--- title: Strategic Planning description: This subject covers the process of defining an organization's direction and allocating resources to pursue it. You will understand how to conduct SWOT analyses, set long-term objectives, and create actionable roadmaps for business growth. category: business-entrepreneurship subcategory: entrepreneurship difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced url: /subject/strategic-planning --- # Strategic Planning This subject covers the process of defining an organization's direction and allocating resources to pursue it. You will understand how to conduct SWOT analyses, set long-term objectives, and create actionable roadmaps for business growth. ## Available Resources 1 Videos • 1 Books • 2 Courses • 4 Websites ## Websites ### 1. Harvard Business Review - Strategy Articles and resources on strategic planning, frequently linked in Reddit discussions. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://hbr.org/topic/subject/strategy **Tags:** strategy, strategic-planning, management, competitive-advantage, business ### 2. EOS Worldwide Free downloads for implementing Traction and scaling ops **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.eosworldwide.com/ ### 3. strategyzer.com Strategyzer provides tools and training for designing, testing, and scaling business models, featuring the Business Model Canvas and Value Proposition Canvas along with templates, case studies, and practical guides. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://strategyzer.com **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ### 4. hbr.org Harvard Business Review (hbr.org) offers research-based articles, case studies, and practical guidance on leadership, strategy, and organizational performance for managers and executives. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://hbr.org **Tags:** websites, business-entrepreneurship, business-fundamentals ## Videos ### 1. What is Strategy? (HBR) Michael Porter explains the essence of strategy in this classic HBR video, highly recommended in r/Entrepreneur threads. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD7WSLeQtVw **Tags:** strategy, competitive-strategy, michael-porter, competitive-advantage, management ## Courses ### 1. Business Strategy In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value. In doing so, you’ll develop an understanding of how and why this process is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand value creation, and capture and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a variety of perspectives, including the industry-level (e.g., five forces analysis) and the firm-level (e.g., business models and strategic positioning). You will be able to: - Understand how managers coordinate different functional areas, resources, and systems inside a company and align them with the external environment to enhance overall performance - Recognize strategic management tools and frameworks and apply them to real business contexts - Process diverse business and industry information to diagnose strategic issues, evaluate strategic alternatives, and formulate a coherent and actionable strategic plan This course is part of Gies College of Business’ suite of online programs, including the iMBA and iMSM. Learn more about admission into these programs and explore how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into a degree program at https://degrees.giesbusiness.illinois.edu/idegrees/. **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 4-6 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/strategy-business **Tags:** courses, business-entrepreneurship, business-fundamentals ### 2. Strategic Management The world of business strategy is in transition. What used to work doesn't anymore -- not necessarily. This course prepares you to think strategically in an age when companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft have become more valuable (in market cap terms) than companies like Exxon. Today, business value and competitive advantage arise more often from consumer perceptions of what is "cool" than from physical assets or economies of scale. In this course -- the first of a three-course specialization tailored specifically for the age of creativity and innovation -- you will gear up for the challenges of strategy formulation and implementation in a 21st century business. After taking the course, you'll be able to: - Explain why "doing" strategy is considered "the high point of managerial activity" (Mintzberg); - Recognize and avoid the old, tired ideas about strategy that are still out there, so you can adopt fresher, better ideas; - Point out how doing strategy has changed because of advancing technology and globalization; - Prepare for the Capstone Project for the Strategic Management and Innovation Specialization **Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 4 weeks of study, 2-4 hours/week | **Price:** Free **Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/strategic-management **Tags:** courses, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship ## Books ### 1. Playing to Win **Author:** A.G. Lafley, Roger L. Martin Former P&G CEO A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin present the strategy framework used at Procter & Gamble: five linked choices from winning aspiration to management systems. Readers learn to make coherent where-to-play and how-to-win decisions for a business unit. **Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid **Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/142218739X?tag=edmonddante07-20 **Tags:** books, business-entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship --- *This content is part of Dantes.io - Your Treasure Map to Knowledge* *Curated by humans at Dantes.io. Personal study use welcome; republishing this curation requires permission (team@dantes.io).* View this page online: https://dantes.io/subject/strategic-planning