outline of a strategic business plan

How to make a business plan

Table of Contents

How to make a good business plan: step-by-step guide.

A business plan is a strategic roadmap used to navigate the challenging journey of entrepreneurship. It's the foundation upon which you build a successful business.

A well-crafted business plan can help you define your vision, clarify your goals, and identify potential problems before they arise.

But where do you start? How do you create a business plan that sets you up for success?

This article will explore the step-by-step process of creating a comprehensive business plan.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a formal document that outlines a business's objectives, strategies, and operational procedures. It typically includes the following information about a company:

Products or services

Target market

Competitors

Marketing and sales strategies

Financial plan

Management team

A business plan serves as a roadmap for a company's success and provides a blueprint for its growth and development. It helps entrepreneurs and business owners organize their ideas, evaluate the feasibility, and identify potential challenges and opportunities.

As well as serving as a guide for business owners, a business plan can attract investors and secure funding. It demonstrates the company's understanding of the market, its ability to generate revenue and profits, and its strategy for managing risks and achieving success.

Business plan vs. business model canvas

A business plan may seem similar to a business model canvas, but each document serves a different purpose.

A business model canvas is a high-level overview that helps entrepreneurs and business owners quickly test and iterate their ideas. It is often a one-page document that briefly outlines the following:

Key partnerships

Key activities

Key propositions

Customer relationships

Customer segments

Key resources

Cost structure

Revenue streams

On the other hand, a Business Plan Template provides a more in-depth analysis of a company's strategy and operations. It is typically a lengthy document and requires significant time and effort to develop.

A business model shouldn’t replace a business plan, and vice versa. Business owners should lay the foundations and visually capture the most important information with a Business Model Canvas Template . Because this is a fast and efficient way to communicate a business idea, a business model canvas is a good starting point before developing a more comprehensive business plan.

A business plan can aim to secure funding from investors or lenders, while a business model canvas communicates a business idea to potential customers or partners.

Why is a business plan important?

A business plan is crucial for any entrepreneur or business owner wanting to increase their chances of success.

Here are some of the many benefits of having a thorough business plan.

Helps to define the business goals and objectives

A business plan encourages you to think critically about your goals and objectives. Doing so lets you clearly understand what you want to achieve and how you plan to get there.

A well-defined set of goals, objectives, and key results also provides a sense of direction and purpose, which helps keep business owners focused and motivated.

Guides decision-making

A business plan requires you to consider different scenarios and potential problems that may arise in your business. This awareness allows you to devise strategies to deal with these issues and avoid pitfalls.

With a clear plan, entrepreneurs can make informed decisions aligning with their overall business goals and objectives. This helps reduce the risk of making costly mistakes and ensures they make decisions with long-term success in mind.

Attracts investors and secures funding

Investors and lenders often require a business plan before considering investing in your business. A document that outlines the company's goals, objectives, and financial forecasts can help instill confidence in potential investors and lenders.

A well-written business plan demonstrates that you have thoroughly thought through your business idea and have a solid plan for success.

Identifies potential challenges and risks

A business plan requires entrepreneurs to consider potential challenges and risks that could impact their business. For example:

Is there enough demand for my product or service?

Will I have enough capital to start my business?

Is the market oversaturated with too many competitors?

What will happen if my marketing strategy is ineffective?

By identifying these potential challenges, entrepreneurs can develop strategies to mitigate risks and overcome challenges. This can reduce the likelihood of costly mistakes and ensure the business is well-positioned to take on any challenges.

Provides a basis for measuring success

A business plan serves as a framework for measuring success by providing clear goals and financial projections . Entrepreneurs can regularly refer to the original business plan as a benchmark to measure progress. By comparing the current business position to initial forecasts, business owners can answer questions such as:

Are we where we want to be at this point?

Did we achieve our goals?

If not, why not, and what do we need to do?

After assessing whether the business is meeting its objectives or falling short, business owners can adjust their strategies as needed.

How to make a business plan step by step

The steps below will guide you through the process of creating a business plan and what key components you need to include.

1. Create an executive summary

Start with a brief overview of your entire plan. The executive summary should cover your business plan's main points and key takeaways.

Keep your executive summary concise and clear with the Executive Summary Template . The simple design helps readers understand the crux of your business plan without reading the entire document.

2. Write your company description

Provide a detailed explanation of your company. Include information on what your company does, the mission statement, and your vision for the future.

Provide additional background information on the history of your company, the founders, and any notable achievements or milestones.

3. Conduct a market analysis

Conduct an in-depth analysis of your industry, competitors, and target market. This is best done with a SWOT analysis to identify your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Next, identify your target market's needs, demographics, and behaviors.

Use the Competitive Analysis Template to brainstorm answers to simple questions like:

What does the current market look like?

Who are your competitors?

What are they offering?

What will give you a competitive advantage?

Who is your target market?

What are they looking for and why?

How will your product or service satisfy a need?

These questions should give you valuable insights into the current market and where your business stands.

4. Describe your products and services

Provide detailed information about your products and services. This includes pricing information, product features, and any unique selling points.

Use the Product/Market Fit Template to explain how your products meet the needs of your target market. Describe what sets them apart from the competition.

5. Design a marketing and sales strategy

Outline how you plan to promote and sell your products. Your marketing strategy and sales strategy should include information about your:

Pricing strategy

Advertising and promotional tactics

Sales channels

The Go to Market Strategy Template is a great way to visually map how you plan to launch your product or service in a new or existing market.

6. Determine budget and financial projections

Document detailed information on your business’ finances. Describe the current financial position of the company and how you expect the finances to play out.

Some details to include in this section are:

Startup costs

Revenue projections

Profit and loss statement

Funding you have received or plan to receive

Strategy for raising funds

7. Set the organization and management structure

Define how your company is structured and who will be responsible for each aspect of the business. Use the Business Organizational Chart Template to visually map the company’s teams, roles, and hierarchy.

As well as the organization and management structure, discuss the legal structure of your business. Clarify whether your business is a corporation, partnership, sole proprietorship, or LLC.

8. Make an action plan

At this point in your business plan, you’ve described what you’re aiming for. But how are you going to get there? The Action Plan Template describes the following steps to move your business plan forward. Outline the next steps you plan to take to bring your business plan to fruition.

Types of business plans

Several types of business plans cater to different purposes and stages of a company's lifecycle. Here are some of the most common types of business plans.

Startup business plan

A startup business plan is typically an entrepreneur's first business plan. This document helps entrepreneurs articulate their business idea when starting a new business.

Not sure how to make a business plan for a startup? It’s pretty similar to a regular business plan, except the primary purpose of a startup business plan is to convince investors to provide funding for the business. A startup business plan also outlines the potential target market, product/service offering, marketing plan, and financial projections.

Strategic business plan

A strategic business plan is a long-term plan that outlines a company's overall strategy, objectives, and tactics. This type of strategic plan focuses on the big picture and helps business owners set goals and priorities and measure progress.

The primary purpose of a strategic business plan is to provide direction and guidance to the company's management team and stakeholders. The plan typically covers a period of three to five years.

Operational business plan

An operational business plan is a detailed document that outlines the day-to-day operations of a business. It focuses on the specific activities and processes required to run the business, such as:

Organizational structure

Staffing plan

Production plan

Quality control

Inventory management

Supply chain

The primary purpose of an operational business plan is to ensure that the business runs efficiently and effectively. It helps business owners manage their resources, track their performance, and identify areas for improvement.

Growth-business plan

A growth-business plan is a strategic plan that outlines how a company plans to expand its business. It helps business owners identify new market opportunities and increase revenue and profitability. The primary purpose of a growth-business plan is to provide a roadmap for the company's expansion and growth.

The 3 Horizons of Growth Template is a great tool to identify new areas of growth. This framework categorizes growth opportunities into three categories: Horizon 1 (core business), Horizon 2 (emerging business), and Horizon 3 (potential business).

One-page business plan

A one-page business plan is a condensed version of a full business plan that focuses on the most critical aspects of a business. It’s a great tool for entrepreneurs who want to quickly communicate their business idea to potential investors, partners, or employees.

A one-page business plan typically includes sections such as business concept, value proposition, revenue streams, and cost structure.

Best practices for how to make a good business plan

Here are some additional tips for creating a business plan:

Use a template

A template can help you organize your thoughts and effectively communicate your business ideas and strategies. Starting with a template can also save you time and effort when formatting your plan.

Miro’s extensive library of customizable templates includes all the necessary sections for a comprehensive business plan. With our templates, you can confidently present your business plans to stakeholders and investors.

Be practical

Avoid overestimating revenue projections or underestimating expenses. Your business plan should be grounded in practical realities like your budget, resources, and capabilities.

Be specific

Provide as much detail as possible in your business plan. A specific plan is easier to execute because it provides clear guidance on what needs to be done and how. Without specific details, your plan may be too broad or vague, making it difficult to know where to start or how to measure success.

Be thorough with your research

Conduct thorough research to fully understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience . By conducting thorough research, you can identify potential risks and challenges your business may face and develop strategies to mitigate them.

Get input from others

It can be easy to become overly focused on your vision and ideas, leading to tunnel vision and a lack of objectivity. By seeking input from others, you can identify potential opportunities you may have overlooked.

Review and revise regularly

A business plan is a living document. You should update it regularly to reflect market, industry, and business changes. Set aside time for regular reviews and revisions to ensure your plan remains relevant and effective.

Create a winning business plan to chart your path to success

Starting or growing a business can be challenging, but it doesn't have to be. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting, a well-written business plan can make or break your business’ success.

The purpose of a business plan is more than just to secure funding and attract investors. It also serves as a roadmap for achieving your business goals and realizing your vision. With the right mindset, tools, and strategies, you can develop a visually appealing, persuasive business plan.

Ready to make an effective business plan that works for you? Check out our library of ready-made strategy and planning templates and chart your path to success.

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How To Write A Strategic Plan That Gets Results + Examples

Are you feeling overwhelmed with the thought of writing a strategic plan for your business? Do you want to create a plan that will help you move your team forward with inspired alignment and disciplined execution? You're not alone.

Gone are the days of rigid, 5- or 10-year planning cycles that do not leave room for flexibility and innovation. To stay ahead of the curve, you need a dynamic and execution-ready strategic plan that can guide your business through the ever-evolving landscape.

At Cascade, we understand that writing a strategic plan can be dreadful, especially in today's unpredictable environment. That's why we've developed a simple model that can help you create a clear, actionable plan to achieve your organization's goals. With our tested and proven strategic planning template , you can write a strategic plan that is both adaptable and effective .

Whether you're a seasoned strategy professional or a fresh strategy planner, this guide will walk you through the process step-by-step on how to write a strategic plan. By the end, you'll have a comprehensive, easy-to-follow strategic plan that will help you align your organization on the path to success.

Follow this guide step-by-step or skip to the part you’re most interested in: 

• Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation

Cascade Model For Strategic Planning: What You Need To Know

• Key Elements of a Strategic Plan

How To Write A Strategic Plan In 6 Simple Steps

3 strategic plan examples to get you started, how to achieve organizational alignment with your strategic plan.

• Quick Overview of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Create An Execution-Ready Strategic Plan With Cascade 🚀

*Editor’s note: This article is part of our ‘How to create a Strategy’ collection. At the end of this article, you’ll find a link to each piece within this collection so you can dig deeper into each element of an effective strategic plan and more related resources to master strategy execution.

Pre-Planning Phase: Build The Foundation 

Before we dive into writing a strategic plan, it's essential to know the basics you should cover before the planning phase. The pre-planning phase is where you'll begin to gather the data and strategic insights necessary to create an effective strategic plan.

1. Run a strategic planning workshop

The first step is to run a strategic planning workshop with your team. Get your team in the room, get their data, and gather their insights. By running this workshop, you'll foster collaboration and bring fresh perspectives to the table. And that’s not all. 

The process of co-creating and collaborating to put that plan together with stakeholders is one of the most critical factors in strategy execution . According to McKinsey’s research , initiatives in which employees contribute to development are 3.4 times more likely to be successful. They feel like the plan is a result of their efforts, and they feel ownership of it, so they're more likely to execute it. 

💡 Tip: Use strategy frameworks to structure your strategy development sessions, such as GAP analysis , SWOT analysis , Porter’s Five Forces , Ansoff matrix , McKinsey 7S model , or GE matrix . You can even apply the risk matrix that will help you align and decide on key strategic priorities.

2. Choose your strategic planning model

Before creating your strategic plan, you need to decide which structure you will use. There are hundreds of ways to structure a strategic plan. You’ve likely heard of famous strategic models such as OKRs and the Balanced Scorecard .

But beyond the well-known ones, there's also a myriad of other strategic planning models ranging from the extremely simple to the absurdly complex.

Many strategic models work reasonably well on paper, but in reality, they don't show you how to write a strategic plan that fits your organization's needs.

Here are some common weaknesses most popular strategic models have:

• They're too complicated. People get lost in terminology rather than focus on execution.
• They don’t scale. They work well for small organizations but fail when you try to extend them across multiple teams.
• They're too rigid. They force people to add layers for the sake of adding layers.
• They're neither tangible nor measurable. They’re great at stating outcomes but lousy at helping you measure success.
• They're not adaptable. As we saw in the last years, the business environment can change quickly. Your model needs to be able to work in your current situation and adapt to changing economic landscapes.

Our goal in this article is to give you a simpler, more effective way to write a strategic plan. This is a tested and proven strategic planning model that has been refined over years of working with +20,000 teams around the world. We call it the Cascade Strategy Model.

This approach has proven to be more effective than any other model we have tried when it comes to executing and implementing the strategy .

It’s easy to use and it works for small businesses, fast-growing startups, as well as multinationals trying to figure out how to write a fail-proof strategic plan.

We’ve created a simple diagram below to illustrate what a strategic plan following the Cascade Model will look like when it's completed:

Rather than a traditional roadmap , imagine your strategy as a flowchart. Each row is a mandatory step before moving on to the next.

We call our platform  Cascade for a reason: strategy must cascade throughout an organization along with values, focus areas, and objectives.

Above all, the Cascade Model is intended to be execution-ready —in other words, it has been proven to deliver success far beyond strategic planning. It adds to a successful strategic management process.Key elements of a Strategic Plan

Key Elements Of A Strategic Plan

The key elements of a strategic plan include: 

• Vision : Where do you want to get to? 
• Values : How will you behave on the journey? 
• Focus Areas : What are going to be your strategic priorities? 
• Strategic objectives : What do you want to achieve? 
• Actions and projects : How are you going to achieve the objectives? 
• KPIs : How will you measure success?

In this part of the article, we will give you an overview of each element within the Cascade Model. You can follow this step-by-step process in a spreadsheet , or sign up to get instant access to a free Cascade strategic planning template and follow along as we cover the key elements of an effective strategic plan.

Your vision statement is your organization's anchor - it defines where you want to get to and is the executive summary of your organization's purpose. Without it, your strategic plan is like a boat without a rudder, at the mercy of strong winds and currents like Covid and global supply chain disruptions.

A good vision statement can help funnel your strategy towards long-term goals that matter the most to your organization, and everything you write in your plan from this point on will help you get closer to achieving your vision.

Trying to do too much at once is a surefire way to sink your strategic plan. By creating a clear and inspiring vision statement , you can avoid this trap and provide guidance and inspiration for your team. A great vision statement might even help attract talent and investment into your organization.

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have a vision statement like, “To be the premier bike manufacturer in the Pacific Northwest.” This statement clearly articulates the organization's goals and is a powerful motivator for the team.

In short, don't start your strategic plan without a clear vision statement. It will keep your organization focused and help you navigate toward success.

📚 Recommended read: How to Write a Vision Statement (With Examples, Tips, and Formulas)

Values are the enablers of your vision statement —they represent how your organization will behave as you work towards your strategic goals. Unfortunately, many companies throw around meaningless words just for the purpose of PR, leading to a loss of credibility.

To avoid this, make sure to integrate your organization’s core values into everyday operations and interactions. In today's highly-competitive world, it's crucial to remain steadfast in your values and cultivate an organizational culture that's transparent and trustworthy.

Companies with the best company cultures consistently outperform competitors and their average market by up to 115.6%, as reported by Glassdoor . 

For example, a bike manufacturing company might have core values like:

• Accountability

These values reflect the organization's desire to become the leading bike manufacturer, while still being accountable to employees, customers, and shareholders.

👉 Here’s how to add vision and values to your strategic plan in Cascade: 

After you sign up and invite your team members to collaborate on the plan, navigate to Plans and Teams > Teams page, and add the vision, mission and values. This will help you to ensure that the company’s vision, mission statement, and values are always at top of mind for everyone.

📚When you're ready to start creating some company values, check out our guide, How To Create Company Values .

3. Focus Areas

Your focus areas are the strategic priorities that will keep your team on track and working toward the company’s mission and vision. They represent the high-level areas that you need to focus on to achieve desired business outcomes.

In fact, companies with clearly defined priorities are more likely to achieve their objectives. According to a case study by the Harvard Business Review , teams that focus on a small number of key initiatives are more likely to succeed than those that try to do too much. 

That’s also something that we usually recommend to our customers when they set up their strategic plan in Cascade. Rather than spreading your resources too thin over multiple focus areas, prioritize three to five. 

Following our manufacturing example above, some good focus areas include:

• Aggressive growth
• Producing the nation's best bikes
• Becoming a modern manufacturer
• Becoming a top place to work

Your focus areas should be tighter in scope than your vision statement, but broader than specific goals, time frames, or metrics. 

By defining your focus areas, you'll give your teams a guardrail to work within, which can help inspire innovation and creative problem-solving. 

With a clear set of focus areas, your team will be better able to prioritize their work and stay focused on the most important things, which will ultimately lead to better business results.

👉Here’s how you can set focus areas in Cascade: 

In Cascade, you can add focus areas while creating or importing an existing strategic plan from a spreadsheet. With Cascade’s Focus Area deep-dive functionality , you will be able to: 

• Review the health of your focus areas in one place.
• Get a breakdown by plans, budgets, resources, and people behind each strategic priority. 
• See something at-risk? Drill down into each piece of work regardless of how many plans it's a part of.

📚 Recommended read: Strategic Focus Areas: How to create them + Examples

4. Strategic Objectives

The importance of setting clear and specific objectives for your strategic plan cannot be overstated. 

Strategic objectives are the specific and measurable outcomes you want to achieve . While they should align with your focus areas, they should be more detailed and have a clear deadline. 

According to the 2022 State of High Performing Teams report , there is a strong correlation between goals and success not only at the individual and team level but also at the organizational level. Here’s what they found: 

• Employees who are unaware of their company's goals are over three times more likely to work at a company that is experiencing a decline in revenue than employees who are aware of the goals. 
• Companies with shrinking revenues are almost twice as likely to have employees with unclear work expectations. 

Jumping straight into actions without defining clear objectives is a common mistake that can lead to missed opportunities or misalignment between strategy and execution.

To avoid this pitfall, we recommend you add between three and six objectives to each focus area .

It's here that we need to start being a bit more specific for the first time in your strategic planning process . Let's take a look at an example of a well-written strategic objective:

• Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

This is too specific to be a focus area. While it's still very high level, it indicates what the company wants to accomplish and includes a clear deadline. Both these aspects are critical to a good strategic objective.

Your strategic objectives are the heart and soul of your plan, and you need to ensure they are well-crafted. So, take the time to create well-planned objectives that will help you achieve your vision and lead your organization to success. 

👉Here’s how you can set objectives in Cascade: 

Adding objectives in Cascade is intuitive, straightforward, and accessible from almost anywhere in the workspace. With one click, you’ll open the objective sidebar and fill out the details. These can include a timeline, the objective’s owner, collaborators, and how your objective will be measured (success criteria).

📚 Recommended read: What are Strategic Objectives? How to write them + Examples

5. Actions and projects

Once you’ve defined your strategic objectives, the next step is to identify the specific strategic initiatives or projects that will help you achieve those objectives . They are short-term goals or actionable steps you or your team members will take to accomplish objectives. They should leverage the company’s resources and core competencies. 

Effective projects and actions in your strategic plan should: 

• Be extremely specific. 
• Contain a deadline.
• Have an owner.
• Align with at least one of your strategic objectives.
• Provide clarity on how you or your team will achieve the strategic objective.

Let's take a look at an example of a well-written project continuing with our bike manufacturing company using the strategic objective from above:

Strategic objective: Continue top-line growth that outpaces the industry by 31st Dec 2023.

Project: Expand into the fixed gear market by 31st December 2023.

This is more specific than the objective it links to, and it details what you will do to achieve the objective.

Another common problem area for strategic plans is that they never quite get down to the detail of what you're going to do.

It's easier to state "we need to grow our business," but without concrete projects and initiatives, those plans will sit forever within their PowerPoint templates, never to see the light of day after their initial creation.

Actions and projects are where the rubber meets the road. They connect the organizational strategic goals with the actual capabilities of your people and the resources at their disposal. Defining projects is a vital reality check every strategic plan needs.

👉Here’s how you create actions and projects in Cascade: 

From the Objective sidebar, you can choose to add a project or action under your chosen objective. In the following steps, you can assign an owner and timeline to each action or project.

Plus, in Cascade, you can track the progress of each project or action in four different ways. You can do it manually, via milestones, checklists, or automatically by integrating with Jira and 1000+ other available integrations .  

📚 Recommended read: How to create effective projects

Measuring progress towards strategic objectives is essential to effective strategic control and business success. That's where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come in. KPIs are measurable values that track progress toward achieving key business objectives . They keep you on track and help you stay focused on the goals you set for your organization.

To get the most out of your KPIs, make sure you link them to a specific goal or objective. In this way, you'll avoid creating KPIs that don't contribute to your objectives and distract you from focusing on what matters. 

Ideally, you will add both leading and lagging KPIs to each objective so you can get a more balanced view of how well you're progressing. Leading KPIs can indicate future performance while lagging KPIs show how well you’ve done in the past. Both types of KPIs are critical for operational planning and keeping your business on track.

Think of KPIs as a form of signpost in your organization. They provide critical insights that inform business leaders of their organization’s progress toward key business objectives. Plus, they can help you identify opportunities faster and capitalize on flexibility. 

👉Here’s how you can set and track KPIs in Cascade: 

In Cascade , you can add measures while creating your objectives or add them afterward. Open the Objective sidebar and add your chosen measure. 

When you create your Measure, you can choose how to track it. Using Cascade, you can track it manually or automatically. You can automate tracking via 1000+ integrations , including Excel spreadsheets and Google Sheets. In this way, you can save time and ensure that your team has up-to-date information for faster and more confident decision-making.

📚 Recommended reads:

• 10 Popular KPI Software Tools To Connect & Visualize Your Data (2023 Guide)
• ‍ How To Track KPIs To Hit Your Business Goals

Corporate Strategic Plan 

Following the steps outlined above, you should end up with a strategic plan that looks something like this:

This is a preview of a corporate strategic plan template that is pre-filled with examples. Here you can use the template for free and begin filling it out to align with your organization's needs. Plus, it’s suitable for organizations of all sizes and any industry. 

Once you fill in the template, you can also switch to the timeline view. You’ll get a complete overview of how the different parts of your plan are distributed across the roadmap in a Gantt chart view.

This template will help you create a structured approach to the strategic planning process, focus on key strategic priorities, and drive accountability to achieve necessary business outcomes. 

👉 Get your free corporate strategic plan template here.

Coca-Cola Strategic Plan 

Need a bit of extra inspiration to start writing your organization’s strategic plan? Check out this strategic plan example, inspired by Coca-Cola’s business plan: 

This template is pre-filled with Coca-Cola’s examples so you can inspire your strategic success on one of the most iconic brands on the planet. 

👉 Grab your free example of a Coca-Cola strategic plan here.

The Ramsay Health Care expansion strategy

Ramsay Health Care is a multinational healthcare provider with a strong presence in Australia, Europe, and Asia.

Almost all of its growth was organic and strategic. The company founded its headquarters in Sydney, Australia, but in the 21st century, it decided to expand globally through a primary strategy of making brownfield investments and acquisitions in key locations.

Ramsay's strategy was simple yet clever. By becoming a majority shareholder of the biggest local players, the company expanded organically in each region by leveraging and expanding their expertise.

Over the last two decades, Ramsay's global network has grown to 460 locations across 10 countries with over $13 billion in annual revenue.

📚 Recommended read: Strategy study: The Ramsay Health Care Growth Study

✨ Bonus resource: We've created a list of the most popular and free strategic plan templates in our library that will help you build a strategic plan based on the Cascade model explained in this article. You can use these templates to create a plan on a corporate, business unit, or team level.

We highlighted before that other strategic models often fail to scale strategic plans and goals scales across multiple teams and organizational levels. 

In an ideal world, you want to have a maximum of two layers of detail underneath each of your focus areas. This means you'll have a focus area, followed by a layer of objectives. Underneath the objectives, you'll have a layer of actions, projects, and KPIs.

If you have a single team that’s responsible for the strategy execution, this works well. However, how do you implement a strategy across multiple and cross-functional teams? And why is it important? 

According to LSA research of 410 companies across 8 industries, highly aligned companies grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable. And this is what Cascade can help you achieve. 

To achieve achieve organization-wide alignment with your strategic plan and impact the bottom line, there are two ways to approach it in Casade: through contributing objectives or shared objectives .

1. Contributing objectives

This approach involves adding contributing objectives that link to your main strategic objectives, like this:

For each contributing objective, you simply repeat the Objective → Action/Project → KPI structure as follows:

Here's how you can create contributing objectives in Cascade: 

Option A: Create contributing objectives within the same plan 

This means creating multiple contributing objectives within the same strategic plan that contribute to the main objective. 

However, be aware that if you have a lot of layers, your strategic plan can become cluttered, and people might have difficulty understanding how their daily efforts contribute to the strategic plan at the top level. 

For example, the people responsible for managing contributing objectives at the bottom of the plan ( functional / operational level ) will lose visibility on how are their objectives linked to the main focus areas and objectives (at a corporate / business level ). 

This approach is best suited to smaller organizations that only need to add a few layers of objectives to their plan.

Option B: Create contributing objectives from multiple plans linking to the main objective

This approach creates a network of aligned strategic plans within your organization. Each plan contains a set of focus areas and one single layer of objectives, each with its own set of projects, actions, and KPIs. This concept looks like this:

This example illustrates an objective that is a main objective in the IT strategic plan , but also contributes to the main strategic plan's objective.

For example, let’s say that your main business objective is to improve customer satisfaction by reducing product delivery time by 25% in the next quarter. This objective requires multiple operational teams within your organization to work together to achieve a shared objective. 

Each team will create its own objective in its plan to contribute to the main objective: 

• Logistics team: Reduce the shipment preparation time by 30%
• IT team: Implement new technology to reduce manual handling in the warehouse
• Production team: Increase production output by hour for 5%   

Here’s how this example would look like within Cascade platform:

Although each contributing objective was originally created in its own plan, you can see how each contributing objective relates to the main strategic objective and its status in real-time.

2. Shared objectives

In Cascade, shared objectives are the same objectives shared across different strategic plans.

For example, you can have an objective that is “Achieve sustainable operations”. This objective can be part of the Corporate Strategy Plan, but also part of the Operations Plan , Supply Chain Plan , Production Plan, etc. In short, this objective becomes a shared objective between multiple teams and strategic plan. 

This approach helps you to:

• Cascade your business strategy as deep as you want across a near-infinite number of people while maintaining strategic alignment throughout your organization .
• Create transparency and a much higher level of engagement in the strategy throughout your organization since objective owners are able to identify how their shared efforts contribute to the success of the main business objectives.

The more shared objectives you have across your organization, the more your teams will be aligned with the overarching business strategy. This is what we call " alignment health ”. 

Here’s how you can see the shared objectives in the alignment map and analyze alignment health within Cascade:

You get a snapshot of how is your corporate strategic plan aligned with sub-plans from different business units or departments and the status of shared objectives. This helps you quickly identify misaligned initiatives and act before it’s too late.  Plus, cross-functional teams have better visibility of how their efforts contribute to shared objectives. 

So whether you choose contributing objectives or shared objectives, Cascade has the tools and features to help you achieve organization-wide alignment and boost your bottom line.

Quick Overview Of Key Steps In Writing A Strategic Plan

Here’s a quick infographic to help you remember how everything connects and why each element is critical to creating an effective strategic plan:

This simple answer to how to write a strategic plan avoids confusing jargon and has elements that the whole organization can both get behind and understand. 

💡Tip: Save this image or bookmark this article for your next strategic planning session.

If you're struggling to write an execution-ready strategic plan, the Cascade model is the solution you've been looking for. With its clear, easy-to-understand terminology, and simple linkages between objectives, projects, and KPIs, you can create a plan that's both scalable and flexible.

But why is a flexible and execution-ready strategic plan so important? It's simple: without a clear and actionable plan, you'll never be able to achieve your business objectives. By using the Cascade Strategic Planning Model, you'll be able to create a plan that's both tangible and measurable, with KPIs that help you track progress towards your goals.

However, the real value of the Cascade framework lies in its flexibility . By creating links between main business objectives and your teams’ objectives, you can easily scale your plan without losing focus. Plus, the model's structure of linked layers means that you can always adjust your strategy in response to new challenges or opportunities and keep everyone on the same page. 

So if you want to achieve results with your strategic plan, start using Cascade today. With its unique combination of flexibility and focus, it's the perfect tool for any organization looking to master strategy execution and succeed in today's fast-paced business world. 

Want to see Cascade in action? Get started for free or book a 1:1 demo with Cascade’s in-house strategy expert.

This article is part one of our mini-series "How to Write a Strategic Plan". This first article will give you a solid strategy model for your plan and get the strategic thinking going.

Think of it as the foundation for your new strategy. Subsequent parts of the series will show you how to create the content for your strategic plan.

Articles in our How to Write a Strategic Plan series

• How To Write A Strategic Plan: The Cascade Model (This article)
• How to Write a Good Vision Statement
• How To Create Company Values
• Creating Strategic Focus Areas
• How To Write Strategic Objective
• How To Create Effective Projects
• How To Write KPIs + Ultimate Guide To Strategic Planning

More resources on strategic planning and strategy execution: 

• 6 Steps to Successful Strategy Execution
• 4-Step Strategy Reporting Process (With Template)
• Annual Planning: Plan Like a Pro In 5 Steps (+ Template) 
• 18 Free Strategic Plan Templates (Excel & Cascade) 2023
• The Right Way To Set Team Goals
• 23 Best Strategy Tools For Your Organization in 2023

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How to Develop a Business Strategy: 6 Steps

• 25 Oct 2022

Business strategy can seem daunting, and for good reason: It can make or break an organization. Yet, developing a strong strategy doesn’t need to be overwhelming.

In the online course Business Strategy , Harvard Business School Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee posits that strategy is simple. His secret? Focus on your organization’s value creation.

“Strategy often sounds like a lofty concept that only the most senior executives can develop,” Oberholzer-Gee says. “But actually, anyone can think and act strategically. It doesn’t need to be difficult; all you need is a proven framework.”

Here’s a breakdown of why business strategy is important, the basics of value-based strategy, and six steps for developing your own.

Why Do You Need a Business Strategy?

Business strategy is the development, alignment, and integration of an organization’s strategic initiatives to give it a competitive edge in the market. Devising a business strategy can ensure you have a clear plan for reaching organizational goals and continue to survive and thrive.

According to a study by Bridges Business Consultancy , 48 percent of organizations fail to meet half of their strategic targets and 85 percent fail to meet two-thirds, highlighting why dedication to the business strategy process is crucial.

One type of business strategy is called value-based strategy, which simplifies the process by leveraging the value stick framework to focus on the advantage your business creates.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Value-Based Strategy?

Value-based strategy , also called value-based pricing, is a pricing method in which an organization relies on the perceived value of its goods and services to determine its pricing structure and resource allocation.

The value stick framework can be used to visualize how various factors impact each other and determine which initiatives to pursue to increase value for all parties.

The value stick has four factors:

• Willingness to pay (WTP) : The highest price a customer is willing to pay for your product or service
• Price : The amount customers have to pay for goods or services
• Cost : The amount a company spends on producing goods or services
• Willingness to sell (WTS) : The lowest amount suppliers are willing to accept for the materials required to produce goods or services

To determine how to best create value, you can toggle each factor on the value stick to see how the others are affected. For instance, lowering price increases customer delight.

"As strategists, we really ask three questions,” Oberholzer-Gee says in Business Strategy. “How can my business best create value for customers? How can my business create value for employees? And how can my business create value by collaborating with suppliers? Think of a company's strategy as an answer to these three questions."

Related: 4 Business Strategy Skills Every Business Leader Needs

6 Steps to Develop a Value-Based Business Strategy

1. define your purpose.

When approaching business strategy, defining your organization’s purpose can be a useful starting point.

This is vital in creating customer and employee value, especially if your organization’s purpose is linked to a cause such as environmental protection or alleviating specific social issues.

A recent survey conducted by clean energy company Swytch found that nearly 75 percent of millennials would take a decrease in salary if it meant working for an environmentally responsible company. Nearly 40 percent selected one job over another because of an organization’s sustainability practices.

Additionally, research in the Harvard Business Review shows that consumers’ motivation to buy from sustainable brands is on the rise. Sales of products marked as sustainable grew more than five times faster than those that weren’t.

By starting with purpose, your organization can create more value down the line.

2. Assess Market Opportunity

Next, understand your market’s competitive landscape. Which companies own shares of the market? What differentiates your competitors’ products from yours? Are there any unmet needs your organization could take advantage of?

Conducting this research before planning a strategy is critical in identifying how your organization provides unique customer value and opportunities to create even more.

3. Create Value for Customers

With an understanding of the market and your company’s purpose, you can determine how your organization provides unique or greater value and strategize ways to improve.

On the value stick, the value captured by customers is called “customer delight.” It can be increased by raising their willingness to pay and decreasing the product’s price. If lowering the price isn’t an option, brainstorm how you could make the product more valuable to customers, thus increasing their willingness to pay.

Some ways to create customer value include:

• Lowering the product’s price
• Increasing the product’s physical quality and longevity
• Providing quick, high-quality customer service and a smooth shopping experience
• Leveraging network effects , if applicable, to create a community of users
• Incorporating an environmental or social cause into processes, packaging, and branding

4. Create Value for Suppliers

In addition to creating value for customers, you also need to provide value for suppliers. Suppliers can include any company that provides raw materials, labor, and transportation to help your organization produce goods or deliver services.

Supplier surplus, also called supplier delight, is created when the cost of materials increases or their willingness to sell decreases. The relationship between a firm and its suppliers can be contentious, given that both want to increase their margins. Yet, there are ways to create value for both parties.

Some ways to create value for suppliers include:

• Agreeing to pay more for higher quality materials : While this increases the supplier surplus, it may also increase customer delight by raising willingness to pay, or increase the firm’s margin by allowing you to raise prices.
• Working with the supplier to increase efficiency : This strategy can increase supplier surplus by lowering the overall cost of the supplier’s labor and their willingness to sell.

5. Create Value for Employees

Creating value for employees is a critical part of an effective business strategy and can be assessed using the value stick. Think of your employees as the “supplier” of labor and the supplier margin as employee satisfaction.

Employee satisfaction can be increased by raising wages or lowering the minimum salary they’re willing to receive by delivering value in other ways. Satisfied employees may provide a better customer experience, resulting in increased customer delight.

The value you provide employees ensures they’re motivated to do their best work, develop their skills, and stay with your company long-term.

Some examples of ways to create value for your employees include:

• Offering competitive salaries and bonuses
• Offering benefits like ample paid vacation and sick days, generous parental leave, and wellness budgets
• Providing flexibility of work location, whether your team is fully remote or hybrid
• Aiding in professional development
• Creating a workplace rich with a diversity of experiences, identities, and ideas
• Fostering a supportive organizational culture

One example from Business Strategy is that of a call center for a diagnostics company. The employees were being paid minimum wage and expressed that the analytical nature of their phone calls with customers warranted higher pay. They also expressed pain points about cumbersome tasks and work conditions.

When a pay increase was implemented for all employees, along with operational changes to make processes smoother, employee productivity increased to the point that it balanced out the higher cost of salaries.

Because the employees’ satisfaction increased, they also began providing better experiences on the phone with customers. This increased the customers’ willingness to pay, directly impacting customer delight.

6. Map Strategy to Actionable Tasks and KPIs

Amidst creating value for each of the three groups, don’t forget the fourth party that needs value: your company. By creating value for employees, suppliers, and customers, you’re creating value for your firm, too.

To ensure you’re tracking to goals, determine your key performance indicators, what metrics constitute success, and how you’ll report results over time. Then, break each of the above value-creation goals into action items. For instance, what steps can you take to increase your employees’ compensation? Who will be responsible for each task?

Having actionable assignments and clear metrics for success will allow for a smooth transition from strategy formulation to execution.

Building Your Strategic Skill Set

By leveraging the value stick, you can create a business strategy that provides value to employees, customers, suppliers, and your firm.

To develop your strategies further and dig deeper into how to navigate value creation, consider taking an online course like Business Strategy . Professor Oberholzer-Gee walks through real-world examples of business challenges, prompts you to consider how you’d create value, and then reveals what those business leaders did and how you can apply the lessons to your organization.

Want to learn more about how to craft a successful strategy for your organization? Explore Business Strategy , one of our online strategy courses , to learn how to create organizational value. Not sure which course is the right fit? Download our free flowchart .

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How to Develop a Strategic Plan for Business Development [Free Template]

Published: May 01, 2023

Business development is usually confused with sales , often overlooked, and only sometimes given the strategic focus it deserves. Having a business development strategy, however, is crucial to long-term success. It ensures that everyone in your company is working toward a common goal.

But how do you develop a business development plan? Pull up a chair and stay awhile, I’m diving into that and more below.

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Business development.

Business development is the practice of identifying, attracting, and acquiring new business to further your company’s revenue and growth goals. How you achieve these goals is sometimes referred to as a business development strategy — and it applies to and benefits everyone at your company.

It’s not unusual to mistake business development with sales, but there’s an important distinction between the two. Business development refers to many activities and functions inside and outside the traditional sales team structure. In some companies, business development is part of the larger sales operations team. In others, it’s part of the marketing team or sits on its own team altogether.

Because business development can look so different among industries and businesses, the strategy behind this function is expansive. Below, we outline each step in the strategy and how to apply it to your business development plan.

Business Development Strategy

• Understand your competitive landscape.
• Choose effective KPIs.
• Develop long-term customer relationships.
• Implement customer feedback.
• Keep your website content and user interface fresh.
• Speed up your response time.
• Leverage a sales plan to identify areas of growth.
• Implement a social listening strategy.
• Sponsor industry organizations, conferences, and events.

1. Understand your competitive landscape.

Before you can develop a strategic plan to drive business growth, you must have a solid understanding of the competitive landscape in your industry. When you know who your ideal customer is and what problem they are looking to solve with your product or service, research who else is providing a viable solution in your industry.

Identify other companies operating in your space. What features do their products have? How competitive is their pricing? Do their systems integrate with other third-party solutions? Get crystal-clear on what the competition is offering so you know how to differentiate your product to your customers.

Featured Resource: 10 Competitive Analysis Templates

2. Choose effective KPIs.

How will you know if your business development efforts are successful? Ensure you can measure your goals with relevant, meaningful key performance indicators (KPIs) that reflect the health of your business. The result of these metrics should give you a strong indication of how effective your business development efforts are.

Featured Resource: Sales Metrics Calculator Dashboard

3. Develop long-term customer relationships.

Do you engage with your customers even after the deal has been closed? If not, it’s time to develop a plan to keep your buyers engaged. Building long-term relationships with your customers pays off. A grand majority of a company's business comes from repeat customers, and returning customers are cheaper to convert. Indeed, it’s famously known that it costs five times more to convert new customers than it does to sell to returning customers.

Not only are repeat customers easier to sell to, they can also provide valuable feedback and insights to help you improve your business. Additionally, customer testimonials can be used for valuable content that can attract your next buyer.

4. Implement customer feedback.

If and when you have customers who are willing to provide feedback on your sales process and offerings, make sure you hear them out and implement it. Your customers offer a unique, valuable perspective because they chose your product over the competition — their insights can help shape your strategy to keep your business ahead of the curve.

5. Keep your website content and user interface fresh.

When was the last time your company had a website refresh? Can you ensure that all links are working, that your site is easy to navigate, and that it is laid out and intuitive for those who want to buy from you?

Keeping your website up-to-date and easy to use can make or break the sale for customers who know they are ready to buy. Don’t make it too difficult for potential customers to get in touch with you or purchase your product directly (if that suits your business model).

6. Speed up your response time.

How fast your sales team responds to your leads can make or break your ability to close the deal. If you notice your sales process has some lag time that prevents you from responding to prospects as soon as possible, these could be areas to prioritize improvement.

7. Leverage a sales plan to identify areas of growth.

No business development strategy is complete without a sales plan . If you’ve already established a plan, make sure to unify it with your business development efforts. Your plan should outline your target audience, identify potential obstacles, provide a “game plan” for sales reps, outline responsibilities for team members, and define market conditions.

While a sales plan primarily affects your sales team, it can inform the activities of your business development reps. A sales plan can help them understand where the business needs growth — whether it’s in a new vertical, a new audience, or a new need that’s recently come to light in the industry.

Not sure how to create a sales plan? Download the following template to get started.

Featured Resource: Sales Plan Template

8. Implement a social listening strategy.

While social listening is mainly used in a marketing and customer service context, it’s also an essential practice for business development. There are more than 4 billion social media users worldwide. Naturally, social media is one of the best places to hear directly from consumers and businesses — without needing to reach out to them first.

In business development, you can use social listening to track what the general public is saying about your brand, industry, product offerings, product category, and more. It can help you identify key weaknesses in the industry, making it a prime opportunity to be the first to address those pitfalls.

Use a social listening tool to pick up on trends before they gain traction.

9. Sponsor industry organizations, conferences, and events.

A key facet of business development is reaching potential customers where they are. One of the easiest ways to do that is by sponsoring industry organizations, conferences, and events. This strategy will guarantee that your business development reps get valuable face-to-face time with your business’ target audience. The additional visibility can also help establish your business as a leader in the field.

Now that you understand what business development entails, it's time to create a plan to set your strategy in motion.

How to Develop a Strategic Plan

When we refer to a business development strategic plan, we’re referring to a roadmap that guides the whole company and requires everyone’s assistance to execute successfully and move your customer through the flywheel . With a plan, you’ll close more deals and quantify success.

Let’s go over the steps you should take to create a strategic plan.

1. Download our strategic plan template .

First, download our free growth strategy template to create a rock-solid strategic plan. With this template, you can map a growth plan for increasing sales, revenue, and customer acquisition rates. You can also create action plans for adding new locations, creating new product lines, and expanding into new regions.

Featured Resource: Strategic Plan Template

2. Craft your elevator pitch.

What is your company’s mission and how do you explain it to potential clients in 30 seconds or less? Keeping your elevator pitch at the forefront of all strategic planning will remind everyone what you’re working toward and why.

Some people believe the best pitch isn’t a pitch at all , but a story. Others have their favorite types of pitches , from a one-word pitch to a Twitter pitch that forces you to boil down your elevator pitch to just 280 characters.

Find the elevator pitch that works best for your reps, company, and offer, and document it in your business development strategy.

3. Include an executive summary.

You’ll share your strategic plan with executives and maybe even board members, so it’s important they have a high-level overview to skim. Pick the most salient points from your strategic plan and list or summarize them here.

You might already have an executive summary for your company if you’ve written a business proposal or value proposition . Use this as a jumping off point but create one that’s unique to your business development goals and priorities.

Once your executives have read your summary, they should have a pretty good idea of your direction for growing the business — without having to read the rest of your strategy.

3. Set SMART goals.

What are your goals for this strategy? If you don’t know, it will be difficult for your company and team to align behind your plan. So, set SMART goals . Remember, SMART stands for:

Featured Resource: SMART Goal Setting Template

Download the template now.

If one of your goals is for 5% of monthly revenue to come from upsells or cross-sells, make this goal specific by identifying what types of clients you’ll target.

Identify how you’ll measure success. Is success when reps conduct upsell outreach to 30 clients every month, or is it when they successfully upsell a customer and close the deal? To make your goal attainable, ensure everyone on your team understands who is responsible for this goal: in this case, sales or business development reps.

This goal is relevant because it will help your company grow, and likely contributes to larger company-wide goals. To make it time-based, set a timeline for success and action. In this case, your sales team must achieve that 5% upsell/cross-sell number by the end of the quarter.

4. Conduct SWOT analysis.

SWOT is a strategic planning technique used to identify a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Before conducting a SWOT, identify what your goal is. For example, “We’d like to use SWOT to learn how best to conduct outreach to prospective buyers.”

Once you’ve identified what you’re working toward, conduct market research by talking with your staff, business partners, and customers.

Next, identify your business’ strengths. Perhaps you have low employee turnover, a central location that makes it easy to visit with prospects in person, or an in-demand feature your competitors haven’t been able to mimic.

Featured Resource: Market Research Kit with SWOT Analysis Template

Your business’ weaknesses are next. Has your product recently glitched? Have you been unable to successfully build out a customer service team that can meet the demands of your customers?

Then, switch to opportunities. For example, have you made a new business partnership that will transition you into a previously untapped market segment?

What are the threats? Is your physical space getting crowded? What about your market space? Is increasing competition an issue?

Use SWOT results to identify a better way forward for your company.

5. Determine how you’ll measure success.

You’ve identified strengths and weaknesses and set SMART goals , but how will you measure it all ? It’s important for your team to know just how they will be measured, goaled, and rewarded. Common key performance indicators (KPIs) for business development include:

• Company growth
• Lead conversion rate
• Leads generated per month
• Client satisfaction
• Pipeline value

6. Set a budget.

What will your budget be for achieving your goals? Review financial documents, historical budgets, and operational estimates to set a budget that’s realistic.

Once you have a “draft” budget, check it against other businesses in your industry and region to make sure you’re not overlooking or misjudging any numbers. Don’t forget to factor in payroll, facilities costs, insurance, and other operational line items that tend to add up.

7. Identify your target customer.

Who will your business development team pursue? Your target market is the group of customers your product/service was built for. For example, if you sell a suite of products for facilities teams at enterprise-level companies, your target market might be facilities or janitorial coordinators at companies with 1000+ employees. To identify your target market:

• Analyze your product or service
• Check out the competition
• Choose criteria to segment by
• Perform research

Your target customer is the person most likely to buy your product. Do your homework and make sure your business development plan addresses the right people. Only then will you be able to grow your business.

8. Choose an outreach strategy.

What tactics will you use to attract new business for your sales team to close? You might focus on a single tactic or a blend of a few. Once you know who your target market is and where they “hang out,” then you can choose an appropriate outreach strategy.

Will your business development plan rely heavily on thought leadership such as speaking at or attending conferences? Will you host a local meetup for others in your industry? Or will your reps network heavily on LinkedIn and social media?

If referrals will be pivotal to your business’ growth, consider at which stage of the buying process your BDRs will ask for referrals. Will you ask for a referral even if a prospect decides they like your product/service but aren’t a good fit? Or will you wait until a customer has been using your solution for a few months? Define these parameters in your strategy.

Upselling and Cross-Selling

Upselling and cross-selling are a cost-effective way of growing your business. But it’s important that this tactic is used with guardrails. Only upsell clients on features that will benefit them as well as your bottom line. Don’t bloat client accounts with features or services they really don’t need — that’s when turnover and churn start to happen.

Sponsorship and Advertising

Will your BDR work with or be on the marketing team to develop paid advertising campaigns? If so, how will your BDRs support these campaigns? And which channels will your strategy include? If you sell a product, you might want to feature heavily on Instagram or Facebook. If you’re selling a SaaS platform, LinkedIn or Twitter might be more appropriate.

What’s your outreach strategy? Will your BDRs be held to a quota to make 25 calls a week and send 15 emails? Will your outreach strategy be inbound , outbound , or a healthy combination of both? Identify the outreach guardrails that best match your company values for doing business.

Strategic Plan Example

Let’s put all of these moving parts in action with a strategic plan example featuring good ol’ Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.

Elevator Pitch Example for Strategic Plan

Dunder Mifflin is a local paper company dedicated to providing excellent customer support and the paper your business needs to excel today and grow tomorrow.

Here are some additional resources for inspiration:

• Elevator Pitch Examples to Inspire Your Own
• Components of an Elevator Pitch

Executive Summary Example for Strategic Plan

At Dunder Mifflin, our strengths are our customer service, speed of delivery, and our local appeal. Our weakness is that our sales cycle is too long.

To shorten the sales cycle 5% by the end of Q4, we need to ask for more referrals (which already enjoy a 15% faster sales cycle), sponsor local professional events, and outreach to big box store customers who suffer from poor customer support and are more likely to exit their contract. These tactics should allow us to meet our goal in the agreed-upon timeline.

• How to Write an Incredibly Well-Written Executive Summary [+ Example]
• Executive Summary Template

SMART Goals Example for Strategic Plan

Dunder Mifflin’s goal is to decrease our sales cycle 5% by the end of Q4. We will do this by more proactively scheduling follow-up meetings, sourcing more qualified, ready-to-buy leads, and asking for 25% more referrals (which have a 15% shorter sales cycle already). We will measure success by looking at the sales pipeline and calculating the average length of time it takes a prospect to become closed won or closed lost.

• 5 Dos and Don'ts When Making a SMART Goal [Examples]
• How to Write a SMART Goal
• SMART Marketing Goals Template

SWOT Analysis Example for Strategic Plan

Strengths: Our strengths are our reputation in the greater Scranton area, our customer service team (led by Kelly Kapoor), and our warehouse team, who ship same-day reams to our customers — something the big box stores cannot offer.

Weaknesses: Our greatest weakness is that our sales team has been unable to successfully counter prospects who choose big box stores for their paper supply. This results in a longer-than-average sales cycle, which costs money and time.

Opportunities: Our greatest business opportunity is to conduct better-targeted outreach to prospects who are ready to buy, ask for more referrals from existing customers, and follow up with closed lost business that’s likely coming up on the end of an annual contract with a big box store.

Threats: Our biggest threat is large box stores offering lower prices to our prospects and customers and a sales cycle that is too long, resulting in low revenue and slow growth.

• How to Conduct Competitive Analysis
• How to Run a SWOT Analysis for Your Business [+ Template]
• SWOT Analysis Template and Market Research Kit

Measurement of Success Example for Strategic Plan

We will measure success by looking at the sales pipeline and calculating the average length of time it takes a prospect to become closed won or closed lost.

Budget Example for Strategic Plan

You've laid out the SMART goals and the way you'll measure for success. The budget section's goal is to estimate how much investment it will take to achieve those goals. This will likely end up being a big-picture overview, broken down into a budget by a program or a summary of key investments. Consider laying it out in a table format like so:

• Budgeting Templates
• How to Write an Incredible Startup Marketing Budget

Target Customer Example for Strategic Plan

Our target customer is office managers at small- to medium-sized companies in the greater Scranton, PA area. They are buying paper for the entire office, primarily for use in office printers, custom letterhead, fax machines. They are busy managing the office and value good customer service and a fast solution for their paper needs.

• How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business
• Make My Persona Tool

Outreach Strategy Example for Strategic Plan

Networking, sponsorships, and referrals will be our primary mode of outreach. We will focus on networking at regional paper conferences, HR conferences, and local office manager meetups. We will sponsor local professional events. And we will increase the volume of referrals we request from existing customers.

Create a Strategic Plan for Business Development

Without a strategic plan, you can invest resources, time, and funds into business development initiatives that won't grow your business. A strategic plan is crucial as it aligns your business development and sales teams. With a solid business development strategic plan, everyone will be working toward the greater good of your company.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Use This Simple Business Plan Outline to Organize Your Plan

12 min. read

Updated April 10, 2024

When starting a business, having a well-thought-out business plan prepared is necessary for success . It helps guide your strategy and prepares you to overcome the obstacles and risks associated with entrepreneurship. In short, a business plan makes you more likely to succeed.

However, like everything in business, starting is often the hardest part. What information do you need? How in-depth should each section be? How should the plan be structured?

All good questions that you can answer by following this business plan outline. 

• What is a business plan outline?

A business plan outline is similar to most business plan templates . It lists the common sections that all business plans should include.

A traditional business plan typically includes an executive summary, an overview of your products and services, thorough market research, a competitive analysis, a marketing and sales strategy, operational and company details, financial projections, and an appendix. 

• Why is a business plan outline important?

Starting with a business plan outline helps ensure that you’re including all of the necessary information for a complete business plan. 

But, depending on what you intend to do with your plan, you may not need all of this information right away. If you’re going to speak with investors or pursue funding, then yes, you’ll need to include everything from this outline.

But, if you’re using your plan to test an idea or help run your business, you may want to opt for a one-page plan . This is a simpler and faster method that is designed to be updated and used day-to-day. 

If you’re unsure of which plan is right for you, check out our guide explaining the differences and use cases for each plan type . 

• 10 key sections in a standard business plan outline

No matter the type of business plan you create, these are the ten basic sections you should include. Be sure to download your free business plan template to start drafting your own plan as you work through this outline.

1. Executive summary

While it may appear first, it’s best to write your executive summary last. It’s a brief section that highlights the high-level points you’ve made elsewhere in your business plan.

Summarize the problem you are solving for customers, your solution, the target market, your team that’s building the business, and financial forecast highlights. Keep things as brief as possible and entice your audience to learn more about your company. 

Keep in mind, this is the first impression your plan and business will make. After looking over your executive summary, your reader is either going to throw your business plan away or keep reading. So make sure you spend the time to get it just right.

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2. Products and services

Start the products and services section of your business plan by describing the problem you are solving for your customer. Next, describe how you solve that problem with your product or service. 

If you’ve already made some headway selling your solution, detail that progress here—this is called “traction”. You can also describe any intellectual property or patents that you have if that’s an important part of your business.

3. Market analysis 

You need to know your target market —the types of customers you are looking for—and how it’s changing.

Use the market analysis section of your business plan to discuss the size of your market—how many potential customers exist for your business—and if your potential customers can be segmented into different groups, such as age groups or some other demographic.

4. Competition

Describe your competition in this section. If you don’t have any direct competitors, describe what your customers currently do to solve the problem that your product fixes. 

If you have direct competition, detail what your strengths and weaknesses are in comparison, and how you’ll differentiate from what is already available. 

5. Marketing and sales

Use this business plan section to outline your marketing and sales plan —how you’ll reach your target customers and what the process will be for selling to them.

You’ll want to cover your market position, marketing activities, sales channels, and your pricing strategy. This will likely evolve over time, but it’s best to include anything that clearly details how you will sell and promote your products and services. 

6. Operations

What’s included in the operations section really depends on the type of business you are planning for. If your business has a physical location or other facilities, you’ll want to describe them here. If your business relies heavily on technology or specific equipment or tools, you should describe that technology or equipment here.

You can also use this section to describe your supply chain if that’s an important aspect of your business. 

7. Milestones and metrics

In a business, milestones are important goals that you are setting for your business. They may be important launch dates, or a timeline of when you’ll get regulatory approval—if that’s something you need for your business. Use this section of your plan to describe those milestones and the roadmap you are planning to follow.

You can also describe important metrics for your business, such as the number of sales leads you expect to get each month or the percentage of leads that will become customers.

8. Company overview and team

The company and team section of your plan is an overview of who you are.

It should describe the organization of your business, and the key members of the management team. It should also provide any historical background about your business. For example, you’ll describe when your company was founded, who the owners are, what state your company is registered in and where you do business, and when/if your company was incorporated.

Be sure to include summaries of your key team members’ backgrounds and experience—these should act like brief resumes—and describe their functions with the company. You should also include any professional gaps you intend to fill with new employees.

9. Financial plan and forecasts

Your financial plan should include a sales forecast, profit and loss, cash flow projections, and balance sheet, along with a brief description of the assumptions you’re making with your projections.

If you are raising money or taking out loans, you should highlight the money you need to launch the business. This part should also include a use of funds report—basically an overview of how the funding will be used in business operations. 

And while it’s not required, it may be wise to briefly mention your exit strategy . This doesn’t need to be overly detailed, just a general idea of how you may eventually want to exit your business. 

10. Appendix

The end of your business plan should include any additional information to back up specific elements of your plan. More detailed financial statements, resumes for your management team, patent documentation, credit histories, marketing examples, etc. 

• Detailed business plan outline

If you’re looking for greater insight into what goes into specific planning sections, check out the following outline for a business plan. It can help you develop a detailed business plan or provide guidance as to what may be missing from your current plan. 

Keep in mind that every business plan will look a bit different because every business is unique. After all, business planning is to help you be more successful, so focus on the sections that are most beneficial to your business and skip the sections that aren’t useful or don’t apply. 

To help, we’ve marked sections that are truly optional with an *.

Executive summary

Company purpose / mission statement.

A very brief description of what your business does and/or what its mission is.

Problem We Solve

A summary of the problem you are solving and an identifiable need in the market you are filling.

Our Solution

A description of the product or service you will provide to solve the problem.

Target Market

A defined customer base who will most likely purchase the product or service.

Briefly describe who is behind the business.

Financial Summary

A short overview of revenue goals and profitability timeline.

If you’ve already started selling your product or service, highlight important initial details here.

Funding Needed*

If you are raising money for your business, describe how much capital you need.

Products & Services

Problem worth solving.

A thorough description of the problem or pain points you intend to solve for your customer base. 

A thorough description of your proposed product or service that alleviates the problem for your customer base.

Describe any initial evidence that your customers are excited to spend money on your solution. Initial sales or signed contracts are good signs.

Intellectual Property/Patents*

If this is important for your business, outline it here.

Regulatory Requirements*

If government approval is required for your business, explain the details and timeline.

Future Products and Services*

What products and services might you offer in the future once your initial products and services are successful?

Market Size & Segments

How many potential customers do you have and what potential groups of customers are separated by specific characteristics?

Market Trends*

How consumers in your target market tend to act including purchasing habits, financial trends, and any other relevant factors.

Market Growth*

The perceived potential increase or decrease in the size of your target market.

Industry Analysis*

If your industry is changing or adjusting over time, describe those changes.

Key Customers*

If your business relies on certain important customers, describe who they are here.

Future Markets*

A snapshot of the potential market based on the last few sections and how your business strategy works within it.

Competition 

Current alternatives.

A list of potential competitors. Identifying the competition isn’t always obvious and it may take some digging on your part.

Our Advantages

The strategic advantage(s) that makes your target market more likely to choose you over the competition. 

Barriers to Entry*

If there’s anything that makes it more difficult for other people to start competing with you, describe those barriers.

Marketing & Sales

Market positioning.

Where do your products or services fit into the market? Are you the low-price leader or the premium option?

Unique value proposition*

What’s special about your offering that makes your customers want to choose it over the competition.

Marketing Plan

An outline of your marketing and advertising strategy including costs, advertising channels, and goals.

How do you sell your product or service? Self-serve or with a team of sales representatives?

Pricing Strategy*

Describe your pricing and how it compares to alternatives in the market.

Distribution*

Describe how your product gets in front of customers. Are you selling in stores and online? Which retailers?

SWOT Analysis*

Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Location & Facilities

If you have a physical presence, describe where and what it is.

What technology is crucial for your business success?

Equipment & Tools

If special equipment or tools are needed for your business, describe them here.

Sourcing and fulfillment*

If you purchase your products or parts for your products from somewhere else, describe that sourcing and supply chain.

Partners and Resources*

If you have key partners that you work with to make your business a success, describe who they are and what services or products they provide.

Milestones and metrics

A detailed roadmap of specific goals and objectives you plan to achieve will help you manage and steer your business.

Key metrics

Performance measurements that help you gauge the overall performance and health of your business.

Company overview and team

Organizational structure.

An overview of the legal structure of your business. 

Company history and ownership

A summary of your company’s history and how it relates to planning your business.

Management team

The team that is starting or running your business and why they are uniquely qualified to make the business a success.

Management team gaps

Key positions that your business will need to fill to make it successful.

Financial plan and forecast

Projected profit and loss.

How much money you will bring in by selling products and/or services and how much profit you will make or lose after accounting for costs and expenses.

Projected cash flow

How and when cash moves in and out of your business. This also includes your overall cash position.

Projected balance sheet

Expected balances for business assets, liabilities, and equity.

Use of funds

If you are raising money either through loans or investment, explain how funds will be used. This is typically meant to be shared with investors or lenders.

Exit strategy

A brief explanation of how you intend to eventually exit from your business. This could include selling the business, going public, transitioning the business to a family member/employee, etc.

A repository for any additional information, including charts and graphs, to support your business plan.

Business plan outline FAQ

How do you organize your business plan?

There’s no real established order to business plans, aside from keeping the Executive Summary at the top. As long as you have all of the main business plan components, then the order should reflect your goals. 

If this is meant solely for your personal use, lay it out as a roadmap with similar sections grouped together for easy reference. If you’re pitching this to potential investors, lead with the stronger sections to emphasize the pitch. Then if you’re unsure of what order makes sense, then just stick to the outline in this article.

Should you include tables and charts in your business plan?

Every business plan should include bar charts and pie charts to illustrate the numbers. It’s a simple way for you, your team, and investors to visualize and digest complex financial information.

Cash flow is the single most important numerical analysis in a business plan, and a standard cash flow statement or table should never be missing. Most standard business plans also include a sales forecast and income statement (also called profit and loss), and a balance sheet.

How long should your business plan be?

There’s no perfect length for a business plan. A traditional business plan can be anywhere from 10 to 50 pages long depending on how much detail you include in each section. However, as we said before unless you intend to pursue funding, you likely don’t need a lengthy business plan at first.

See why 1.2 million entrepreneurs have written their business plans with LivePlan

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

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How to write a strategic plan.

How do you know if you have a complete strategic plan? A complete strategic plan has several components, but the various parts fall into three categories. Following our step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a strategic plan quickly.

Not to oversimplify how to write a strategic plan, but by placing all the parts of a strategic plan into three areas or categories of focus, you can see how the pieces fit together.

The three pieces of the puzzle are:

Where are we now?

Where are we going?

• How will we get there?

Get the Free Guide to Build Your Strategic Objectives (with Examples!)

Each part has certain elements to show you how and where things fit. Our 4-Phase Guide to Strategic Planning lays out each step of the planning process. You can also watch our video, The Complete Strategic Planning Checklist” for a brief overview.

Get the Free Guide for Setting OKRs that Work (with 100 examples!)

Video Transcript – The Complete Strategic Plan

Hi everyone, its Erica Olsen from OnStrategy. Welcome to today’s whiteboard video on “How do you know if you have a complete strategic plan?”

As you would expect from us, we’re going to make that as easy as possible and give you a checklist — and a checklist not only for a complete plan — but for an awesome plan. So, let’s jump in.

First things first, you need a couple of things that set your strategic direction: your mission statement, which tells us why you exist, your reason for being, and your vision statement of where you’re going. You’ve heard me say it a million times, strategic plans are all about going to a place that you are not today. And your vision statement answers that. We often lump values in this area: mission, vision, and values, because it sounds good.

But I would say that a strategic plan does not have to have values if you don’t have them already articulated. And the only reason for that is because I would highly recommend that you take a values process and run that separately from a strategic planning process, because there’s a lot of work there. And it deserves its own time and attention. And if you have your values, they should go in here if you don’t put a placeholder.

So then we move to strategy. In order to articulate your strategy, you’ve got to understand where you are today. And we use a trusty tool that is a SWOT–Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. So once you have a clear understanding of where you are today, and where the opportunities are for growth, you can build out the strategy areas of your plan, which look like this: your strategic goals.

Those are the four, or five, or six big areas of focus that make up the framework of your plan that are super important. Everything rises and falls here–your vision connects to your goals and your goals connect your objectives.

Also, in your strategy is your org-wide strategies or your organizational-wide strategies. Those are the differentiation statements, or how you’re different. Strategy is about being unique. And that’s what that statement does for you.

And then of course, clarifying where are we going to play? How are we going to win? That’s your growth strategy. Strategic plans have got to have a growth section. That’s your competitive advantages and your customer segments. So, once you have all that articulated, we can move to your annual plan, which looks like organization-wide objectives.

Those are your SMART objectives. They should be measurable, time bound, accountable, all that good stuff. And each initiative should have at least one or two quarterly action items to make sure that you can really move them in to execution. And of course, no good plan is done unless you’re clear about how you’re going to measure your success–key performance indicators or KPIs. So with that, there’s your checklist for a complete and awesome strategic plan.

Hit the like button if you like our content, and please subscribe to our channel. We’re dropping videos every Friday. Happy strategizing.

Plan Writing Step 1: Establish Your Strategic Foundation

The first step in any business strategy or organizational strategy is to start by establishing or confirming your strategic foundation – in simple terms, we mean clearly articulating why your organization exists and how you expect your team to behave (Mission and Core values). This phase of the strategic planning process creates the foundation of your strategic plan as it tells you and the rest of your organization what your starting point is and why you generally exist (your core purpose or mission).

After setting up the foundation, you can determine where you’re going or hope to go in the future and exactly how you will get there by steering your organization in the right direction.

As you think about where your organization is now, you want to look at the foundational elements of your organization’s purpose and culture (mission + values) and assess your organization’s current state (SWOT and competitive advantages).

This portion of strategic planning is designed to outline the core foundation of your organization, like why you exist and how you behave, while looking at the internal and external factors that will influence your planning elements. Below is a quick overview of those elements, which include a breakdown of your mission statement, core values, and SWOT analysis.

Who are we, and how do we behave?

Mission statement.

The mission describes your organization’s purpose – the purpose for which you were founded and why you exist.

Some mission statements include the business of the organization. Others explain what products or services they produce or the customers they serve. Does your mission statement say what you do? Why does your organization exist?

Core Values:

This clarifies what you believe and how you expect your team to behave.

Three questions to ask to clarify your core values include:

• What are the core values and beliefs of your organization?
• What values and beliefs guide your daily interactions?
• What are you and your people committed to?

While a values statement is foundational to your overall strategy, the values process can be run separately from the strategic planning process as it needs its own time and attention. Your value statements are the barometer to determine whether you are conducting your business in a way that stays true to your organization’s purpose.

Video Transcript – Overview of the Strategic Planning Process

Hi, my name is Erica Olsen. Today’s whiteboard video is an overview of the strategic planning process. Instead of going through a bullet pointed list, we’ll do it in the form of an illustration.

To orient ourselves, I want to outline the four phases of the process over here: assess, design, build, and manage. The phases of planning include assessing, designing, and building, and we spend a couple of months per year doing that.

We spend the rest of the year managing the performance and the execution of our plan. Oftentimes, we get into execution, and we’re not exactly realizing the results that we want. In which case, we go back into some parts of the planning process, and sort of rinse and repeat. Today’s video is going through the whole process, but sometimes you just make big pieces of it. So, let’s jump in.

Great strategic plans start with understanding where we are today–assessing the current state– point A. We do that by gathering an external perspective, opportunities and threats, and an internal perspective, strengths, and weaknesses. And we summarize all that information and do a SWOT analysis. And as a little Asterix, we have detailed whiteboard videos on each point today. So, if you need to dig deeper, check those out.

So, once we’re clear about where we are today, we can move into the second part of our process, which is designing the strategy, starting with our mission statement. Our mission statement is a square here because great mission statements tell us what’s in and what’s out. Why do we exist as an organization, what’s our core purpose, and then by default, what’s not. With clarity on our mission, we can move to casting our vision or our future state.

Strategic plans are all about moving organizations from where we are today to where we want to be in the future. And that’s what our vision statement does for us. It tells us where we want to go.

The rest of our plan builds a roadmap from today to tomorrow. Starting with a couple of things that help us answer, “How will we succeed?” our competitive advantages, and our long-term, organization-wide strategies. These come in different names, but let’s just use the analogy and the visual to keep us grounded.

These help as guides. They act as an umbrella over our entire plan to make sure that we’re building a plan that we can succeed and be successful and be competitive with. So, with that guideline in place, we can move to building our framework–our long-term strategic objectives. Again, there are different names for this, but let’s just use that for today. I like to see them in four categories because we want a holistic framework. We want to make sure that our plan covers our financial perspective, our customer perspective, our operational and internal perspective, and our people perspective.

Less than six strategic objectives is a pretty good idea when you’re looking at your framework because we’re going to cascade the rest of the plan from these. From there, we’re ready to move into the next phase, which is building our plan.

That looks like starting with our goals, or our corporate goals. And we’re using the word ‘goals’ to articulate quantifiable, outcome-based statements. Where do you want to be in year one, and year two, and year three? And most of the time, we use key performance indicators to help guide us along the way.

So, we like our corporate goals. And again, we’re going to cascade from our strategic objectives. We like our corporate goals to be SMART. SMART is a great acronym to make sure that you have good, quantifiable, outcome-based goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-bound.

Once we have our corporate goals in place, a couple per each long-term, strategic objective, we’re ready to move into annual operating plans. And that looks like building goals and cascading into each level of the organization. So that looks like corporate goals being cascaded into department goals, and department goals being cascaded into individual, contributor goals.

Once we’ve cascaded it down that far, we have a plan, and we’re done with the third phase. So now we have a plan. Now what? We want to move into managing execution because nobody wants to build a plan that sits on a shelf. So, there are three things you need to have in place to effectively execute.

Number one: people. You need to make sure that every person in your organization has an individual action plan that expresses ownership and accountability for what they need to get done by when. And with that, that matters because all the rest of this is just on paper if we’re not clear about that very specific piece.

The second thing is we need to make sure that we have a system in place to track and manage performance. A software system, spreadsheets, whatever it looks like, you’re going to gather a lot of data on a monthly, or quarterly and annual basis, you need a place to put that, and everybody needs to be working on the same system.

The third thing is process. You need to schedule at least monthly, or quarterly reviews of your performance because without that review, all the rest of this is just again, good ideas on paper.

So, with that, that’s an overview of the strategic planning process. Subscribe to our channel. Happy strategizing.

Plan Writing Step 2: Conduct a Current State Assessment

As you think about where your organization is now, you want to look at the foundational elements of your organization’s purpose and culture (mission + values) and assess your organization’s current state (SWOT and competitive advantages).

This portion of strategic planning is designed to outline the core foundation of your organization, like why you exist and how you behave, while looking at the internal and external factors that will influence your planning elements. Below is a quick overview of those elements, which include a breakdown of your mission statement, core values, SWOT analysis, and business objectives..

When assessing your current position, you must conduct a thorough internal and external analysis of your organization. This includes assessing two major things:

• How well you are meeting your customer and market needs.
• How well do your internal processes and employees rate in terms of efficiency and satisfaction?

It may be tempting to skip this step or feel like you know where your organization stands and can make do with a less formal process, but this is not the case. Conducting a formal internal/external analysis via a SWOT, PESTLE , market analysis, or even employee surveys will help you lay the groundwork for your strategic plan.

Successful attributes of an internal and external analysis:

• Your organization’s strengths
• Weaknesses for your organization to improve upon
• A clearly defined competitive advantage
• Market opportunities to pursue
• An understanding of your competitor’s competitive advantages
• Strategic themes that serve as the framework of your plan

SWOT is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. These elements are crucial in assessing your strategic position within your organization. You want to build on your organization’s strengths, shore up the weaknesses, capitalize on the opportunities, and recognize the threats.

The SWOT can also be used as a forward-looking tool to determine where you want to go, as it allows you to see where your opportunities or threats may be in the future. These can help you pinpoint what some of your growth opportunities are.

Plan Writing Step 3: Create Your Vision of the Future

The elements of the question “Where are we going?” help you answer other questions such as “What will my organization look like in the future?”, “Where are we headed?”, and “What is my vision of the future I want to create for my company?” Because the future is hard to predict, you can have fun imagining what it may look like. The following elements help you define the future for your business:

Vision Statement

Your organization’s vision statement is the articulation of what your organization’s future makeup will be and where the organization is headed. What will your organization look like in 5 to 10 years from now? What are your company’s goals that you seek to accomplish?

It’s important that your organization’s vision always remains relevant and clear. We recommend a vision that is big, bold, and audacious—like “All children achieve their full potential” from Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.

A vision statement like this would probably be true and relevant to the organization for its entirety. A vision statement may only need to change if the organization is making big moves or pivoting to address major shifts in the market or industry.

Sustainable Competitive Advantage

A sustainable competitive advantage explains what you are best at compared to your competitors. Each company strives to create an advantage that continues to be competitive over time. What can you be best at? What is your uniqueness? What can your organization potentially do better than any other organization?

Growth Strategy

Strategy is ultimately about being unique. It is about playing to the strengths that make your organization different from the others in your market. It establishes a way to match your organization’s strengths with market opportunities so that your organization comes to mind when your customer has a need.

This section explains how you travel to your final destination. Does your strategy match your strengths in a way that provides value to your customers? Does it build an organizational reputation and recognizable industry position?

Your growth strategy should clarify:

• Where are we going to play?
• How are we going to win?

Growth strategies are where your competitive advantages and your customer segments come into play. Once you have all that articulated, you can move to your annual plan, which looks like organization-wide objectives.

Plan Writing Step 4: Build Your Plan

How will we achieve our vision with action?

Strategic objectives are the steps that bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. They also connect your big, bold vision to the annual goals you need to achieve it and establish the boundaries for your organization’s focus.

Strategic Objectives

Knowing how you’ll reach your vision is the meat of your strategic plan, and it’s also the most time consuming. The reason it takes so much time to develop your strategic priorities is because there are a number of routes from your current position to your vision. Picking the right one determines how quickly or slowly you’ll get to your final destination.

Strategic objectives are long-term, continuous strategic areas that help you connect your growth strategy and annual actions to your long-term vision of success. Strategic planning with holistic objectives encompasses four areas:

• Operational

Ask yourself what the key activities within these four areas are that you need to perform in order to achieve your vision.

It’s also important to separate your strategic objectives from your day-to-day operational objectives. They almost act like ‘mini vision statements’ as they support the overall vision of success by focusing on manageable focus areas.

Ultimately, your strategic objectives are not a mishmash of department goals. Instead, they embody the company-wide direction. They are what drive the direction and growth.

It is recommended to have at least four to six strategic objectives. They are your areas of focus that create the framework for your plan, and this should stem from your vision. Your vision connects your goals, and your goals connect your objectives. Your objectives should be SMART–specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Short-term Goals/Priorities/Initiatives

Short-term strategic goals convert your strategic objectives into specific performance targets. You can use goals, priorities, or initiatives interchangeably. Here, the term ‘goals’ defines short-term action. Effective goals clearly state:

• What you want to accomplish.
• When you want to accomplish it.
• How you’re going to accomplish it.
• Who is going to be responsible.

Each goal should be specific and measurable:

• What are the 1- to 3-year goals you’re trying to achieve to reach your vision?
• What are your specific, measurable, and realistic targets of accomplishment?

Within your strategic plan, you should set milestones to measure achievement and motivate your team. Setting milestones also sets clear expectations of who is in charge of specific tasks and results.

Additionally, milestones help teams determine whether resource allocations serve to assess risks or upcoming obstacles. Strategic plans are iterative rather than sequential, so setting milestones can allow your plan to be more adaptive to address changes in the market rather than changing the overall strategic goals.

Action Items

Action items are plans that set specific actions that lead to implementing your goals. They include start and end dates and appoint a person responsible. Are your action items comprehensive enough to achieve your goals?

KPIs and Scorecards

A scorecard measures and manages your strategic plan. Each goal should have some form of measurement, whether that is through key performance indicators (KPIs) or some other method of measurement. What are the key metrics and KPIs you need to track to monitor whether you’re achieving your mission? Pick 5 to 10 goal-related measures you can use to track the progress of your plan and plug them into your scorecard.

In executing the plan, identify issues that surround the management and monitoring of the plan and how the plan is communicated and supported throughout your entire organization. How committed are you to implementing the plan to move your organization forward? Will you commit money, resources, and time to support the plan?

As you’ve been going through the planning and assessment phase of your strategic plan, you’ve hopefully thought of the resources needed to achieve this, including team members who will play a crucial role in executing the plan. Clear communication and support from your entire organization are essential for the successful execution of your strategic plan.

Before you begin executing your plan, it is essential to ensure that you have your resource allocation fully ironed out. This will prevent the possibility of ‘scope creep’ and keep you and your team aligned on your needs.

Another consideration for successful strategic plan implementation is ensuring stakeholder and employee buy-in. Stakeholder buy-in is crucial for any strategic plan.

• Identify your key stakeholders.
• Make sure you and your team understand everyone’s role in the process.
• Establish communication channels.
• Offer active listening and transparency.
• Celebrate the milestones.

However, buy-in really begins before the execution of your plan. If you’re waiting until it’s time for them to act on the plan before you consider whether they are bought in, then it’s a little late in the game. If you aren’t giving your team a voice in the planning and analysis stage and getting their input on the issues your organization faces, it will be harder to get them to buy-in to the implementation stage.

Revisiting and Refining your Strategic Plan

As stated before, the strategic planning process is iterative. It won’t always be a linear process with linear progress and achievements. This is why regularly revisiting your plan and making adjustments as needed is essential. Monitoring the pulse of your strategic plan is something that can be done by implementing a regular review cycle quarterly and revisiting your annual goals at the beginning of each fiscal year to determine what is working and what isn’t.

PS – Strategic planning is best supported by an agile review process.

We’ve covered this extensively, but the most successful strategic planning processes are supported by a consistent, rigorous review process where teams review performance monthly, review and refresh the plan quarterly, and then do a bigger plan refresh annually.

Check out our agile strategy guide here.

Challenges in Strategic Planning

The strategic planning process can be very involved and complex. It is definitely not a quick fix and it is not a one person job. Some common issues that many organizations come across in the planning and execution stages of their plans can be your team’s resistance to change, misalignment of resources, setting unrealistic goals, or a failure to adapt to external market shifts. However, with proper strategic thinking, strategy execution, and alignment with key stakeholders, these challenges can be overcome.

These challenges can be overcome by a consistent and open method of communication, a regular review process where you’re discussing your success and the things that may hinder it and fostering a culture of adaptability and ownership of your organization’s goals and accomplishments.

12 Principles to maintain your momentum during a planning and execution process:

• Make sure you have CEO buy-in to your plan and process.
• One-page plans are amazing executive summaries for your plan.
• Create a “final plan” when you move to execution. But adapt it quarterly as needed.
• Foster a culture of continuous learning.
• Empower your decision-makers.
• Celebrate the small successes.
• Encourage feedback.
• Seek internal and external feedback.
• Don’t be afraid to adapt.
• Practice open communication.
• Don’t get tangled up in the business-as-usual tasks.
• Keep your eye on the big picture.

28 Comments

Very useful to me and for my organization as formulation of strategic plans is my job

A good introduction

Very good , your direction make an easy for me to di this things.thanks

I am going to write a strategic plan, but not before I read this!

Very resourceful not only for my exams but for my work as well. Thanks.

Good information, but you might want to check the typos.

Thanx,i can now rearrange and plan my life and carrier.

Excellent and simple answer to plan, and deliver a strategy to my business

The information is so ressourcefull. Am now a real strategic planner. Thanks.

Critical tool for advancing the management of my enterprises towards attaining sustainable ,growth projections.

IS BEEN REALLY HELPFUL THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Eeh! Its Gud information. I will use it for my LIFE strategic PLAN.

Though it was my first time to visit this site, it was very good and opened up mind more especially on what I didn’t know and thus will give it a closure look to build my confident and more knowledge

Thank you Kristin,

This has helped me to design my strategic plan well for my on coming NGO after a struggle with the old version which was not giving me a lead of how to fit in information in their right places.

I agree other than I’m missing the question “What might prevent us from coming there?”

hi fine can yaou help me about nutrition roadmap models

Hi, thank you for the helps. I am not familiar of strategic planning and this article is a good help.

now i know, i will write my strategic plan now. am grateful to the organizers this article.

Very informative. This is a good reference. Thank you.

thank you for sharing.. very clear explanation

Thanks Erica because of strong and brief text about strategy.i am strategic planner in petroleum industries health organization in Iran.

Thanks for three points for stategy .

very Nice..This article Helped me alott. Please keep doing this.Inspiration and guidence is very importatnt for someone to reach to his destination.And i think you are doing a good job. 🙂

Fantastic information, just in line with my outline. Thank you

Good information. However, I think this strategic plan process was designed for private sector more than any other sector!

I need to write a strat for the Africa expansion for a cinema group . Any ideas .

it’s really good and good introduction, thanks

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Free Strategic Planning Templates

By Joe Weller | May 16, 2018

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The success of your organization — no matter what size or industry — depends on the thoroughness of your planning and vision. A strategic plan can provide a roadmap for accomplishing specific goals, and will increase your chances of reaching objectives on time and budget. In this article, we’ve rounded up the top strategic planning templates in Microsoft Word and Excel, all of which are free to download and fully customizable.

Additionally, we've provided customizable strategic planning templates in Smartsheet, a collaborative, real-time work execution platform that empowers you to better plan, manage, and report on strategic initiatives.

Strategic Business Plan Template

Download Strategic Business Plan Template

Excel | Smartsheet

A comprehensive, strategic business plan may include company information, SWOT analysis, research, goals, resources, risks and more. A template provides structure for your business planning process as well as a communication tool that’s simple to update or modify. Use the template as a guide for evaluating your business, identifying opportunities for growth and development, and creating a strategic plan.

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Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

Download Nonprofit Strategic Plan Template

A nonprofit strategic plan often emphasizes vision, values, and mission as the foundation for future objectives. A template can be used to clearly define who is being served and what issues need to be addressed. As with a business plan, nonprofit planning may include sections for evaluating risks and opportunities, measuring financial resources, developing a marketing plan, and creating objectives for organizational change.

HR Strategic Plan Template

‌ Download HR Strategic Plan Template

Create a detailed human resources strategic plan for your organization, or modify the template to focus on one specific area, such as recruitment or employee relations. Use the template to translate strategies into measurable action plans. This simple layout makes it easy for readers to quickly view key information.

IT Strategic Planning Template

‌ Download IT Strategic Planning Template

IT is an essential part of any business, nonprofit, school, or government agency. While information technology is just one part of an overall business strategy, creating a separate strategic plan for IT will help ensure that you have a comprehensive roadmap to follow for managing and purchasing new assets, understanding your current and potential technology usage, and aligning your IT goals with business objectives.

Strategic Marketing Plan Template

‌ Download Strategic Marketing Plan Template

Use this free template to help shape your marketing strategy. It combines information on your target market and business with marketing tactics to help you think strategically and create a plan of action. The template can guide your research process or be used as a simple brainstorming tool.

Social Media Strategy Plan Template

‌ Download Social Media Strategy Plan Template

Social media is an integral part of online marketing, and creating a strategic plan can help ensure that you are using your time and resources effectively. Consider your branding, mission, target audience, competition and other factors to determine which social networks and types of content will perform best for your company. Keep track of KPIs and adjust your social media plan accordingly.

SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

‌ Download SWOT Analysis Strategy Template

This matrix template combines SWOT analysis with strategic planning. Examine the relationships between your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then list related strategies to tackle your goals. The layout of this template allows you to view the SWOT categories and strategies side-by-side, which may be useful for a presentation or summary.

One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Download One-Page Strategic Planning Template

Excel | Word | Smartsheet

A one-page strategic plan is perfect for small businesses or for summarizing a longer planning process. Use this template as is, or edit the layout or included information to better suit your needs. This template includes all the essentials on one page, including values, strengths and weaknesses, goals, and actions.

Strategic Vision Template

Download Strategic Vision Template

Excel | Word

Summarize your strategic vision and plan, highlighting key information for stakeholders, management, investors, or for your own reference. Combining a vision statement with a brief summary of goals, actions and KPIs makes it easy to see how your business values and purpose relate to your objectives. It also provides a succinct summary for use in a presentation or meeting.

University Strategic Plan Outline

‌ Download University Strategic Plan Outline

This template provides an outline for university strategy planning. The actual strategic plan may cover multiple pages and provide an in-depth analysis and detailed mission and vision statements. Strategic planning is an opportunity for universities to look closely at campus needs, institutional values, infrastructure, long-term goals, important obstacles, and more. The strategic plan will be a guiding document that is reviewed and updated regularly.

What Is Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is an organization’s process for defining their strategy so that they can accomplish specific goals and objectives. Strategic planning may be utilized on a large scale, such as planning for business growth over several years or to help a nonprofit or governmental organization reach its stated mission. A strategic plan can also be used on a smaller scale, such as crafting a marketing plan or developing strategy for the goals of one department within a business or organization. It is important to note that strategy is distinct from planning: While strategy looks at why certain steps should be taken, a plan outlines how to enact those steps. strategic planning marries these two concepts in order to determine the best possible course of action. The purpose of strategic planning is to provide a thoughtful, deliberate approach to reaching objectives based on an in-depth analysis of both internal and external factors affecting an organization.

A strategic plan often covers multiple years, addressing both short- and long-term goals. It also provides a way of tracking progress and measuring success. However, it’s not a document that is fixed in stone — instead, it’s wise to revisit and adjust a strategic plan periodically based on the evolving vision, objectives, needs, and resources of a business or institution.

Depending on the scope of your plan, you may be working with a team of multiple stakeholders during the strategic planning process. To keep the process running smoothly, make roles and responsibilities clear. Different parties may be responsible for providing data, reviewing the plan, or authorizing strategic decisions. As you prepare for planning, make sure all participants understand what’s involved in the process and have received any relevant information prior to meeting.

Benefits of Strategic Planning

There are benefits of strategic planning, including the following:

• Align the goals of a department or project with larger business goals
• Provide clear communication to team members, stakeholders, or clients
• Clearly define the vision and mission of an organization
• Provide clarity on how to deal with internal or environmental changes

Parts of a Strategic Plan

One way to think about strategic planning is that it identifies any gaps between a current state and desired future state, and then dictates how to close those gaps — how you get from where you are to where you want to be. To that end, various factors are taken into consideration in order to formulate an effective plan. Here are some of the elements often included in a strategic plan.

• Introductory Statement: The introductory statement should briefly describe why the strategic plan was developed and for what time period, and list the authors of the plan.  
• Background Statement: This section may provide information about the organization, such as history, management structure, and supporting partners or agencies. Alternatively, you could use this section as a brief business statement — more of an elevator pitch — to concisely describe your business.  
• Organizational Structure: Include this information if it’s relevant to evaluate how your business or organization operates and is structured, from governing board to staffing.  
• Vision: A vision statement should briefly describe what a company wants to achieve or become. This is one of the primary organizational tenets to consider, along with values and mission.  
• Values: These are the principles that an organization stands for and abides by. Many businesses create core value statements to guide company culture.  
• Mission Statement: A mission statement describes the purpose of a business or organization. This is distinct from a vision statement because it is not a projected goal for the future.  
• Problem Statement: Some plans include a problem statement, which can outline key or discrete issues that need to be addressed.  
• SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis provides a foundation and context for developing strategy by examining the strengths and weaknesses within and organization as well as external opportunities and threats.  
• Goals: As stated earlier, a strategic plan may include long-term as well as short-term (i.e, monthly or quarterly) goals. Objectives should be measurable and broken down into actionable steps, and the action plan for each goal should specify who is responsible for implementing the strategy, a timeline for starting and ending the action, and how the outcome will be evaluated.  
• Evaluation: Methods for evaluation should be spelled out in the strategic plan. This could include tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) and documenting the progress of action steps on an ongoing basis.  
• Executive Summary : This final summary helps employees, investors, or other readers quickly understand your plan.

No matter what type of strategic plan you are working on, using a template provides a simple and quick outline to organize your process. In the following sections, you’ll find free, downloadable planning templates for business, nonprofit, human resources, marketing, IT strategic planning, and more.

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Smartsheet is a cloud-based platform that allows teams and organizations to plan, manage, and report on projects, helping you move faster and achieve more. See Smartsheet in action.  

Create More Collaborative, Real-Time Strategic Plans with Smartsheet

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The Smartsheet platform makes it easy to plan, capture, manage, and report on work from anywhere, helping your team be more effective and get more done. Report on key metrics and get real-time visibility into work as it happens with roll-up reports, dashboards, and automated workflows built to keep your team connected and informed. 

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Strategic Plan Template & How-To Guide

Written by Dave Lavinsky

On this page:

What is a strategic plan, strategic plan vs business plan, what are the key elements of a strategic plan, how to write each section of your strategic plan, how to measure the success of your strategic plan, other helpful business plan articles & templates.

  Over the past 20+ years, Growthink has developed strategic plans for thousands of companies, small business owners, and entrepreneurs. Many of them have gone on to reach incredible success. Below you will find our thinking on the strategic planning process, how to measure progress, and how to create a great plan for your company.

Download the Growthink Strategic Plan Template Here

A strategic plan is a process, most often undertaken by organizations, governments, and businesses to define the organization’s strategy. In simple terms, strategy is a course of action or thought-out method used in achieving an objective or set of objectives. It may also be referred to as a strategic document or strategic outlook.

This type of plan includes the organization’s mission and vision – describing where it is going – as well as its core values, concepts, strategies for achieving the objectives, and plans for evaluating progress towards those objectives. It may also include a supporting action plan that prioritizes critical tasks needed to implement the strategy successfully.

In most cases, strategic planning is a continuous process that helps an organization be successful now and beyond. Planning isn’t just about deciding what to do—it’s also about identifying what not to do so resources can be focused on implementing high-priority initiatives. Consider strategic planning a toolbox full of options from which you select the right tools for your job at hand.

The components of a strategic plan include goals, strategic initiatives (the ways in which you’re going to pursue your goals), and action plans (a list of the specific activities that support each strategic initiative). A business plan typically includes some or all of these components but there are important differences between strategic planning and business planning.

Both types of plans can be created for established businesses as well as any new business ventures.

One way to think about it is that strategic plans address the entire year, providing “big picture” thinking while business plans focus more on the details of day-to-day operations. Strategic planning also tends to look 3–5 years ahead whereas a small business might find it difficult to forecast that far into the future.

Strategic plans typically look at things like management structure, company growth, strategic alliances or mergers, and strategic positioning in the market.

A strategic plan template is useful for organizations contemplating major changes while a small business owner can use strategic planning techniques when making decisions around which new strategic initiatives to pursue.

Business plans are written to present a realistic assessment and roadmap of how well your company could perform within 3–5 years when you take into account factors such as the market demand for your product or service, how much it will cost to produce your product or provide your service, how much it costs to acquire customers, potential risks in starting up your small business, where you will get money if needed and what would need to happen for this plan to become reality.

A business plan is written with the intention of letting outsiders, such as banks or angel investors, see how well your business could perform financially within 3–5 years.

Both types of planning are well worth your time and effort to ensure the prosperity of your business.

Finish Your Strategic Plan Today!

Organizations undertake strategic planning to define their priorities and align their team in pursuit of those priorities. Strategic planning is a crucial tool that can refocus a business’ energies to where they will be best spent.

In spite of the great importance and scope, many times it is ignored or quickly completed each year with no strategic focus. Or it is created, but results are not measured against it. The end result is neither strategic nor even a plan.

Successful companies, on the other hand, have and continue to make use of strategic planning to consistently stay on top of their game. You can too. Below, we offer a comprehensive strategic plan template and examples that can easily be used to initiate and establish effective strategic planning in your organization. The template discusses the 13 elements you must include in more detail below:

Executive Summary

Elevator pitch, mission statement, swot analysis, key performance indicators (kpis), target market analysis, industry analysis, competitor analysis, marketing plan, human resources plan, operations plan, financial projections.

Including a summary is important because it allows you to quickly and effectively present your plan to key stakeholders. It is crucial that you are able to disseminate the plan throughout your organization as its success hinges on everybody’s buy-in and support.

Since an elevator pitch is a short yet striking description of your company, it also helps motivate employees causing them to work hard and take pride in their organization. Such fostering of a positive culture will attract impassioned people to your organization as well. For example, Microsoft in its founding days worked with the following pitch:

“A computer on every desk and in every home.”

Such inspirational statements are the direct result of strategic planning efforts and have wide-ranging benefits for a business.

“Phillips’ mission is to improve people’s lives through meaningful innovation.”

Your plan should include a similarly inspirational mission statement so that business efforts are geared towards that one end goal.

To create a plan that is truly strategic you need to spend a good amount of time conducting a SWOT analysis and thinking deeply about each of its individual elements.

Depending on your objectives you can even narrow your company’s goals down to quarterly, monthly, or even weekly goals. Clearly laying out a business’ goals ensures that people expend their energies towards things that actually matter.

While creating goals keep the following things in mind:

Do Not Go Very Broad

Avoid goals that are sweeping. For example, business objectives like ‘being successful’ or ‘being profitable’ are too broad to be useful. This can instead be reframed as “increasing sales by 20% in the next quarter” for instance. Strategize for goals that are easy to understand and act upon. This will also make it easy to evaluate performances later on and find out how well or poorly the business did. Effective goals are goals that can be measured. Strive for these.

Be Realistic

While setting goals it is easy to get carried away. Setting overly ambitious or practically unattainable goals will cause a significant drop in organizational morale as people get frustrated or even burnt out in pursuing such goals. Instead, set goals that are ambitious but within grasp.

Set Time-Bound Goals

Your plan must include goals with realistic deadlines. Time-specific goals allow employees to plan their amazing work more effectively, making it more likely that the goals will be met.

Figure out what the business needs from every stakeholder in order to improve performance and create separate KPIs accordingly. For example, KPIs for the marketing department will be different from those set for the human resources department and so on.

Your plan is worthless if it tries to win over every customer segment in your target market. It will most probably end up attracting none. Instead, a strategic plan must pinpoint the target customers whose conversion and retention will provide the business with the highest return on its expenditures.

You should discuss the market size and key trends, including if it is declining or growing. You must also identify your current position and desired position in the marketplace.

Competitor analysis coupled with a broad industry analysis also forces you to think about other organizations that might turn into your competitors if industry trends change or markets mutate.

Most importantly, in this section figure out the best positioning of your company in the competitive mix. Importantly, figure out your current competitive strengths that you can exploit, or competitive strengths you need to gain in the coming period and how you will go about achieving them.

If you feel you need to hire more employees or people with certain specific competencies then this is the place where you and your team should deliberate and document your human resources requirements. For instance, if your strategic plan includes diversifying into a new space, then it would be pertinent to start creating detailed job descriptions and interviewing people to execute this initiative. This way you will not impede your diversification plans due to a hiring crunch or having the wrong team trying to execute critical tasks.

Here you must narrow down the overarching strategic aim of the business into smaller tactical goals to be executed by specific departments and/or teams. In this section, you will detail each of these goals along with the action plan for achieving them. We suggest using Gantt charts to map out the way your departments will attain key goals over time.

Creating financial forecasts allows you to estimate the potential results of different strategies and analyze which might have the best impact on your business. Even when they are based on estimates, projections are able to reflect business realities pretty accurately provided your assumptions are realistic.

Importantly, use your projections as KPIs to judge your performance as you execute your strategic plan.

Strategic plans can help you achieve financial and strategic goals over the short-term, mid-term, and long-term. The more specific your strategic goals are, the more likely they are to be achieved. So it’s important to set clear targets for each strategy in your plan and measure your progress over time. Some of the key metrics to track include:

Operational Metrics

These indicators measure how effectively a strategic goal is being executed on an ongoing basis. These types of metrics can be applied at both the business level (e.g., what percentage of orders are filled within 24 hours) or at the corporate level (how much inventory is carried per square foot).

Financial Metrics

Focusing on milestones in terms of achieving financial targets allows strategic goals to be quantified and measured. Some of the most common financial indicators applied within strategic plans include sales volume, sales growth rate, market share, number of new products launched, operating margins, and return on invested capital.

Impact Metrics

Finally, strategic plan metrics should inform how strategic investments will enable an organization to achieve its future business vision. A business vision is typically expressed as an aspirational strategic statement that captures where you want to go (i.e., your strategic direction) over the next five to ten years. Impact metrics can help evaluate if potential strategic investments are likely to deliver on that goal or not.

Establish a clear path and put your company in the right direction by including each of the elements outlined in the strategic planning sample above. Then, at the end of each month review your actual performance against your goals and projections in your plan. If you are on target, continue as planned. If not, consider adjusting your strategy or your plan. Business owners who constantly monitor their performance and adjust their plans reach their milestones and achieve the long-term success they desire.

Finish Your Strategic Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your strategic plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Strategic Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

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Strategic planning template

Goal setting defines your vision, strategic planning gets it done. Use a custom strategic planning template to outline key objectives that—once completed—will turn your vision into reality.

Sign up to create your own template.

• A library of 70+ ready-made templates
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When you’re first mapping out your business strategy, how do you know what to prioritize? Strategic planning templates outline your key initiatives and the tasks that will help you achieve them. By connecting your work to overarching company mission and vision statements, you can see exactly how the work your team does supports business goals. We’ll show you how to create your own custom strategic planning template so you’re always prepared.

What is a strategic planning template?

Your strategic plan outlines longer-term goals and ambitions, but these will most likely need to be changed on a routine basis. Creating a strategic planning template allows you to quickly and easily make adjustments to your plan, without needing to start from scratch. Plus, larger organizations might need multiple strategic plans at once. Creating one template that you can use cross-functionally helps you streamline work across teams, so all projects lead back to your biggest company goals. 

Benefits of using a strategic planning template

Using a strategic planning template gives you a structure for your strategy. Once you’ve created your template, you can:

Quickly reference and share key initiatives with stakeholders .

Proactively gauge workloads and resources before launching new projects.

Reduce the amount of time teams spend waiting for directives, because everyone knows what needs to be done and which priorities come first.

How to create a strategic planning template

A strategic planning template takes the guesswork out of strategy. Once it’s created, you know exactly what you need to do—down to the smallest tasks—to hit your loftiest strategic goals . 

1. Create a mission and vision statement

The mission is your overarching company purpose and the reason your product or service exists. Similarly, your vision is where you see your company going. Writing these is the first step in defining who you are as a business and what you hope to accomplish. Then, include them in your template to ensure new strategic plan is aligned with your company’s mission or vision.

2. Find out your market position

Once you determine your mission (what you want to help solve), look at how you can use your unique offerings to accomplish it. Use a competitive analysis or SWOT analysis to determine where you stand in the marketplace, and look for the gaps (opportunities) where your company can outperform others. Review all data you have about your company, including market insights, customer feedback, and employee insights before building out your strategic planning template. 

3. Build your template

Your strategic planning template will act as a central source of truth for much of your business or team planning and strategy, so it should connect your company’s larger initiatives to project planning . The most efficient way to do this is with project management software , where you can include all relevant information in the same space as your plan. Here, you can attach key elements to your template, including goals , milestones , and to-do lists —so you can see how each action directly ties back to the bigger-picture company vision.

When creating your template, create sections for:

Your vision and mission statement: So you can always tie strategies back to your company’s core purpose.

Competitor information: Include information from your competitive analysis that shows crucial aspects of your current business model, including pricing, marketing strategy , and performance features. 

Key performance indicators (KPIs): Use KPIs (measurable metrics to see how you’re progressing towards your goals) to ensure your strategic plan stays on track.

Items you won’t work on. To stay focused and prevent scope creep , it’s just as important to know which elements to skip. For example, if you’re a startup that needs to sparingly allocate resources, you might decide that social media planning is not a top priority right now.

When to use a strategic planning template

As a general rule, you can use strategic planning templates for any large-scale strategic objectives or business goals. Often, strategic plans are used by new businesses or during long-term planning. For example, if you’re a startup, you can use a strategic plan to clarify direction and get more organized about action steps. Or if you’re a long-standing business, you can use a strategic 10 year plan to determine what’s next for the company. Non-profits also use strategic planning for transparency with donors to show how they’re putting donations to good use.

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Goals . Goals in Asana directly connect to the work you’re doing to hit them, making it easy for team members to see what they’re working towards. More often than not, our goals live separate from the work that goes into achieving them. By connecting your team and company goals to the work that supports them, team members have real-time insight and clarity into how their work directly contributes to your team—and company—success. As a result, team members can make better decisions. If necessary, they can identify the projects that support the company’s strategy and prioritize work that delivers measurable results. 

Custom fields . Custom fields are the best way to tag, sort, and filter work. Create unique custom fields for any information you need to track—from priority and status to email or phone number. Use custom fields to sort and schedule your to-dos so you know what to work on first. Plus, share custom fields across tasks and projects to ensure consistency across your organization. 

Dependencies . Mark a task as waiting on another task with task dependencies. Know when your work is blocking someone else’s work, so you can prioritize accordingly. Teams with collaborative workflows can easily see what tasks they’re waiting on from others, and know when to get started on their portion of work. When the first task is completed, the assignee will be notified that they can get started on their dependent task. Or, if the task your work is dependent on is rescheduled, Asana will notify you—letting you know if you need to adjust your dependent due date as well. 

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Slack . Turn ideas, work requests, and action items from Slack into trackable tasks and comments in Asana. Go from quick questions and action items to tasks with assignees and due dates. Easily capture work so requests and to-dos don’t get lost in Slack. 

OneDrive . Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Microsoft OneDrive file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach files from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more.

What are the steps used in the strategic planning process? .css-i4fobf{-webkit-transition:-webkit-transform 200ms ease-in-out;transition:transform 200ms ease-in-out;-webkit-transform:rotateZ(0);-moz-transform:rotateZ(0);-ms-transform:rotateZ(0);transform:rotateZ(0);}

To use your template for strategic planning , follow these four steps: Know where you are now, develop a strategy, create a plan, and share it with others.

How do you create a strategic planning template?

Create mission and vision statement to inform your template, then build a template with space for your company information (including a competitor analysis to show your market fit), key objectives, goals, and metrics that will let you know when you’ve been successful.

Why is having a strategic planning template important?

Strategic planning templates outline the key elements you need to give structure to your loftier goals and overarching company mission—including short-term goals, KPIs, and competitive analyses.

I work at a startup, do I need a strategic planning template?

Yes, startups and small businesses can benefit from strategic planning templates. They’re completely customizable, so you can create a template that fits your exact needs—then adjust it as your company changes and grows.

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Competitive analysis template

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The 5 steps of the strategic planning process

Starting a project without a strategy is like trying to bake a cake without a recipe — you might have all the ingredients you need, but without a plan for how to combine them, or a vision for what the finished product will look like, you’re likely to end up with a mess. This is especially true when working with a team — it’s crucial to have a shared plan that can serve as a map on the pathway to success.

Creating a strategic plan not only provides a useful document for the future, but also helps you define what you have right now, and think through and outline all of the steps and considerations you’ll need to succeed.

What is strategic planning?

While there is no single approach to creating a strategic plan, most approaches can be boiled down to five overarching steps:

• Define your vision
• Assess where you are
• Determine your priorities and objectives
• Define responsibilities
• Measure and evaluate results

Each step requires close collaboration as you build a shared vision, strategy for implementation, and system for understanding performance.

Related: Learn how to hold an effective strategic planning meeting

Why do I need a strategic plan?

Building a strategic plan is the best way to ensure that your whole team is on the same page, from the initial vision and the metrics for success to evaluating outcomes and adjusting (if necessary) for the future. Even if you’re an expert baker, working with a team to bake a cake means having a collaborative approach and clearly defined steps so that the result reflects the strategic goals you laid out at the beginning.

The benefits of strategic planning also permeate into the general efficiency and productivity of your organization as a whole. They include: 

• Greater attention to potential biases or flaws, improving decision-making 
• Clear direction and focus, motivating and engaging employees
• Better resource management, improving project outcomes 
• Improved employee performance, increasing profitability
• Enhanced communication and collaboration, fostering team efficiency 

Next, let’s dive into how to build and structure your strategic plan, complete with templates and assets to help you along the way.

Before you begin: Pick a brainstorming method

There are many brainstorming methods you can use to come up with, outline, and rank your priorities. When it comes to strategy planning, it’s important to get everyone’s thoughts and ideas out before committing to any one strategy. With the right facilitation , brainstorming helps make this process fair and transparent for everyone involved.  

First, decide if you want to run a real-time rapid ideation session or a structured brainstorming . In a rapid ideation session, you encourage sharing half-baked or silly ideas, typically within a set time frame. The key is to just get out all your ideas quickly and then edit the best ones. Examples of rapid ideation methods include round robin , brainwriting , mind mapping , and crazy eights . 

In a structured brainstorming session, you allow for more time to prepare and edit your thoughts before getting together to share and discuss those more polished ideas. This might involve brainstorming methods that entail unconventional ways of thinking, such as reverse brainstorming or rolestorming . 

Using a platform like Mural, you can easily capture and organize your team’s ideas through sticky notes, diagrams, text, or even images and videos. These features allow you to build actionable next steps immediately (and in the same place) through color coding and tagging. 

Whichever method you choose, the ideal outcome is that you avoid groupthink by giving everyone a voice and a say. Once you’ve reached a consensus on your top priorities, add specific objectives tied to each of those priorities.

Related: Brainstorming and ideation template

1. Define your vision

Whether it’s for your business as a whole, or a specific initiative, successful strategic planning involves alignment with a vision for success. You can think of it as a project-specific mission statement or a north star to guide employees toward fulfilling organizational goals. 

To create a vision statement that explicitly states the ideal results of your project or company transformation, follow these four key steps: 

• Engage and involve the entire team . Inclusivity like this helps bring diverse perspectives to the table. 
• Align the vision with your core values and purpose . This will make it familiar and easy to follow through. 
• Stay grounded . The vision should be ambitious enough to motivate and inspire yet grounded enough to be achievable and relevant.
• Think long-term flexibility . Consider future trends and how your vision can be flexible in the face of challenges or opportunities. 

For example, say your vision is to revolutionize customer success by streamlining and optimizing your process for handling support tickets. It’s important to have a strategy map that allows stakeholders (like the support team, marketing team, and engineering team) to know the overall objective and understand the roles they will play in realizing the goals. 

This can be done in real time or asynchronously , whether in person, hybrid, or remote. By leveraging a shared digital space , everyone has a voice in the process and room to add their thoughts, comments, and feedback. 

Related: Vision board template

2. Assess where you are

The next step in creating a strategic plan is to conduct an assessment of where you stand in terms of your own initiatives, as well as the greater marketplace. Start by conducting a resource assessment. Figure out which financial, human, and/or technological resources you have available and if there are any limitations. You can do this using a SWOT analysis.

What is SWOT analysis?

SWOT analysis is an exercise where you define:

• Strengths: What are your unique strengths for this initiative or this product? In what ways are you a leader?
• Weaknesses: What weaknesses can you identify in your offering? How does your product compare to others in the marketplace?
• Opportunities: Are there areas for improvement that'd help differentiate your business?
• Threats: Beyond weaknesses, are there existing potential threats to your idea that could limit or prevent its success? How can those be anticipated?

For example, say you have an eco-friendly tech company and your vision is to launch a new service in the next year. Here’s what the SWOT analysis might look like: 

• Strengths : Strong brand reputation, loyal customer base, and a talented team focused on innovation
• Weaknesses : Limited bandwidth to work on new projects, which might impact the scope of its strategy formulation 
• Opportunities : How to leverage and experiment with existing customers when goal-setting
• Threats : Factors in the external environment out of its control, like the state of the economy and supply chain shortages

This SWOT analysis will guide the company in setting strategic objectives and formulating a robust plan to navigate the challenges it might face. 

Related: SWOT analysis template

3. Determine your priorities and objectives

Once you've identified your organization’s mission and current standing, start a preliminary plan document that outlines your priorities and their corresponding objectives. Priorities and objectives should be set based on what is achievable with your available resources. The SMART framework is a great way to ensure you set effective goals . It looks like this:  

• Specific: Set clear objectives, leaving no room for ambiguity about the desired outcomes.
• Measurable : Choose quantifiable criteria to make it easier to track progress.
• Achievable : Ensure it is realistic and attainable within the constraints of your resources and environment.
• Relevant : Develop objectives that are relevant to the direction your organization seeks to move.
• Time-bound : Set a clear timeline for achieving each objective to maintain a sense of urgency and focus.

For instance, going back to the eco-friendly tech company, the SMART goals might be: 

• Specific : Target residential customers and small businesses to increase the sales of its solar-powered device line by 25%. 
• Measurable : Track monthly sales and monitor customer feedback and reviews. 
• Achievable : Allocate more resources to the marketing, sales, and customer service departments. 
• Relevant : Supports the company's growth goals in a growing market of eco-conscious consumers. 
• Time-bound : Conduct quarterly reviews and achieve this 25% increase in sales over the next 12 months.

With strategic objectives like this, you’ll be ready to put the work into action. 

Related: Project kickoff template

4. Define tactics and responsibilities

In this stage, individuals or units within your team can get granular about how to achieve your goals and who'll be accountable for each step. For example, the senior leadership team might be in charge of assigning specific tasks to their team members, while human resources works on recruiting new talent. 

It’s important to note that everyone’s responsibilities may shift over time as you launch and gather initial data about your project. For this reason, it’s key to define responsibilities with clear short-term metrics for success. This way, you can make sure that your plan is adaptable to changing circumstances. 

One of the more common ways to define tactics and metrics is to use the OKR (Objectives and Key Results) method. By outlining your OKRs, you’ll know exactly what key performance indicators (KPIs) to track and have a framework for analyzing the results once you begin to accumulate relevant data. 

For instance, if our eco-friendly tech company has a goal of increasing sales, one objective might be to expand market reach for its solar-powered products. The sales team lead would be in charge of developing an outreach strategy. The key result would be to successfully launch its products in two new regions by Q2. The KPI would be a 60% conversation rate in those targeted markets.  

Related: OKR planning template  

5. Manage, measure, and evaluate

Once your plan is set into motion, it’s important to actively manage (and measure) progress. Before launching your plan, settle on a management process that allows you to measure success or failure. In this way, everyone is aligned on progress and can come together to evaluate your strategy execution at regular intervals.

Determine the milestones at which you’ll come together and go over results — this can take place weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the nature of the project.

One of the best ways to evaluate progress is through agile retrospectives (or retros) , which can be done in real time or asynchronously. During this process, gather and organize feedback about the key elements that played a role in your strategy. 

Related: Retrospective radar template

Retrospectives are typically divided into three parts:

• What went well.
• What didn’t go well.
• New opportunities for improvement.

This structure is also sometimes called the “ rose, thorn, bud ” framework. By using this approach, team members can collectively brainstorm and categorize their feedback, making the next steps clear and actionable. Creating an action plan during a post-mortem meeting is a crucial step in ensuring that lessons learned from past projects or events are effectively translated into tangible improvements. 

Another method for reviewing progress is the quarterly business review (QBR). Like the agile retrospective, it allows you to collect feedback and adjust accordingly. In the case of QBRs, however, we recommend dividing your feedback into four categories:

• Start (what new items should be launched?).
• Stop (what items need to be paused?).
• Continue (what is going well?).
• Change (what could be modified to perform better?).

Strategic planners know that planning activities continue even after a project is complete. There’s always room for improvement and an action plan waiting to be implemented. Using the above approaches, your team can make room for new ideas within the existing strategic framework in order to track better to your long-term goals.

Related: Quarterly business review template

Conclusions

The beauty of the strategic plan is that it can be applied from the campaign level all the way up to organizational vision. Using the strategic planning framework, you build buy-in , trust, and transparency by collaboratively creating a vision for success, and mapping out the steps together on the road to your goals.

Also, in so doing, you build in an ability to adapt effectively on the fly in response to data through measurement and evaluation, making your plan both flexible and resilient.

Related: 5 Tips for Holding Effective Post-mortems

Why Mural for strategic planning

Mural unlocks collaborative strategic planning through a shared digital space with an intuitive interface, a library of pre-fab templates, and methodologies based on design thinking principles.

Outline goals, identify key metrics, and track progress with a platform built for any enterprise.

Learn more about strategic planning with Mural.

About the authors

Bryan Kitch

Tagged Topics

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Blog Business 15+ Business Plan Templates for Strategic Planning

15+ Business Plan Templates for Strategic Planning

Written by: Joan Ang Feb 17, 2022

If you’ve just had a new business idea that’s worth funding, or come up with a marketing strategy that can double your company’s revenue — it’s time to put your great ideas down on paper using a professional business plan template. 

Take a look at Venngage’s fully customizable, easy-to-edit  business plan templates  that can help you bring that one-of-a-kind idea to life. Simply pick a template you like and start editing for free — no design experience required.

Click to jump ahead:

Detailed & professional business plan samples, crisis management and continuity business plans, simple business plan templates for beginners, faqs about business plans.

If you’ve already got all your data and information ready and just looking to transform them into a compelling, professional business plan, here are the templates for you. All of these templates are populated with meaningful information that can easily guide your inspiration and help you create your own business plan in no time.

Related : 15+ Business Plan Examples to Win Your Next Round of Funding

Monochromatic architecture business plan template

Monochromatic colors allow you to highlight many details easily without making them shine or stand out too much from the other elements. It does take some delicate layout and asset planning, though. Luckily, you can just leave these details alone by editing the name of this report and the data it contains. Easily edit this template using Venngage’s convenient template editor.

If you’re not in love with this color scheme, you can always change it using My Brand Kit . Have your brand colors and logos automatically extracted with Autobrand:

And add them to your business plan design in one click:

Simple interior design business plan template

Image-centric, magazine-style strategic business plans always grab attention without being intimidating. The cover image sells the content that includes your plan’s executive summary, approach and eventually the deliverables. 

If you want to replace the cover photo with one of your office’s, simply double click the photo and upload your own:

Red simple business plan template

Strategic business plans don’t have to look like top-secret government documents that are “for your eyes only.” They can attain magazine-level attractiveness by using a coherent theme, such as this free business plan template that you can fully customize. 

The red, high-contrast appeal of this theme, text layout and overall format make it a splendid choice for a comprehensive strategic business plan template.

Related : How to Create a Business Plan to Win Over Investors (7+ Business Plan Templates)

Green interior design business plan template

The color green is always easy on our eyes  because they’re sensitive to it . The neutral green theme of this template makes it easy to focus on the cover image’s layout and theme. Plus, the paragraphs on the text are easy to understand, thanks to the neutral colors and magazine-style layout. 

Minimalist architecture business plan template

Minimalism is a beautiful design concept because it showcases the power of layouts when it comes to documents and presentations. The concept is pleasing because it gives low visual stimulation while maximizing the focus on vital information in your reports. 

Design consultant business plan template

While it has a strong magazine feel to it, this Venngage template has a topic-oriented characteristic because of its text-heavy sections that still appear pleasing to view and read. The template relies on the clever use of images, white spaces and icons. Exchange these assets easily by using Venngage’s web-accessible editor.

Return to Table of Contents

Crisis management requires swift organization and work. We know you’re under a lot of pressure when you’re going to use these templates for your presentation, so we made sure that they’re presentation-ready that require minimal edits. They’re all free business plan templates as well!

Simple crisis communications plan template

Here’s a quick crisis communication plan you can use in any impending report. 

If you’re not familiar with creating a crisis communication plan, this free business plan template already contains all the sections you need: table of contents, escalation frameworks, roles and responsibilities, and tips to maintain an effective response plan.

Related : 10+ Crisis Communication Plan Templates for Leaders + Managers

Crisis communications plan template

Urgent planning situations won’t need you to sacrifice style and coherence with a paragraph-heavy layout. Sure, we can do away with the photos to maintain our reader’s focus, but we can use a bullet layout with subheaders, bullet points and more. 

A light-colored theme makes it easy for readers to comprehend the colors. While this template focuses on crisis control, you can change its purpose by customizing its elements using Venngage’s built-in web editor.

Emergency response plan template

This Venngage template is perfect for plans on how to deal with emergency situations. The template focuses on content and uses minimal colors and contrasts to set the reader’s focus on each data detail. 

If you’re in a hurry to set up your strategic business plan, you can edit this template’s content with Venngage’s easy-access editor within minutes before your presentation.

Not sure where to start with designing your business plan? No graphic designer to help you out? These beginner strategic business planning templates for Venngage guarantee a presentation-ready report in no time. Just use its built-in editor to change some small details to suit your brand, and you’re all set!

Yellow simple business plan template

Readers want a seamless reading experience, which means authors must have an excellent document layout with related photos that don’t take away the spotlight from the project data. This Venngage template is perfect for such a purpose because it has an excellent balance of content and images. Fully customize it with Venngage’s built-in editor.

Simple gaming business plan template

You’re probably too busy testing games or even playing games to make a layout. But, your department needs you to create a games-related strategic plan. Say no more because here’s a template that’s made just for this purpose. If this layout isn’t perfect enough for your needs, you can always use the web editor to switch out assets and data.

Contracting company business plan template

If you’re quite busy with your daily work, you can always use pre-made layouts for your upcoming strategic planning presentation. This Venngage template is text-heavy and uses icons, but construction contractors will want to use these so that their clients have complete information on the project. Customize this as your project needs with the help of Venngage’s powerful web editor.

Professional business action plan template

Beginners can have an excellent magazine-style report appeal using this Venngage template. With an attractive cover photo and excellent use of negative space, this template can help you make professional reports without sacrificing time and substance. You can fully customize this template with Venngage’s top-notch web editor.

Colorful hospitality business plan template

The hospitality industry knows plenty about design, layouts and the effective use of assets. This Venngage template uses a wide color palette that gives it a basic appeal to readers and helps the latter focus on the topic and data. If the colors don’t work for you, or you have a better idea about the fonts and layout, you can fully customize this template with Venngage’s convenient web editor.

Business consultant continuity plan template

Need to present a plan on how to continue operations during emergency situations? This template should help. Photos have a great role to play because they set the mood and background for the report. Some reports are suitably photo-centric, while some, such as this Venngage template, work well with minimal or background use. 

You can switch out the template’s banners, data, and fonts using Venngage’s built-in editor.

Got some questions about business plans? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

What’s a long-term strategic business plan?

Everyone makes plans that have a set of steps and approaches that lead to your ultimate goal. It’s the same for business plans.

A business plan is a written document that outlines a company’s strategy for success, including its mission statements, its vision, operational plans and financial projections. These plans give your business a clear, short-term direction with dedicated sets of processes and procedures that can improve the business’s production and efficiency to meet its short and medium-term goals.

What’s included in an effective business plan?

A professional business plan typically has the following sections: 

• Table of Contents
• Executive summary
• Company description
• Market analysis
• Organization and management
• Service or product line
• Marketing and sales
• Funding request
• Financial projections
• An appendix

A business plan can span a dozen or more pages because it presents the big picture, as complete as possible, to reassure others to invest in you.

For more information on how to create the best business plan, visit our post: How to Create a Business Plan to Win Over Investors (7+ Business Plan Templates)

In summary: Unlock your business’s potential with these business plan templates

It can be difficult to create the right business plan, especially when you’re not sure what it should look like. Rest assured, because we have tons of business plan templates that are full of meaningful information to help you.

Choose one of Venngage’s professional, fully customizable business plan templates and start adding your data, and you’ll have your own business plan in no time. No design experience required.

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Manufacturing Business Plan PDF Example

• May 7, 2024
• Business Plan

Creating a comprehensive business plan is crucial for launching and running a successful manufacturing business. This plan serves as your roadmap, detailing your vision, operational strategies, and financial plan. It helps establish your manufacturing business’s identity, navigate the competitive market, and secure funding for growth.

This article not only breaks down the critical components of a manufacturing business plan, but also provides an example of a business plan to help you craft your own.

Whether you’re an experienced entrepreneur or new to the manufacturing industry, this guide, complete with a business plan example, lays the groundwork for turning your manufacturing business concept into reality. Let’s dive in!

Our manufacturing business plan covers all essential aspects necessary for a comprehensive strategy. It details operations, marketing strategy , market environment, competitors, management team, and financial forecasts.

• Executive Summary : Provides an overview of the manufacturing company’s business concept, market analysis , management, and financial strategy.
• Facilities & Equipment: Describes the facility’s capabilities, machinery, and technological advancements.
• Operations & Supply: Outlines the production processes, supply chain logistics, and inventory management.
• Key Stats: Offers data on industry size , growth trends, and market positioning.
• Key Trends: Highlights significant trends impacting the industry, such as automation and localization.
• Key Competitors : Analyzes primary competitors and differentiates the company from these rivals.
• SWOT: Analyzes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
• Marketing Plan : Outlines tactics for attracting new contracts and maintaining client relationships.
• Timeline : Sets out key milestones from inception through the first year of operations.
• Management: Information on the management team and their roles within the company.
• Financial Plan: Projects the company’s financial performance over the next five years, detailing revenue, profits, and anticipated expenses.

Manufacturing Business Plan

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✅ Updated market research

Trusted by 12,000+ entrepreneurs, consultants and investors

Download an expert-built 30+ slides Powerpoint business plan template

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary introduces your manufacturing business plan, offering a concise overview of your manufacturing facility and its products. It should detail your market positioning, the range of products manufactured, the production process, its location, size, and an outline of day-to-day operations.

This section should also explore how your manufacturing business will integrate into the local and broader markets, including the number of direct competitors within the area, identifying who they are, along with your business’s unique selling points that differentiate it from these competitors.

Furthermore, you should include information about the management and co-founding team, detailing their roles and contributions to the business’s success. Additionally, a summary of your financial projections, including revenue and profits over the next five years, should be presented here to provide a clear picture of your business’s financial plan.

Make sure to cover here _ Business Overview _ Market Overview _ Management Team _ Financial Plan

Dive deeper into Executive Summary

Business Overview

Facilities & equipment.

Describe your manufacturing facility. Highlight its design, capacity, and technology. Mention the location, emphasizing accessibility to transport routes. Discuss advantages for efficiency and cost management. Detail essential equipment and its capabilities.

Operations & Supply Chain

Detail product range. Outline your operations strategy for efficiency and scalability. Discuss supply chain management. Highlight sourcing of materials, inventory control, and logistics. Emphasize strong partnerships with suppliers and distributors.

Make sure to cover here _ Facilities & Equipment _ Operations & Supplies

Market Overview

Industry size & growth.

Start by examining the size of the manufacturing industry relevant to your products and its growth potential. This analysis is crucial for understanding the market’s scope and identifying expansion opportunities.

Key Market Trends

Proceed to discuss recent market trends , such as the increasing demand for sustainable manufacturing processes, automation, and advanced materials. For example, highlight the demand for products that utilize eco-friendly materials or energy-efficient production techniques, alongside the rising popularity of smart manufacturing.

Key Competitors

Then, consider the competitive landscape, which includes a range of manufacturers from large-scale enterprises to niche firms. For example, emphasize what makes your business distinctive, whether it’s through advanced technology, superior product quality, or specialization in certain manufacturing niches. This section will help articulate the demand for your products, the competitive environment, and how your business is positioned to thrive within this dynamic market.

Make sure to cover here _ Industry size & growth _ Key competitors _ Key market trends

Dive deeper into Key competitors

First, conduct a SWOT analysis for your manufacturing business. Highlight Strengths such as advanced production technology and a skilled workforce. Address Weaknesses, including potential supply chain vulnerabilities or high production costs. Identify Opportunities like emerging markets for your products or potential for innovation in production processes. Consider Threats such as global competition or economic downturns that may impact demand for your products.

Marketing Plan

Next, develop a marketing strategy that outlines how to attract and retain customers through targeted advertising, trade shows, digital marketing, and strategic partnerships. Emphasize the importance of showcasing product quality and technological advantages to differentiate your business in the market.

Finally, create a detailed timeline that outlines critical milestones for your manufacturing business’s launch, marketing initiatives, customer acquisition, and expansion goals. Ensure the business progresses with clear direction and purpose, setting specific dates for achieving key operational and sales targets.

Make sure to cover here _ SWOT _ Marketing Plan _ Timeline

Dive deeper into SWOT

Dive deeper into Marketing Plan

The Management section focuses on the manufacturing business’s management and their direct roles in daily operations and strategic direction. This part is crucial for understanding who is responsible for making key decisions and driving the manufacturing business toward its financial and operational goals.

For your manufacturing business plan, list the core team members, their specific responsibilities, and how their expertise supports the business.

Financial Plan

The Financial Plan section is a comprehensive analysis of your financial projections for revenue, expenses, and profitability. It lays out your manufacturing business’s approach to securing funding, managing cash flow, and achieving breakeven.

This section typically includes detailed forecasts for the first 5 years of operation, highlighting expected revenue, operating costs and capital expenditures.

For your manufacturing business plan, provide a snapshot of your financial statement (profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow statement), as well as your key assumptions (e.g. number of customers and prices, expenses, etc.).

Make sure to cover here _ Profit and Loss _ Cash Flow Statement _ Balance Sheet _ Use of Funds

Privacy Overview

Strategic Business Plan

I. executive summary.

Company Name: [YOUR COMPANY NAME]

Address: [YOUR COMPANY ADDRESS]

Email: [YOUR COMPANY EMAIL]

Phone: [YOUR COMPANY NUMBER]

Website: [YOUR COMPANY WEBSITE]

Social Media: [YOUR COMPANY SOCIAL MEDIA]

[YOUR COMPANY NAME] envisions becoming a leading provider of sustainable technology solutions, focusing on renewable energy and eco-friendly products. Over the next five years, our strategic objectives include expanding our product line, entering new markets, and fostering strategic partnerships to drive sustainable growth and contribute positively to environmental conservation efforts worldwide.

II. Company Overview

[YOUR COMPANY NAME] , founded in [Year] , pioneers advanced solar energy solutions for homes, businesses, and industries. Our cutting-edge products maximize energy efficiency, reduce carbon footprints, and offer tailored energy audits for seamless transitions to cleaner power, ensuring substantial cost savings. With ongoing research and development, we lead innovation to meet evolving customer needs and drive sustainable practices. Join us in shaping a greener future with our renewable energy solutions.

III. Market Analysis

Industry Overview: The renewable energy sector, fueled by environmental concerns and government incentives, has seen rapid growth. Solar energy stands out for its scalability and cost-effectiveness.

Market Size: The global solar energy market exceeds $100 billion, growing at a robust rate of around 20% annually due to sustainability initiatives and reduced reliance on fossil fuels.

Customer Segments: Our focus spans residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, each seeking reliable solar solutions for cost savings, sustainability, and regulatory compliance.

Market Needs: Customers require high-quality, efficient solar products and comprehensive energy services to optimize usage, reduce waste, and transition smoothly to renewable energy sources.

IV. Competitive Analysis

A. major competitors.

SolarTech Solutions: Offers a wide range of solar panels and inverters for residential and commercial use.

GreenPower Innovations: Specializes in solar energy systems for large-scale industrial applications.

SunEnergy Corp: Provides integrated solar solutions including energy storage systems and consultation services.

B. Competitor Products/Services

SolarTech Solutions: Residential and commercial solar panels, inverters, and energy monitoring systems.

GreenPower Innovations: Industrial-grade solar panels, inverters, and customized energy solutions for factories and warehouses.

SunEnergy Corp: Solar panels, energy storage systems, and comprehensive energy audits for businesses and municipalities.

C. Competitive Advantages

[Your Company Name] differentiates itself through advanced solar panel technology, offering higher energy conversion rates and durability.

Our comprehensive energy audits and consultation services provide added value, helping clients optimize energy usage and maximize cost savings.

Strong partnerships with leading suppliers ensure access to top-quality components and competitive pricing, enhancing our market position.

D. Barriers to Entry

High initial capital investment and R&D costs act as significant barriers for new entrants.

Established brand reputation and customer trust are crucial, requiring time and effort to build.

Regulatory compliance and industry certifications are essential, creating hurdles for newcomers without prior experience.

V. Marketing Strategy

A. Branding

Brand Identity: Establish a strong brand identity centered around sustainability, innovation, and reliability in renewable energy solutions.

Brand Messaging: Communicate our commitment to environmental stewardship, cutting-edge technology, and customer satisfaction across all marketing channels.

Visual Identity: Develop a cohesive and appealing visual identity through logos, colors, and design elements that resonate with eco-conscious consumers.

B. Market Positioning

Target Segments: Tailor marketing messages to resonate with residential, commercial, and industrial customers, highlighting specific benefits and cost savings relevant to each segment.

Competitive Differentiation: Highlight unique selling points such as advanced solar panel technology, comprehensive energy audits, and superior customer service to differentiate from competitors.

Value Proposition: Emphasize the long-term benefits of investing in our solar energy solutions, including reduced energy costs, environmental impact, and energy independence.

C. Pricing Strategy

Value-Based Pricing: Align pricing with the value delivered, considering factors such as energy savings, product quality, and added services like energy audits.

Tiered Pricing: Offer tiered pricing packages based on customer needs and scale of installations, providing flexibility and affordability for different market segments.

Promotional Pricing: Implement occasional promotional pricing or bundle discounts to incentivize new customers and drive sales during peak seasons or events.

D. Sales Strategy

Consultative Selling: Train sales teams to adopt a consultative approach, understanding customer needs, educating on benefits, and offering tailored solutions.

Partnerships: Collaborate with builders, contractors, and energy consultants to expand reach and access new customer segments through referrals and joint promotions.

After-Sales Service: Focus on excellent after-sales service, including maintenance contracts, warranties, and customer support, to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

E. Distribution Channels

Direct Sales: Utilize direct sales teams for B2B and large-scale residential installations, offering personalized consultations and project management services.

Online Platforms: Establish a user-friendly e-commerce platform for smaller residential installations, providing product information, pricing, and online purchase options.

Retail Partnerships: Partner with home improvement retailers or solar energy distributors to showcase products and reach customers in high-traffic retail locations.

VI. Operations Plan

Location & Facilities: Our headquarters are strategically located in [City, Country] , featuring modern office spaces for administration and a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility for solar panel assembly and testing.

Technology: We leverage advanced solar panel technologies, including monocrystalline and polycrystalline cells, with efficiency rates exceeding industry standards. Our energy management systems incorporate IoT technology for remote monitoring and optimization.

Equipment and Tools: Our production facility is equipped with automated solar panel assembly lines, quality control testing equipment, and specialized tools for installation and maintenance services.

Inventory: We maintain a comprehensive inventory of solar panels, inverters, energy storage systems, and related components to meet customer demands promptly and efficiently.

Suppliers and Vendors: We have established partnerships with reputable suppliers for solar cells, inverters, mounting hardware, and other critical components, ensuring consistent quality and timely deliveries.

Logistics and Distribution: Our logistics network encompasses efficient warehousing, transportation, and distribution channels to serve local and international markets. We collaborate with logistics partners to streamline shipping, reduce lead times, and optimize supply chain operations.

VII. Organizational Structure

A. management team.

CEO: Sets vision and long-term goals

COO: Ensures smooth operations and resource allocation

CTO: Oversees product development and innovation

CFO: Manages financial planning and analysis

CMO: Drives marketing strategies and customer engagement

B. Staffing Needs

We require skilled professionals in solar engineering, sales and marketing, operations management, finance, and customer support. Additionally, technical teams for R&D, installation, and maintenance are essential for our operations.

C. External Support

We engage legal advisors for compliance and contracts, IT consultants for digital infrastructure maintenance, and HR consultants for talent acquisition and employee relations. Collaborating with industry experts and associations also strengthens our network and industry knowledge.

VIII. Financial Projections (Year 1)

Income Statement: $7 200 000

Cash Flow Statement: $9 200 000

Balance Sheet (End of Year 1): $7 300 000

These figures represent the financial performance and position of the company at the end of the first year of operations. The positive cash flow indicates healthy liquidity, while the balance sheet reflects the value of assets held by the company after accounting for liabilities. Adjustments and analysis based on these figures can guide future financial planning and decision-making.

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Talent and Performance Management Service - IT Services #201

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The Mission of McGill University is the advancement of learning and the creation and dissemination of knowledge. This mission is achieved via offering the best possible education to McGill’s students, carrying out research and scholarly activities judged to be excellent by the highest international standards, and providing best in class services to the society.

Currently, our employees’ performance evaluations are being performed manually without a standard process, and the documents are not kept digitally in one central location. Also, Talent management is nonexistence within the university. Therefore, the objective is to incorporate and implement modern, scalable, and unified digital solutions to meet the orientations and objectives of the university.

Also, this will better align with the following parts of the IT strategic plan:

- Unified digital experience 

• Optimize and unified the performance management process 
• Define and implement the talent management solution.

- Strategic decision making

• Centralize data to be able to have a better view on the university talent requirements.

Our Organization is planning to acquire the following goods ..

Please read the following information carefully :, sustainable procurement.

The businesses with which the University will contract with in the course of this project will have respect the  McGill Supplier Code of Conduct.

Other requirements may apply, such as (for example): the quantification and limiting of GHG emissions over the contract or asset lifecycle, sustainable construction/product certifications, involvement of indigenous businesses or of social economy businesses, design for circularity, and so on.

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