J.M. Smucker Company

Executive Summary-
o Write a paragraph describing the business situation/ problem that you are addressing in the plan and basic outline of how you intend to resolve it. The executive summary represents an important checkpoint that you will refer to as you construct the plan. All elements of the plan should be supportive of the executive summary. You may want to do a rough outline of the executive summary as you start the plan to identify the “big picture” and then rewrite a finished version once you have completed the plan. Remember to answer the three tests of winning strategy in your executive summary:
 Strategic fit
 Competitive advantage
 Identify the problem and the solution “what problem am I solving and how”
 Measurable performance (financial and/ or strategic) “will the business have a sustainable competitive advantage as a result of the plan”
• Strategic Vision-
o What is your vision statement for the business? This should give the reader a sense of the “desired state” of the business once the plan has been successfully implemented. How am I creating shareholder value?
o Describe your business strategic objectives. Consider the examples given on page 29 of the text. Use the ones that are relevant to your business issues. Strategic objectives should be both short term(1-3 years) and long term (1-5 years)
• Business Objectives
o Identify strategic, financial and operational objectives. These objectives must have a time frame and be measurable
• Environmental Analysis
o Construct an external environmental analysis and describe the factors that you feel will impact your plan. These may include technical, financial, operational, human resource, regulatory, legislative issues or others
• Industry and Competitive Analysis-
o Assess the competitive environment. Use Porter’s Five Forces Model to describe the competitive situation you are facing. Consider the seven industry analysis questions that apply to your business situation when constructing your industry and competitive analysis
• Competitive Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats-
o Construct a SWOT analysis. Translate the output from your SWOT analysis to construct your business strategy
• Business Strategy
o Using the output from your SWOT analysis state the business strategies that respond to your environmental analysis, leverage your strengths and opportunities, offset your weaknesses and external threats and are realistic as solutions to the stated business objectives. Refer to the five generic competitive strategies discussed on pages 122.
• Implementation Plan-
o Describe, in detail in chart format, the steps you will take in implementing your business plan strategy
 Who will do it
 How will it be implemented
 Your implementation time frame
 How you will incentivize strategy execution and performance
 Standards in place to ensure ethical implementation
 How will you use information tools to monitor implementation progress against plan objectives
 A process to make real time changes to your plan as necessary
o Construct your Implementation Plan in chart format with prioritized actions on the left margin and a timeline with deliverables on the top margin
• Strategy Expansion Plan-
o Consider what strategy you would use to expand your business plan assuming success of the core plan and strategic value of expansion to other geographic locations or other business units of the company
o Consider the different strategic expansion options described in Chapter 7
o A secondary form of business expansion is diversification into related and unrelated business areas. If this option offers strategic growth then describe how you would use it in your plan

* Remember, a winning strategy addresses:
• Strategic fit
• Sustainable competitive advantage
• Measurable performance