Setting up your strategic plan for your business is a key element of ensuring your organization’s success. You need to envisage where your business is heading so that you can find the best and most effective route there. Yet, once your strategic plan is in place, you need to work out how you’re going to track your success and measure it as it comes along. This is where setting smart goals can make a big difference.

Quantitative and Qualitative Measurements

Two kinds of measurement exist when it comes to assessing your progress towards your company’s strategic goals. Qualitative measurements assess quality, whereas quantitative measurements use actual figures to determine how near or far you are from the point that indicates success. The key is to set a date by which point your company should have gone from its existing point to where it needs to be. This makes an enormous difference when it comes to the amount of energy and time is put in so success can be achieved.

Lagging and Leading Indicators

Goal-setting should also have to lead and lagging indicators to assure greater success.

Typically, lagging indicators are historical, and are outcomes of things that you’ve already achieved as a business. While lagging indicators are simple to measure, they’re hard to influence or improve. Leading indicators, on the other hand, are something that can be controlled, for example, the number of incidents, meetings or sales calls that you’re able to initiate. Conversely, they’re difficult to measure, but simple to influence or improve.

You can set goals with leading and lagging indicators by creating and executing your strategic business plan successfully. Your goals should always dictate the action items that you intend to implement rather than the other way about. You need to have a target in your mind first before you can commence any actions to reach it.

By using a mix of lagging and leading indicators, you can create a strategic plan that is much more robust. This is because you will have strategic priorities that have goals that can easily be measured. Tracking your progress and monitoring how much progress still needs to be made towards your strategic plan’s execution will, therefore, become easier.

A mix of leading and lagging indicators will help you create a more robust strategic plan because your strategic priorities will have measurable goals. Tracking how much you have done and how much you need to do towards the execution of your strategic plan will become easier.

Seeking Professional Strategic Planning Advice

For many small business owners, it can be difficult to implement an effective strategic plan, let alone work out how to measure its success. That’s where professional business consultancy services can prove to be indispensable. The team at Global Resources LLC at GR-US.com can offer outstanding management consultancy to ensure that you maximize your company’s potential by helping you to set smart goals and then to implement them in your long-term strategic plan.