Strategy & Business Plan

All organizations exist to create value for their stakeholders (COSO Enterprise Risk Management).

The value-creating activities are usually based on vision, mission, goals, assignments and strategies. These are distributed from the board and management level to the various parts of the business, such as products and services, processes, plans, projects and resources.

The demands are increasing for organizations to demonstrate how they govern and lead in order to achieve goals, meet requirements and comply with legislation. Common areas are strategy and business plan, safety, work environment, quality management, information security, risk and continuity, environment and sustainability.

The different areas are often handled in isolated silos, which makes the work inefficient. The work is usually carried out unstructured via, for example, Excel lists and other documents that might be very dependent on specific individuals.

Structure for Strategy & Business Plan

In the iFACTS method, the following parts are used to support the value-creating work.

• Vision - A desired image of the future around which the organization can gather. Well-known examples such as "zero vision", "we try harder", "to refresh the world".
• Mission - Usually answers the question "what do we do?". May contain business idea, business model, relationships, values ​​and culture.
• Long-term goals - Goals answer the question "what is to be achieved". At this high level, the goal formulation is often aspirational high-level goals. The goals are broken down into strategies, assignments and key activities.
• Strategy - refers to how goals and requirements are to be achieved. Examples can be your “own sales organization” or “partner network”, “own development” or “outsourcing contract”.
• Assignments - When goals and strategies are defined, it is common for the board and management to create assignments and key activities that are distributed in the organization.
• Budget - The financial framework for running the business. Often closely linked to mission and strategy.
• Goals / measurements - are created at all levels of the organization. These are operational goals that are often handled according to the SMART model, where measurement is an important part.
• Reporting - Reporting and follow-up is needed, in the same way as the financial reporting and follow-up. The management needs to get correct information continuously and be able to act on deviations from plan.
• Business plan - The value-creating work including strategies, assignments, activities, risk, control, reporting is often gathered in a business plan for each organizational part. This will be their main document for the year and the basis for corporate governance.

Tasks can be easily broken down and distributed to various managers in the organization. The business reports development and results directly in the system based on iFACTS’ innovative method.

User-unique portals present results with key figures - graphically and in tables as well as more detailed reports when needed. Examples of portals can be quality management, business planning, project management, internal control and auditing, etc.

Integrated document handling makes it easy to link documents to various relevant processes and decisions.

Benefits:

• All steps gathered in one integrated workflow
• All stakeholders in the business share the same data
• Eliminate manual processes via Excel for increased efficiency, traceability and transparency
• All stakeholders are involved in the process (board, management, operations, control)
• Portals for quick overview
• Implement step-by-step with the presently most important area. A full picture of the organization's operational management emerges at the decided pace.
• Easy start and early value creation
• High degree of scalability and flexibility
• Well-developed opportunity for integrations with other systems and data sources via standardized API

iFACTS has been a leading software solution in strategy, governance, risk and insurance since 1996. iFACTS software supports decision making based on relevant facts.

For more information and the possibility to book a demo, click here.