Strategic Planning Approaches and Concepts: Potentials for Improving Commodity Subsector Performance

Subsector, or industry strategic planning is a potentially useful tool that can be designed to enhance the overall performance and competitiveness of a commodity industry across the industry's inter-dependent vertical segments. Industry strategic planning provides a framework for industry stakeholders to consider future strategic directions and to facilitate needed adjustments and progress on certain issues of common interest. Industry strategic planning is particularly well suited for facilitating efforts by regional and national commodity industries to enhance their competitiveness in today's business setting, including global markets -- a major objective of industries throughout the world. The paper discusses possible relationships between strategic management objectives and the desirability of subsector coordination and performance. It concludes by presenting ten planning components modified to fit the context of a commodity subsector that need to be considered by those involved in the strategic planning process.