How strategic planning helps ensure survival and growth of an organization Following the strategic planning process can go a long way in ensuring survival and organizational growth seeks to eliminate an organization's weaknesses and confirm its strengths. It also analyzes the environment and other factors that might affect the smooth functioning of an organization and tries to correct them accordingly and also give the organization a competitive advantage. Kevin Scholes and Gerry Johnson define strategic planning as "A sequence of analytical and evaluative procedures to formulate an intended strategy and the means of implementing it" In undergoing the strategic planning process two sub-processes come into play which are namely the BSTEP analyzes and the SWOT analysis, and these two constitute strategic planning. In BSTEP (Business: Socio-Cultural : Technological: Economic: Political) the management will analyze the type of business present paying particular attention to their objectives and whether they are achieving them and whether their business is viable. They also monitor the behavior of their competitors and compare their standards of results with those of their competitors, thus they ensure that their standards are better than those of their opponents and this in turn ensures that they survive and grow as an organization because they will consistently maintain their rivals under control. It also promotes vigilance and competition thus pushing them to produce better products/services. BSTEP also pays attention to the socio-cultural side of its market which is also a vital step in the growth and survival of an organization. Here the management will analyze and take into consideration the values ​​of the target market, for example if it is a clothing company like Levi Strauss they should analyze the type of clothing allowed by the culture of the target market. If women are not allowed to wear pants, then they should focus on providing skirts or dresses. This will ensure their survival and growth because they will always provide suitable products to different markets. This also gives the organization a competitive advantage over other organizations that do not undergo strategic planning because they may run the risk of providing a product that is considered culturally indecent or unattractive by the market and ultimately suffer a loss. Another consideration taken from the BSTEP analyzes is the fact that technology is dynamic, so if an organization wants to survive and grow it should take into account the technological changes that will take place in its areas of interest and keep abreast of them.