Management has evolved. Your tools have not.
When I first started working in strategic planning, Excel and PowerPoint were the gold standard. Nearly every organization relied on these tools to map out their goals, track progress, and present insights to leadership teams. “Back in my day,” the tools were revolutionary, offering flexibility and accessibility that served us well for decades. Fast forward to today, and it’s clear that while these budget-friendly tools suffice, they’ve become dated for modern strategic planning needs.
Organizations now face increasingly complex data environments, distributed teams, and the need for real-time collaboration. The process of manually entering data into Excel, creating complex formulas, and then transferring the information to PowerPoint for presentations is incredibly time-consuming (and costly). Worse—it’s prone to errors and inconsistencies. Simply put, Excel and PowerPoint struggle to keep up.
The old tried-and-true may work for you, but the limitations of relying solely on Excel for strategic planning may be holding your organization back. I've conjured up a pros and cons list below as to why many organizations are rethinking this approach.
While Excel offers a familiar and flexible platform for some aspects of a strategic plan, its limitations in others can impede efficient strategy execution. Organizations seeking to enhance their strategic planning processes might consider dedicated strategic planning software solutions that address these challenges and provide a more robust set of features. Platforms like ClearPoint Strategy offer an integrated approach to strategic planning, combining artificial intelligence (AI), real-time collaboration, and advanced analytics to streamline the planning process. By leveraging such tools, organizations can overcome the cons of Excel and achieve more effective strategic outcomes.
Excel can serve as a starting point for many strategy professionals, but transitioning to specialized software solutions can provide significant advantages in managing and executing organizational plans. After all, it’s not about how good your strategic plan is—it's the results that you turn it into, that really matter.
Ready to experience the pros of specialized strategy software? Schedule a free demo with one of our strategy experts here.