Strategic planning departments may consist of one person, or larger teams comprising permanent employees and external consultants. Depending on the focus of the organisation, and the number resources available, strategic planners perform some of the following roles.

research .

• Strategic planners provide up to date research  to the leadership  of the company in the following fields.
• External environmental trends. This includes information on political, social, economic, technological and industry trends that may impact on the organisation.
• Business trends. This includes information on the strategies being adopted by world class organisations. It may include benchmarking or best practices.
• Market research . This includes customer surveys and research  on changing customer needs and expectations. This is often outsourced to market research  companies.
• Competitor research . Many strategy  departments set up a competitor database. They track competitor strategies. Sometimes they compile comprehensive information on their competitors in the following areas: finance, marketing , human resources , production/manufacturing, distribution, promotion, culture, structures, alliances, technologies…
• The internal environment of the organisation including its culture, finance, marketing , distribution, systems, structures, technologies, manufacturing/production, image, customer base…..
• They also keep up to date on new ways of doing strategic planning itself. This may include techniques such as team based strategic planning and balanced score card approaches.

EDUCATION

A prime role of any strategy  department is to educate leadership  in both strategic planning and strategic thinking. Planners use a number of approaches to educate their leadership . These include:

• Formal training courses and workshops
• Getting guest speakers in once a month at a type of ‘university’
• Writing e-mail – a thought for the day.
• Writing newsletters.
• Speaking at workshops and conferences organised by different divisions in the organisation.
• Circulating interesting articles.
• Circulating interesting websites.
• Organising conferences in house
• Sending key people on external training courses.

FACILITATOR

Often companies review their strategic plans at a three-day workshop. Their divisions in turn develop strategic plans aligned to the company’s strategic plans. Strategic planners either facilitate these sessions themselves or hire external facilitators who are independent of company politics. These facilitators help:

• The company to develop its strategic plan
• Communicate the company’s plan to the rest of the organisation
• SBU’s/divisions to develop their strategic plans which are aligned to the organisation's plan.
• Communicate the SBU/divisions plans.
• Identify and manage the changes needed to support the new strategic plan.

The strategic planner also keeps up to date with the latest tools and techniques of doing strategic planning, and provides these tools to the leadership of the company and its divisions/regions.

SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR AND CO-ORDINATOR.

An organisation that is aligned (or pulling in the same direction) has the following systems aligned.