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Strategic Business Planning

Learn how to overcome challenges, improve decision-making, and remain competitive with strategic business planning.

Business woman talking to her client on a desk with computer with confident.

Improve management processes with business planning.

For organisations to be proactive rather than reactive, strategic business planning is imperative. It provides clarity, direction, and focus for the organisation, improving both management and decision-making processes.

On this four-week course, you’ll discover the key components of strategic business planning to enhance efficiency within an organisation and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Understand how decision-makers use strategic business planning

You’ll delve into the benefits of strategic business planning and how it can lead to an increase in market share, profitability, and business longevity.

This understanding will highlight the importance of decision-makers knowing the key concepts of strategic business planning. You’ll also learn how decision-makers can apply this knowledge to effectively create solutions to consumer, market, environmental, and social problems.

Learn how to set a vision and create a mission statement

To help achieve a competitive advantage, you’ll hone your problem-solving and decision-making abilities within your organisation.

This knowledge will help you in the initial stages of strategic business planning including setting a preliminary vision and developing a mission statement.

Overcome challenges with strategy formulation and implementation

You’ll identify and examine key issues faced by strategic business planners and learn how to face challenges by conceptualising a strategic response.

With this understanding, you’ll explore strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation to ensure you understand each step of strategic business planning.

Learning from the experts at Sentinel|9, you’ll finish the course with the ability to overcome key business challenges using a sound strategic approach.

Syllabus

  • Week 1

    Concept profile - strategic business planning

    • Course welcome

      Welcome to Strategic Business Planning. Let's get started!

    • Concept profile - strategic business planning

      We explore the concept of strategic business planning, and look at different theories of business strategy, including game theory.

    • End of Week 1 wrap up

      A review of what's been covered and looking forward to next week.

  • Week 2

    Preliminary vision, mission statements and strategy formulation

    • Weekly welcome

      Find out what's happening this week.

    • Preliminary vision and mission statements

      We clarify the relationship between vision, mission, and business strategy.

    • Strategy formulation part 1

      Vision and mission statements are the first step in formulating a business strategy.

    • End of Week 2 wrap up

      A review of what's been covered and looking forward to next week

  • Week 3

    Strategy formulation and implementation

    • Weekly welcome

      Find out what's happening this week.

    • Strategy formulation part 2

      We continue exploring strategy formulation.

    • Strategy implementation

      Once a strategy has been formulated it needs to be implemented.

    • End of Week 3 wrap up

      A review of what's been covered and looking forward to next week

  • Week 4

    Strategy evaluation

    • Weekly welcome

      This week we explore the importance of evaluating your business strategy.

    • Strategy evaluation

      By measuring performance you can develop strategies that improve it.

    • End of course wrap up

      It's the end of the course. Look back at what you've covered and consider what to do next.

When would you like to start?

Start straight away and join a global classroom of learners. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Explore the theoretical and practical knowledge of strategic business planning to generate solutions to improve current practice.
  • Describe problem-solving and decision-making to achieve a competitive advantage.
  • Assess information and demonstrate the capacity to document the outcomes with sound analysis and recommendations.
  • Evaluate the key challenges faced by strategic business planners and conceptualise a strategic response to overcome these challenges.

Who is the course for?

This course is designed to help you develop skills and knowledge in strategic business planning.

It will be most beneficial if you’re interested in learning about vision and missions statements, and strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation.

Who developed the course?

Sentinel|9

Sentinel|9 is an education content provider. They provide university-level content independently to offer a different pace of learning for individuals and institutions. They have a dynamic content library and Learning Management System (LMS) which is suitable for online, blended and face-to-face delivery.

FutureLearn

FutureLearn is a leading social learning platform and has been providing high quality online courses for learners around the world over the last ten years.

What's included?

This is a premium course. These courses are designed for professionals from specific industries looking to learn with a smaller group of like-minded individuals.

  • Unlimited access to this course
  • Includes any articles, videos, peer reviews and quizzes
  • Tests to validate your learning
  • Certificate of Achievement to prove your success when you're eligible
  • Download and print your Certificate of Achievement anytime

Still want to know more? Check out our FAQs

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn

Get a taste of this course

Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:

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