Strategic Planning Process

Cloudbiznet Solutions Strategic Plan

[Student’s Name]

[Institution]

[Author’s Note]

Introduction

Cloudbiznet Solutions is the name I will be working to establish in future. It will concern itself with most things cloud computing. The major services that will be offered are web-hosting, virtualization, cloud storage, backups, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and disaster recovery. Most companies are now embracing the concept of cloud computing due to its many advantages, which include: cheap services, one can work anywhere as a result of remotely accessed services, no need to hire sophisticated information technology personnel within the organization as a result of hosted and managed services among others according to (Bryson, 2018).

Even though there are such cloud computing companies already established, my aim is to create a company that looks into the needs of the local individuals and offer then the best services. The already established cloud companies offer minimal support. Most of their services have been made available over the Internet. It is difficult to reach the support personnel talk about issues affecting them. This has discouraged the start-ups who need a lot of support to establish themselves in their small organization. My aim is to be able to reach to the customers one on one, understand their needs and help make the best decisions as far as moving to the cloud.

Strategic Management Process

Strategic planning process has helped a lot in getting a company up and running. It involves a systematic set of steps to put into consideration to implement the business idea one has. He or she needs to focus on things such as the target market, business location, stakeholders, partners, sourcing of equipment, manpower and the most important thing is profit to be realized.

Cloudbiznet Solutions’ Goal

My aim at making substantial profits from the company. Having analyzed the potential market, we came up with long term and short term goals that we will put into considerations, driven by the fact that we are a start-up company and we may not have all the money required to get everything in place within a short time. Our major long term goal is to double revenue after seven years of establishment. We also aim at increasing the company owners’ wealth by by 50% after the same period. We intend to have fully gone to the public and be known widely within three years of establishment. Our customers will have had total trust on our services and we will have gained above 95% positive feedback from them. We will also start venturing into new opportunities that we may not offer at the beginning to our customers.

To achieve these long term goals, we have come up with strategies which we consider our short term goals (Allison & Kaye, 2011). These include acquiring and maintaining a group of expertise. Having the best talent means offering the best services that satisfy the customers. The team will be made up of sales and marketing, pre-sales, cloud infrastructure engineers and an excellent support team. We will make sure to often appreciate and motivate them so that they can perform even better. Frequent training will be done for the team to improve their skills. Time will also be allocated to brainstorm new ideas and suggest on how to implement them. We will give focus to the sales and pre-sales team to on-board the clients to enable us build and nature customer relations.

Analysis

After a thorough research that involved interviewing several companies and filling out questionnaires, we realized most companies have a picture of what cloud computing is and what its benefits are. However, most are still afraid to venture into it. They have not found a one on one discussion from the providers on how their information systems will be managed and therefore do not favour start-ups. This is the reason why we thought of starting a company to meet their needs. However, we will face challenges convincing the customers that our company can provide the same service as the other providers. Start-up companies face challenges of being accepted as capable. With our strategies and a team of expertise we well make sure to prove that we are worth their trust.

Strategy Formulation, Implementation And Evaluation

Putting into consideration the needs of small organizations as well as the competition from the established cloud companies, we realized that there are a lot we need to do to get in the business. We will need powerful devices, which are of course expensive and a powerful team of expertise. This will require a lot of money. Acquiring talent, getting an appropriate location, doing marketing and advertisements and building infrastructure are the things we will focus on. We will need to research for the best electronics selling company to start procuring the equipment we need.

Having done our analysis, we came up with means of approaching our plan. We need to approach certain trustworthy individuals who will love our idea to become the stoke-holders. This is where we are going to source our capital. We also need to look for investors as well as approach a banking institution for funds. We will have to decide for the appropriate location and to employ a marketing team to sell us out. Procurement of devices will be done and we will contract a talented infrastructure team to set us up. We will then look for the best talent to help us reach out to customers.

We have put in place the mission, vision and strategies that will ensure we work together with the employees to maintain the customer as well as well offer them the best services. Some of these strategies involve employee motivation, encouraging and empowering new ideas as well as creating means to attract and retain the best talent. Without any of these strategies, the company will not have planned itself well to meet the requirements of all the stakeholders. This means possibilities of losing talent. The customers will definitely pull off from the company if they do not get the best support. These are explained below:

Mission Statement: Customer satisfaction comes first

Vision Statement: To become the world’s leading in ensuring the customers get the best of the services they require.

Motivational Strategy: Reward employees’ efforts at the end of each year. The rewards should be comparable to those given from our competitor companies

Innovation Strategy: Take time to brainstorm new ideas and products that are that in line with customer needs and promote the ideas.

Peoples Strategy: Create a process to attract and retain the best talent. Trainings on the offered services will be done every Friday to improve skills. Rewards to be given yearly to motivate all the talent.

It has always been my desire to own or work for a well organized company. Employees need to be motivated in order to deliver their best. The customers as well need not to be complaining about poor services accorded to them. Some companies put minimal concentration of the customer satisfaction. A customer request for a service and they are given feedback after long hours of waiting. There is always a lot of frustration from the customers. Employees also suffer in the sense that their efforts are hardly noticed or appreciated. They get frustrated and leave the company. The end result is a group of suffering customers and thus the beginning of company downfall. The above strategies are thus is line with what I strongly believe in and want. Everybody gets to be happy at the end of the day and thus company prosperity.

Role of Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility In Strategic Planning

When starting a company, it is important to put into consideration the impact to the people’s social life (Steiner, 2010). It is key to ensure that the company does not bring harm to its stakeholders neither does it affect their. The stakeholders should be treated equally and their ideas listened to with interest. They should given the respect they deserve and given the chance to put across any concern or raise new ideas. Everything done to them should be according to professionalism, such as providing honest information, transparency at work so as to improve credibility. Acting with fairness and equality, respect and transparency towards the stakeholders enables the company to gain trust. People are motivated when they know that what is being done to them is right.

References

Bryson, J. M. (2018). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons.

Steiner, G. A. (2010). Strategic planning. Simon and Schuster.

Allison, M., & Kaye, J. (2011). Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations: A practical guide and workbook. John Wiley & Sons.