/months in advance, and often not caring as they were immersed in daily responses to current events. Many felt like they couldn’t do strategic planning, when in fact Adam had been presenting all along the absolute need for MORE strategic planning in a dynamic marketplace. Planning abandonment was becoming the norm.

This podcast overviews not only the need for strategic planning today, but overviews how current events can be used to understand trends and make good strategic decisions. To succeed in 2025 and beyond we can understand the Fed, inflation, interest rates and their impact on a strong dollar – which has enormous global impacts on inflation, prices and economies outside the USA. We can understand immigration, and how demographics are very reliable for predicting future needs. Bring these together into a plan, with commitment to testing, using White Space, and you can build a plan leading to more growth and greater success – even in a highly dynamic world.

Thinking points:

• Have you abandoned long-term planning as you have reacted to current events?
• Do you have insight to how current events will affect your business in 2025 and beyond?
• Are you investing for a different world in 2025 than existed in 2020?
• If you weren’t prepared for these punctuated equilibriums, are you preparing for future ones?