Strategic Plan of PortLand Construction

Businesses adopt strategic planning as a way to improve performance. Strategic planning is the idea that
setting clear goals, data analysis and targets improve business performance ( Boyne, 2010). Strategic
planning is the procedure by which the executives of a business, define their vision of the organisation's
future and identify its goals and objectives, (Mintzberg,1993). The procedure involves determining the
order in which these aims must be attained for the organisation to realise its stated vision. Strategic
planning typically encompasses medium- to long-term objectives with a duration of three to five years,
although it may extend beyond this. This differs from business planning, which emphasises short-term,
tactical objectives, such as budget division. Several months to several years may be included in a
business plan. A strategic plan is the result of strategic planning., and itfrequently appears inside a plan
document or any other media. These plans are easily communicated, comprehended, and abided by
staff, customers, business associates, and shareholders, among others, (Ward, Griffiths, & Whitmore,
2002) .

Theories of Strategic Planning

Beard & Dess (1981) stated that a strategy is generally a document that outlines the path a company will
take as well as the process it will require to accomplish its objectives. In a standard industry framework,
the business strategy is derived from goals set up to help the company's stated mission. The usual
process of creating a company strategy consists of three steps: analysis, integration, and implementation.

Shrader, Taylor, and Dalton (1998) opined that establishing business policies and strategic planning as
nothing more than a means of enhancing the organisation's performance plays a crucial role in the life of
business life cycle and give it a competitive advantage. The assertion presented by Shrader et al. (1998)
exemplifies the broad and diverse strategic planning methodologies which organisations have already
applied to achieve both long-term and short-term objectives. Taylor (1997) reiterated Shrader et
al(1998) .'s conception of strategic planning when he stated that strategic planning has undergone an
evolutionary path that has manifested itself in various forms. Taylor (1997) states that its evolutionary
process accelerated "from Long Range Planning to Strategic Planning in the 1960s, from Strategic
Planning to Strategic Management in the 1980s, and from Strategic Management to Strategic Leadership
in the 1990s". Nevertheless, the planning, organising and strategising that form the basis of strategic
planning must always be linked to the diverse conceptual components underlying the concept of strategy
(Rudd, Greenly, Beatson & Lings, 2008; Shrader et al., 1998). Wright, Pringle, and Kroll (1994) initiated
the theories underlying the various business strategic models by stating that strategic management is
constantly evolving and is dependent on several theoretical frameworks. To evaluate and analyse the
progression of the various forms of strategic constructs, Wright et al. (1994) presented the theory of
evolution. They contended that the evolutionary shifts in strategic management had substantially
impacted the operating paradigm of a business. In addition, they asserted that gradual environmental
changes affected organisational behaviour; thus, effective organisations evolved a strategic fit and
complied most closely with environmental requirements (Wright et al., 1994). In addition, they suggested
that an economic environment is characterised by long periods of stability interspersed with brief periods
of discontinuous and revolutionary change (Wright et al., 1994). Comparable to the theory of evolution,
the industrial organisational model postulated the industry environment's effects on the organisation
(Wright et al., 1994). In addition, the theory posited that organisations that implement a strategic fit within
the industry's forces will survive and thrive and that a company's profit growth is decided by its core
competencies operating within its external environment (Wright et al., 1994). An examination of the
industrial theory revealed that the theory is deterministic in its assumption that an organisation's ability to
adapt to an industry's forces is crucial to its survival and that an organisation's strategies, resources, and
competencies are reflections of the industry's environment (Porter, 2008; Wright et al., 1994).

Strategic Plan Models

Guth (1980) introduced the first planning model as retaining a relative position in a high-growth product
market area. Guth (1980) hypothesised that this model of strategic planning focused on a growth strategy
for companies with a single product line. This strategy's guiding principle is that if there is a market for a
company's goods and services, it will support the venture using its resources. Additionally, for this strategy
to be successful, the company must have the capacity to employ effective marketing strategies while
maintaining its competitiveness. The disadvantage of this strategy is that the rival might adopt a similar
plan of action to split up the market share (Beard & Dress, 1981; Charan & Freeman, 1980; Guth, 1980;
Rothschild, 1997). Guth (1980) introduced the model of increasing market share in high-growth markets
as an alternative to the growth strategy. By leveraging a robust comparative advantage over the firm's
rival, this planning strategy aimed to improve organisational performance throughout the product. The
advantage of the planning strategy, as opposed to the growth strategy, is that it fully integrates the
company into the market, making it less likely that new competitors will adopt the same approach (Guth,
1980; Rothschild, 1997).

After examining the planning models used during the industrial era, it became clear that new
methodologies were needed to address the strategic planning paradigm's evolving theoretical shift (Beard
& Dess, 1981). As a result, the entrepreneurial era evolved during the 1980s, and corporate executives
began to prefer models like corporate-level, business-level, and functional levels (Beard & Dess, 1981).
But according to Wright et al. (1994), any planning model a company is thinking about implementing
should begin with a SWOT analysis and a balanced scorecard. While the Balanced Scorecard focuses on
evaluating the organisation's financial capabilities, Farkas (1996) claims that the SWOT analysis is ideal
for evaluating the organisation's internal and external environments. According to Beard & Dess (1981),
the corporate-level strategy focuses on the characteristics of an industry that the organisation is thinking
about entering or is already active in. Once the organisation has examined the opportunities and threats
that the firm faces in the external environments, it can then use its resources to effectively compete with
the firms in the portfolio of industries (Beard & Dess, 1981). Wright et al. (1994) added support to Beard &
Dess's (1981) thesis. They stated that the organisation could then select from a portfolio of strategic
planning models, such as "growth strategies, stability strategies, retrenchment strategies, and
combination strategies," to put into practice and utilise the organisation's resources to their fullest
potential.

Using SWOT analysis, the strength of PorLand Construction lies in; competence and expertise in multiple
project disciplines, skilled personnel with experience, a solid client base and commitment to customer
service, a strong and expanding body of work and prolonged existence in local markets.

The weaknesses include the absence of a comprehensive organisational principle, strategic plan, or
mission; lack of an organisational structure and excessive reliance on affiliates; ineffective internal
communication and information sharing between offices; poor accountability, unclear budgets and
performance measures and absence of no clear paths for internal promotion in the company.

Portland Construction also has impressive opportunities which include; a rise in the demand for complex,
well-designed projects; add more clients for private development; changes in land use and demographics;
obtaining planning and transportation expertise to identify projects and conducting a more thorough needs
analysis, better understand the needs of the client. Portland Construction also faces some threats, such
as; other businesses employing the same strategy as us; small startups encroaching on local markets;
our company's size is getting too large for simple projects but isn't quite massive enough for larger
projects. We also have a problem with expertise retention as the others attract good employees before us

Roles of Strategic Planning

Planning is "a description of actions and predispositions of the dominant coalition concerning the
environment, context, and structure," according to Shrader, Taylor & Dalton (1984). (p. 150). This point of
view was developed by Shrader et al. in 1998 to distinguish between organisational leadership's implied
strategies and those that are formally planned. However, Rudd et al. (2007) asserted that " planning gives
organisations the flexibility to allocate scarce resources and to foresee economic fluctuations. Planning
has also given PortLand Construction the flexibility it need to make alternative decisions when necessary
and choose from those alternatives the best ones to take advantage of opportunities or threats in a
particular environment. According to Shrader et al. (1998) and Taylor (1997), long-range formal strategic
planning enhances organisational growth. They cited substantial evidence to support their claim.
According to Shrader et al. (1998), when planning was put into practise in Fortune 500 companies, it
became clear that the firms were expanding in terms of both size and assets. It was further demonstrated
that small businesses that invested in outside consulting to facilitate formal planning reported higher
increases in sales than those that did not (Shrader et al., 1998). There is, therefore, evidence from
numerous studies that formal planning and organisational performance are related (Shrader et al., 1998).

The conceptualisation of formal planning on strategy by Bonn & Christodoulou (1996) was supplemented
by Rudd et al. (2007) by utilising technological flexibility. The ability of PortLand construction to modify our
technological infrastructure in order to align it with the strategy of our competitors is referred to as
technological flexibility, according to Rudd et al. (2007). The ability to conceptualise structural changes
and market trends and develop strategic alternatives for those changes is provided by planning.
Additionally, it is asserted that organisations that implement structural changes and use a clear planning
mechanism to facilitate strategic decision-making can improve employee performance compared to
businesses that approach changes unexpectedly (Rudd, et al., 2007). Portland Construction has been
undertaking this strategy and it has been yielding results. The literature studied and clarified the idea that
formal planning contributes and positively correlates to the strategic performances of organisations
(Taylor, 1999). Formal planning at PortLand has helped to facilitate business and corporate level
strategies and positively impact our organisational growth through long-term plans and flexibility. Taylor
(1997) argued that planning allows organisational leaders to conceptualise structural and operational
changes in business-level strategy. He pointed out that planning gives different departments a framework
for creating planning guidelines which would analyse and assess strategic decisions well within the
context of the organisation's internal environment. These adjustments include predicting economic and
market trends, stakeholder investment priorities, and the organisation's goals, policies, and objectives
(Taylor, 1997).

Planning improves businesses' performance and strategies (Rudd et al., 2007; Taylor, 1997). There is
sufficient evidence from the results of our operations supporting the assertions that the planning process
enables organisations to compete successfully through the application of business-level strategies to
distinguish their services and products in terms of competitive strategies and performance. In addition,
Taylor (1997j’’) discovered that business-level strategies were significantly related to higher profits for a
chosen group of manufacturing firms that used an efficient planning process. This finding supports the
notion that effective strategic planning explains the significant improvements in the financial performance
of large firms. The ability of organisations to adopt a structure that would allow managers to concentrate
on strategic planning at the corporate level was further demonstrated to be facilitated by diversification.
Organisations used planning to help them become more strategically suited to their surroundings
(Shrader et al., 1998). The ability of an organisation to adapt to its environment is facilitated by strategic
planning, it has been widely accepted in organisational and planning research. In order to manage
uncertainty and create a strategic fit between the organisation's environment and its structure that would
allow it to benefit from a variety of political and operational goals, an organisation must be able to plan
(Shrader et al., 1998). Planning has a positive effect on the environment, but it must occur within the
context of the organisation in which it is done, as shown by the correlation between organisations and
their environment.
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