Long term planning for business or strategic planning is the hardest type of planning because the timeframes are over years and a huge amount can change in that time. 

 I am going to take you through how to approach long term planning for business, what to consider, what to avoid and how best to approach each stage.

 When setting strategy or long term business goals you should undertake a realistic and honest assessment of the current business as well as understanding the external market, direction of trends and all the other likely influences on the business over the next 2-5 years. The aim is to create a picture of where you want the company to get to and include business goals.

 The strategic planning process is all about HOW we translate that strategy or set of long terms goals into tangible steps we can take to get us from where we are today to those strategic goals.

 I suggest several of the tools to use when thinking about how to create a strategic plan. Thinking about your internal strengths and weaker area is as important as looking externally to the company at market and customer trends etc. 

 It is well known that many leadership teams create strategies that they then struggle to put into practice. Alignment within the leadership is very important as is with the senior and middle management layers that are going to have to implement the strategy. Getting them involved or giving them a chance to input into the planning process helps gain their buy-in and improves the success of implementation. 

 When thinking through the strategic planning steps, keep the ability to implement the plan firmly in mind.