21 Sep 2015

Since 2008 Botswana Premier League has been operating in a vacuum without a strategic plan to guide them in their daily running of the elite league. 

In 2005 the then leader of the premier league, Booker Bannister  engaged a consultant to craft the strategy which was then adopted by the teams, but in 2008 when the new leadership came in they disregarded it. 

Until now, in essence the league has been run by sheer luck, and the importance of a strategic plan cannot be over emphasised, in fact one of the strategy expert Erica Olsen, in her writings argues that a strategic plan is the formalised road map that describes how one’s company executes the chosen strategy. 

She says it is a plan that spells out where an organisation is going over the next year or more and how it is going to get there typically, the plan is organisation-wide or focused on a major function, such as a division or a department. 

She further argues that a strategic plan is a management tool that serves the purpose of helping an organisation do a better job, because a plan focuses the energy, resources, and time of everyone in the organisation in the same direction. 

Now the question is how has such a big institution like Botswana Premier League, been able to operate without a sign post, or maybe soccer pundits were correct when they argued that there is no direction at the BPL. 

However, they have now waken up from their slumber since they recently adopted a five year strategic plan, but the only flaws  is that the strategy is not aligned to the stay of the BPL  chief executive officer as the implementer. 

BPL board has extended the CEO contract for only two years, and this means if they do not extend his contract, a new CEO will be hired to drive a strategy inwhose formulation they played no part.

Nevertheless, the BPL chairperson, Walter Kgabung said during the off-season, BPL board met to come up with a strategic plan. 

Addressing the media on Thursday, he said the strategy has been concluded, approved and adopted, adding that it will be published and stakeholders will have a copy, so that they could  hold the board accountable for the deliverable. Ends