| Summary: | The aim of this dissertation is to study the strategic planning processes and tools used by companies in Portugal. It is important that companies are able to understand their internal and external environment in order to prepare a strategy that guarantees growth and long-term profit. Nowadays, in a rapidly changing business environment, companies have to adapt to the new trends, otherwise, the days are counted. To have an internal perspective from outside it is not an easy task. It is essential the cooperative spirit from companies and therefore we focus on the techniques and procedures, which are associated with the strategic planning activity. For each kind of analysis like strategic positioning or portfolio analysis, we gave a range of tools/techniques. Therefore, we have two perspectives: a general overview where we took into account small, medium and large companies and later we divided in clusters where the results are revealed by small and medium/large companies. In terms of results, we found the majority of the companies do strategic planning once a year and time horizon established for the strategic plans is 1-3 years. This activity is performed by top/senior management and the CEO still has a preeminent role. The most popular techniques among companies are: Brainstorming, Analysis of cost structures, BCG matrix, Competitor analysis and Mission statement. Finally, some of the companies demonstrated to have their own tools and still exist the ones who expressly said the process is done “ad hoc”.
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