Planning

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Business Planning

In any business it is essential that a clear strategic plan is developed, implemented, and continually reviewed.

For New Zealand golf clubs (most of whom are significant commercial organisations with large asset values) developing a detailed strategic plan is an absolutely critical part of working towards creating a sustainable future.

In its broadest sense, a strategic plan outlines an organisation's basic purpose for being whilst also defining the direction and operational nature of the entire business.

Setting clear strategic objectives shapes the direction and operation of the whole business and also provides a basis from which a detailed business plan can be developed.

Section Contents 

• The Strategic Plan & The Business Plan - An Overview
• The Planning Process
• Developing a Vision & Mission Statement
• External Analysis (PEST)
• Internal Analysis (SWOT)
• Setting Key Objectives & Measuring Performance
• The Business Plan - An Overview

Marketing Planning (Currently being uploaded)

• Competitor Analysis
• Market Research
• Segmentation & Targeting
• Specific Marketing Tactics & Programmes

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The Strategic Plan - An Overview

A strategic plan is a document which outlines the long term goals (3-5 years) of a golf club. It defines the overall mission and direction of the golf club whilst also broadly outlining how an organisation will operate in order to achieve desired outcomes. 

A strategic plan normally encompasses the following components:

• A Vision and/ or Mission Statement
• Key Strategic Objectives
• KPI's / Performance Measures
• Key Priorities/Action List

The business plan is a far more detailed document that outlines exactly how the golf clubs strategic vision will be achieved. The business plan includes all of the information from your club's strategic plan, plus considerably more information about your club and how it will be operating over the short term (1-2 years) in order to deliver on the strategic objectives defined in the club's strategic plan.

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The Planning Process

New Zealand golf clubs operate in an ever changing environment that presents many evolving challenges. 

A good planning approach enables a golf club to better understand those challenges, make better strategic choices, and ultimately establish a clear direction that has support amongst members and other stakeholders. 

Poor planning puts a golf club at risk of making poor decisions and operating in a reactive rather than proactive manner.

The planning process normally involves four continuous stages:

• Preparation: assigning a timeline and key responsibilities for the planning process
• Development: identifying the strategic challenges, assessing the options, and determining the overall direction and desired outcomes
• Implementation: putting the strategic plan into a detailed annual business plan.
• Monitoring: measuring performance results and making appropriate amendments to the plan.

Developing A Strategic Plan for Your Golf Club 
When writing any formal plans for your club, keep in mind these tips:

• Keep it Simple:
  Staff and stakeholders should be able to easily follow and understand the plan, so ensure you use a clear logical structure and simple language.
• Keep it Concise:
  Any plan should be developed through a comprehensive process but avoid being overly detailed and too long to be practical.
• Focus on Results:
  Plans are only effective if they result in action towards the desired outcomes. Ensure performance measures and evaluation systems are set.
• Be Flexible:
  Planning is a dynamic process, so make sure any plans are flexible enough to make changes when required.
• Collaborate:
  Any plan developed will only be successful if it receives 'buy in' from all stakeholders. Involving key interested parties in the planning process ensures that not only are they likely to support the plan but feel as though they have been part of its development.
• Involve External People
  Effective planning requires any organisation to challenge current assumptions, thinking and operations. It is a good idea to involve external people to generate and encourage this critical thinking and rigorous discussion. External people also add a valuable perspective from outside the golf club.
• Communicate
  Once developed, it is essential that any plan is presented to all interested parties in a clear, consistent and concise way. This helps all stakeholders (in particular club members) to understand what is happening at the club and why it is happening.

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Developing A Vision And Mission Statement

The first step of developing a golf clubs strategic plan is the setting of a vision and/or mission statement. This sets the foundation from which the club operates.

Vision Statements: 
A vision statement describes the preferred future that a club is aiming to achieve in the next three to five years. It is an inspirational statement that captures the essence of a clubs ideal future.

Mission Statement: 
A mission statement describes the club's basic purpose for being. It typically describes the what, how and why of a golf club.

To develop a golf clubs vision and/or mission statements, some good starting questions to ask are:

• What is the current purpose of our golf club?
• What is the reason our golf club existence?
• If this our golf club did not exist why would we create it?
• Who are we doing this for? Who should benefit from the clubs existence?
• What's important to us as a golf club?

Set of Values: 
Whilst vision and mission statements outline the desired direction of a clubs future, a strategic plan may also include a set of values.

A set of values is not what your golf club does, but how it does it.

These values should reflect and foster the attitudes and behaviours that your club intends employees and members to exhibit. 

To develop a golf clubs vision and/or mission statements, some good starting questions to ask are:

• What are the essential values contained in golf as a sport?
• What is the essence, ethos or spirit of our golf club?
• What does our golf club stand for?
• How do we want to interact with each other and the outside world?
• What behaviours do we want to encourage amongst our staff and members?
• What differentiates our golf club from others?
• What makes members want to be part of our club?

Together the vision statement and the club's values form the ongoing purpose of the organisation.

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External Analysis (PEST Analysis)

An important part of any strategic plan is establishing where your golf club sits in relation to the current landscape. It is essential to consider all of the outside influences which may affect your golf club and its day to day business 

Most environmental factors cannot be controlled by a golf club, however they can be anticipated, understood and responded to. Ignoring the impact of these factors will over time undermine the future of the golf club.

A simple tool that is commonly used for this function is PEST environmental analysis.

• Political: political priorities, proposed legislation
• Economic: wealth, work type and economic trends
• Social: lifestyle patterns and attitudes, demographics
• Technological: communications, information management, transport, entertainment

For each environment category the following questions should be asked:

• What are the major changes currently occurring?
• What impact are these changes having on our golf club?
• What further changes are likely to occur in the future?
• Which of these impacts represent threats to be managed or opportunities to be exploited?

It should be noted that PEST analysis does not include an analysis of competitive forces which are generally considered as part of developing a marketing plan. Competitor analysis will be presented separately on this website.

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Internal Analysis (SWOT Analysis)

A SWOT analysis is the process of looking closely at your golf club and asking what is good and bad, what are the challenges you are facing and how a potential member may regard you. 

SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. By using the SWOT analysis you can identify where your golf club stands in the market.

This provides a useful basis for making future strategic and marketing plans.

Strengths
Examples of typical golf club strengths include:

• Strong financial base.
• Many new members.
• Strong junior programmes.
• No joining fee.
• Strong green fee business.
• Strong corporate business.
• Quality course.
• Well-equipped clubhouse.
• Committee is well-structured, enthusiastic, capable.

Weaknesses
Weaknesses often appear as the direct opposite of the golf clubs strengths and include:

• Weak financial base.
• Declining membership.
• Low green fee business.
• Low junior members.
• Few volunteers.
• No support from local businesses.
• Out of date ill equipped clubhouse.
• Committee is poorly structured, and has poor skills.

Opportunities
Opportunities refer to the possibilities of new growth because of the changes in the external environment and can include such things as:

• Not many other courses in area.
• New population of potential members moving into the area
• Growth of ageing population.
• Nearby local schools.
• Growth of local business sector
• Lack of social venues in area.
• Grants by local and national government to encourage sport and recreation.

Threats
As with strengths and weaknesses, the threats are often very similar to the opportunities. Examples of threats include:

• Traditional sponsors of golf clubs changing the way they spend their sponsorship dollars.
• Other interests including television, video games, school activities, part-time work for teenagers, and so on.
• Time related issues for example, competition for volunteers time, longer working hours, both parents working â?? children unable to attend, limited available free time for both children and parents.
• Other local golf clubs with better facilities.
• Lack of local knowledge and interest in your product.
• Local business sector in recession.

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Setting Key Objectives

Setting a golf clubs strategic objectives shapes the direction and operation of the whole business. 

This function should therefore be carried out by the board of a golf club after wide consultation and analysis.

The key objectives defined are critical and in developing the strategic direction a golf club may consider the following questions:

• Would our key stakeholders and members support our objectives?
• Can the golf club effectively deliver this strategic direction?
• Will the objectives enable us to deliver upon our vision and mission statements?
• Will the objectives future proof the golf club & provide a sustainable future?
• Will the objectives build on our strengths to take advantage of current opportunities?
• Would this direction help overcome weaknesses and minimise threats to the organisation?
• Would this direction provide a competitive advantage for the golf club?

Measuring Performance
Performance measures are often referred to as key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs should be used at all levels within the organisation for monitoring short-and long term performance. All KPIs used should be ultimately linked to the outcomes defined in the strategic plan.

It is important to define the key strategic objectives even more clearly by making them SMART:

• Specific: Clear and concise to describe exactly what will be achieved.
• Measurable: Enables realistic monitoring of achievement.
• Achievable: Realistic, the organisation is capable of reaching targets.
• Relevant: Related to the vision, a true indicator of desired change.
• Time defined: Deadline to achieve by required date.

Key strategic objectives that are SMART allow a golf club to accurately measure performance over the period of the strategic plan. 

Additionally SMART key objectives are directly linked to the business plan performance measures which golf club management & staff may be responsible for delivering as part of their job description.

Have strategic objectives that are clearly defined and SMART allows the golf club to be accountable at board, management, and employee level.

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The Business Plan - An Overview

Following the development of the strategic plan, the golf club should develop a business plan that translates the strategic direction into actions that deliver results.

Business plans can be very detailed documents that include the full strategic plan in addition to the marketing, financial and management plan. 

All parts of the golf club need to contribute in some way to achieving the desired strategic outcomes so it is important that the various business units within a golf club do not develop individual plans in isolation. They need to understand how they can contribute to achievement of all the desired strategic outcomes and how they need to work with each other to do so.

While the format for a business plan can vary considerably between golf clubs, in general terms it might contain: 

Detailed Business Plan:

• Title Page - details the period of time the plan relates to, and the date it was written.
• List of Contents - details the sections within the document and page references.
• Executive summary - a broad statement about the background of the club, the purpose of the document, what is in it, how it was prepared and what its intentions are.
• Strategic Plan - details the organisation's vision/mission statement & strategic objectives, etc.
• Marketing Plan - details information and research related to market demographics, products and services, price structures, delivery of products or services, an analysis of the competition, product life cycle and promotional strategies.
• Financial Plan - details current and projected budgets, cash flows and details as to any assets and liabilities.
• Management Plan - explains the structure of the organisation in terms of membership, board structure and staff employed - may include an organisation chart and constitution or other related legal documents relating to structure/ownership of the business.
• Appendices - list all documents that may be referred to in body of the business plan.

Basic Business/Operational Plan:

• Strategic Objectives
• Initiatives to Achieve Objectives
• Key Performance Indicators
• Budget
• Timelines
• Responsibilities