Strategy plan or luck?

A strategic plan, what is it and what are the current results of having one?

The Fortune 500's biggest winners, article “Even as the economy crumbled, these 20 firms managed to make big money.”
Was it due to a strategy plan or luck?

“Exxon posted its fourth-straight year of record profits, enduring wild swings in oil prices and a worldwide drop in demand in 2008. Falling oil prices in the latter half of 2008 hurt its oil production arm (CNN Money.com , 2009).”

Did the company plan for this intriguing forecast that the world of economics brought for them? For a change, they did in a way, for the other part no. This was due to the simple fact that crude oil was made cheaper for the production of gasoline and oil (CNN Money.com, 2009). A company that is worth 26.1 billion has to have some kind of strategy and luck combined in this case as the economy effects us all. If the strategy wasn’t in place the economy alone would have took the company for what it was worth along time ago.

I have produced some pointers from the industry and within the text for strategy plans.

Where are we now – organizational assessment.
Financial Stability
Technology application
Competitive positioning

Strengths and weaknesses – Opportunities and Threats (SWOT Analysis)
What improvements do we forecast that we will need to implement
Competitive goals – alignment
Upgrades to current equipment

Financial forecast
What monies do we project to support strategic alignment of future improvement, upgrades and competitive alignment?
10 year plan for financial support

Future Checklist
As conditions continue in the market, predict future requirements for new competitive advantages and further future growth.


Reference:

CNN Money.com (2009) Even as the economy crumbled, these 20 firms managed to make big money, retrieved on 24 April, 2009, from web site: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0904/gallery.f500_mostprofitable.fortune/index.html