Strategic planning involves long-term thinking for organizations, determining the primary goals for the business over the next year or several years. Business Analytics (BA) is the art of analyzing your as-is data, identifying root causes of current circumstances, and using the insights gathered to anticipate how your business would respond if you were to adjust certain conditions. As such, strategic planning and BA are perfectly complementary disciplines when deployed together.

Here is how to use Business Analytics to guide your next strategic plan:

Understand What Business Analytics Is

BA relies on data supplied via Business Intelligence (BI) to predict and prescribe. This analysis uses modeling, data mining, and machine learning in place of a crystal ball to anticipate future needs and trends and to make recommendations for responsive change. It can be a critical component of a successful strategic planning process, empowering data-driven decisions about new organizational initiatives.

How do BA and BI complement each other in the strategic planning process? The strategic decisions generated by Business Analytics rely on the data insights provided by Business Intelligence. For example, BI tells you how many complaints your constituents filed about parking enforcement issues. BA then informs you on why those issues occurred (maybe a scanner that double-counted certain meter violations) and suggests programmatic shifts to help prevent the issue from recurring. BA might also suggest logical alternative sources for increasing revenue streams that a municipality could build into its strategic plan.

Build Your Strategic Plan Off Meaningful, Readily Available Data

When we work with a client to develop a strategic plan, we begin by developing an assessment plan and template which, when approved by the client, guides a collaborative evaluation process. This practice is grounded in BA. A business intelligence platform can be hugely beneficial to the strategic planning exercise, providing rapid access to and visualization of essential data for users across the organization.

The efficiencies enabled by BI grant thought leaders more time to spend on organizational change (because they’re spending less time on minutiae). And the strategic shifts articulated by BA can also help improve the raw data stream BI relies on for insights. It’s a vital cycle of process improvement and outcome enhancement. For real-time availability of the actionable data insights that inform this process, BI software is a game-changer.

Seek Expert Guidance

When you are focused on doing the best possible job of meeting existing enterprise needs and demands, there may, understandably, be little bandwidth for gazing into the future. Recruiting a consultant trained in business analytics and strategic planning can help you more effectively assess as-is data, conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), and build a responsive strategic plan.

For example, Momentum provided strategic planning services to a Pennsylvania nonprofit organization to increase performance and strengthen all aspects of the organization.  We worked together with the Executive Director to:

• Create a roadmap for improvement,
• Perform long-range strategic planning,
• Identify a process for the Board of Directors and staff to improve the organization’s vitality, and
• Mentor the Executive Director and other key stakeholders to improve operations.

This process began with BA. We conducted an as-is study, followed by a gap analysis to help outline and prioritize areas targeted for improvement. The result led the organization to improve internal communications, increase the effectiveness of existing programs, and gain efficiencies in financial reporting/training, budgeting, financial software, grant processing, information management, communication, security, and other daily operations.

Get In Touch For More Planning Insights

If you need assistance drafting a strategic plan that draws on BA insights to address a particular challenge or challenges in your organization, drop us a line. We’re ready to help you design a data-driven strategic plan to help your enterprise achieve its mission.