Question

In Healthcare...

What are the impacts of an internal and external assessment on the strategic plan?

What function does historical data have in the strategic planning process?

Answer 1

Strategic plan objectives can be either internally or externally focused. Internal strategic objectives look within a company to increase its productivity, efficiency, quality standards and overall operational effectiveness.An example of an internally focused objective could be to reduce the costs associated with production mistakes or to increase employee satisfaction and loyalty. Externally focused strategic goals center on a company's performance in the marketplace. Examples of external objectives include goals for market share growth, market leadership and innovation in product development.

Internal Strengths :

A comprehensive strategic plan includes a situational analysis that considers internal strengths and weaknesses. Analyzing a company's current strengths and weaknesses provides a wealth of insight helpful in accomplishing internal goals and internal analyses can provide advantages for achieving external goals, as well.  Review your cost structure, pricing policies and financial ratios to determine you financial strength or weakness compared with competitors.

External Assessment:

Situational analyses consider opportunities and threats from the external environment. External opportunities include things such as gaps in the market that no company is currently serving, new markets and other clear growth opportunities. External threats include new product releases from competitors and new competitors arising in the market. A range of external factors can present either opportunities or threats, depending on the specifics.