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The Definitive Guide to Annual Planning for Business Owners

In the relentless bustle of the business world, an annual plan stands as your company’s compass, mapping out the pivotal landmarks and routes for the fiscal year ahead. This extensive guide is tailored to the diligent business owners who understand the essence of strategic planning in steering their ventures towards growth and success.

Navigating through the intricate process of annual planning can seem daunting at first, especially when the workload and complexities of day-to-day operations threaten to overshadow the long-term strategic vision. Yet, it is through the rigors of planning that the most successful businesses find their roadmap to prosperity.

From setting clear, measurable targets to aligning your financial forecast with your operational capacity, we cover the vital steps and principles that will fortify your business for the year ahead. In the pages you’re about to read, you will unfold:

• Why annual planning is imperative for sustainable business growth
• A step-by-step breakdown of the annual planning process
• How to avoid common strategic planning pitfalls
• Ready-to-use templates to kickstart your annual planning with confidence

Business owners set the foundational tone for their company’s future trajectory, and annual planning is the bedrock upon which that direction is built. Join us as we craft an annual plan that promises not merely to guide but to transform and invigorate your enterprise.

What Is Annual Planning?

Annual planning isn’t just a once-a-year exercise to set company goals and initiatives; it is a comprehensive framework that crystalizes strategic objectives into actionable items for every department and level of your business.

It’s a cyclical process that should inform and adapt to your day-to-day operations while charting your business’s growth trajectory over a 12-month period.

The planning is an exercise in mindfulness, requiring a thorough understanding of your business’s current state and a visionary approach to where you’d want it to be. This proactive mindset entails foresight, adaptability, and a touch of audacity to stretch your business beyond its current constraints.

ROI , productivity, and market expansion all sound great on paper, but without a solid plan to turn these aspirations into reality, they remain mere wishful thinking. Annual planning gives you that plan — one that is wound through with the threads of accountability and strategic direction.

A well-crafted annual plan:

• Align your team toward common goals
• Enhances resource allocation
• Identifies and mitigates risks
• Provides a benchmark for evaluation and benchmarking

Why is Annual Planning Important?

Annual planning is not just a business trope; it’s a survival skill in the fast-paced, competitive landscape. Here are compelling reasons why it should be a top priority for business owners:

• Goal Clarity : It doesn’t get more clear-cut than annual planning for setting down company-wide goals and the means to achieve them. The clarity in business objectives streamlines operations, fosters innovation, and unifies employees under a common purpose.
• Strategic Focus : In the whirlwind of quarterly results and daily challenges, strategic focus can wane. Annual planning provides precision in strategic initiatives, ensuring that you’re not just working but working towards your company’s long-term success.
• Resource Alignment : Every business has a finite amount of resources, from manpower to capital and time. Aligning these resources with a strategic annual plan ensures maximum impact and return on investment.
• Risk Mitigation : The business environment is fraught with uncertainties. Strategic planning anticipates risks and prepares contingencies to minimize disruptions.
• Accountability and Benchmarking : A documented plan holds you and your team accountable. It sets the rubric against which performance can be measured and improvements can be tracked.

Done thoughtfully, annual planning can elevate your business from reactive to proactive, fortifying its resilience and readiness for the future.

The Benefits of The Annual Planning Process

What does annual planning bring to the table? Here’s a taste of the benefits:

• Enhanced Decision-Making : A strategic plan guides your decisions. When in doubt, you can refer back to your objectives, aligning your choices with your long-term strategy.
• Financial Clarity : A detailed annual plan supports budgeting and financial forecasting, ensuring that your fiscal strategy aligns with your business goals.
• Enhanced Team Performance : Employees value a clear direction and purpose. An annual plan provides this, leading to increased motivation, engagement, and productivity.
• Improved Market Adaptability : With a yearly plan incorporating market analysis, your business will be better equipped to pivot in response to shifts in customer behavior and market dynamics.

Annual planning offers a host of benefits that trickle down from the strategic level to everyday business interactions. It brings cohesion, purpose, adaptability, and foresight to your business.

5 Steps To Build An Annual Plan

Step 1: reflect on the past year.

Begin your planning process by looking back at the past year. What were your achievements and disappointments? What lessons can you carry forward? A SWOT analysis — identifying your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats — can be instrumental in this step.

Step 2: Define Your Objectives

What are your strategic objectives for the coming year? These should be high-level goals that address the SWOT analysis results and enhance business growth.

Step 3: Break Down Objectives into Key Results

Chunk your objectives into measurable key results. Each key result should have specific metrics, a timeline, and an owner responsible for its completion.

Step 4: Develop Strategies and Initiatives

For each key result, define the strategies and initiatives that will help you achieve them. Consider market dynamics, competitor action, and internal capacity in crafting these.

Step 5: Communicate, Implement, and Monitor

Communicate your annual plan across the organization. Implement the strategies through a series of tactical initiatives and monitor progress against your key results religiously, making adjustments as necessary.

4 Templates for Annual Plans

The traditional strategic plan:.

This template is perfect for those business owners who prefer the established structure of a strategic plan, featuring sections on vision and mission, environmental scanning, strategy formulation, strategy implementation, and evaluation and control.

The Results-Oriented Plan:

Focused more on outcomes than processes, this plan template centers on key results and the methods to achieve them. It’s ideal for businesses that set and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) rigorously.

The Lean Plan:

A stripped-down approach to traditional planning, the lean template is for businesses with a more fluid, rapidly-changing environment. It emphasizes a concise, living document updated frequently.

The One-Page Business Plan:

This ultra-simplified template distills the essence of your annual plan onto a single page. It encapsulates your business’s vision, mission, objectives, and strategies, serving as a quick reference for you and your team.

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Conducting Annual Strategic Planning

Failing to include key stakeholders:.

A strategic plan crafted in an echo chamber is prone to blind spots. Engage with your workforce, community, and industry experts to gain diverse perspectives.

Overcomplicating the Plan:

Annual plans are tools for communication and alignment. A plan that’s too dense and complex can discourage engagement and comprehension.

Inadequate Focus on Implementation:

Fancy strategies on paper amount to nothing if they’re not implemented. Your annual planning should give equal weight to implementation and monitoring.

Ignoring the Competition:

Market positioning is a dynamic equilibrium. Understand and assess your competition to refine your strategies effectively.

Neglecting to Build in Flexibility:

Your business environment can change rapidly. A rigid annual plan can quickly become obsolete. Ensure your plan is adaptable, with built-in space for tactical shifts.

Setting Unrealistic Goals:

Your annual plan is only as good as the realism of its goals and timelines. Unrealistic objectives can demoralize your team and disillusion your stakeholders.

Underestimating Communication:

A common strategic vision is a powerful glue for your teams. Regular, transparent communication about the plan’s progress is essential to maintain this cohesion.

Crafting an annual plan is no small feat, and the complexities and variables involved can sometimes seem overwhelming. However, with the right framework and resources, you can create a plan that not only steers your company’s course but ignites its potential.

Engage with this guide as your virtual strategic advisor and start drafting the roadmap to your business’s great tomorrow. The time and effort invested in annual planning will be the seeds from which your business’s future grows.

To learn more about developing an annual plan and other strategic strategies and formulations, contact Strategy Capstone!

Annual Business Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide

As the year winds down, it’s a pivotal time for businesses to reflect, analyze, and plan for the year ahead. End-of-year annual business planning is more than a mundane task—it’s a stepping stone for future success. 

It’s about setting clear objectives, aligning your team, and ensuring your resources are well-allocated to meet the upcoming challenges and opportunities. Through a thoughtful planning process, you can set a solid foundation for growth, adaptability, and continued success. 

Read on as we delve into the essential steps and considerations to make your annual business planning both effective and strategic.

What Is Annual Planning? 

At its core, annual planning is like crafting a roadmap for the journey ahead—drawing from the experiences of the past. 

So, what should this roadmap include?

• Destination Points: The goals you envision your team reaching.
• The Route: The overarching strategy that guides the way to those goals.
• Travel Itinerary: Specific tactics or steps your team will undertake.
• Signposts: Essential milestones that mark your progress and keep you on track.

With this blueprint, the path to success becomes clearer, ensuring everyone knows the direction and the stops along the way.

When Should You Start Annual Planning?

There’s wisdom in the adage: “The early bird catches the worm.” Being that early bird in your annual planning process can set you miles ahead as you dive into a fresh fiscal year. A head start in Q4, as opposed to a frantic rush post-holidays, can be the game-changer. It’s akin to prepping for a marathon – would you rather start training months in advance or cram all your sessions into the final week?

Starting earlier boasts twofold advantages:

• By stepping ahead of the curve, you sidestep the typical year-end frenzy, replacing last-minute scrambles with calculated strategy.
• An efficient early planning session involving your leadership allows other teams to continue their momentum on critical Q4 projects without distraction.

The Power of the Annual Plan: Why Teams Need It

Early annual planning is essential for setting a clear path for your business. Having an annual plan helps in the following ways:

• Alignment & Cohesion: A shared understanding of the broader vision and individual roles fosters unity, collaboration, and collective drive towards success.
• Anticipate Challenges: By planning ahead, teams can identify potential obstacles and develop proactive solutions, rather than reacting hastily in the moment.
• Milestone Tracking: With set benchmarks in the annual plan, teams have a clear roadmap to track progress, celebrate achievements, and stay motivated.

In essence, an annual plan isn’t just a document; it’s a commitment to vision, strategy, and teamwork.

5 Steps for Annual Business Planning

1. reflect on the previous year’s performance.

Evaluate how the past year measured up to the targets set. Analyze whether goals were met, and if not, understand why. If goals were easily achieved, consider raising the bar for the upcoming year. If they weren’t met, assess whether the goals were too ambitious or if the strategy needs to be adjusted.

2. Identify the goals you want to achieve in the upcoming year

Your annual plan should align with your broader strategic LRP (long range plan) vision for the next three to five years. Identify key focus areas for the upcoming year and turn them into actionable objectives. Use methods like OKR, KPIs, or SMART goals to clearly define these objectives.

3. Create an action plan to achieve goals

With the goals set, outline the steps necessary to achieve them. This action plan should detail tasks, deadlines, and responsibilities. Assign roles and ensure each team member understands the importance of their tasks within the bigger picture.

4. Communicate the annual plan to all team members

Share the annual plan with all team members, ensuring they understand and are aligned with the vision for the year. It’s not just about sharing information, but inspiring the team to work together towards the common goals.

5. Execute your strategy, monitor metrics, and adjust as needed

Execute the strategy, keep track of key metrics, and be ready to make adjustments as needed. Business conditions change, and being able to adapt the plan while keeping on track towards the goals is crucial for success.

What to include in an Annual Plan?

A good annual plan begins with setting clear, achievable objectives that are in alignment with the long-term vision of the business. The plan should then break down these objectives into actionable tasks with assigned responsibilities, like setting quarterly sales targets for each team. 

Clear, Measurable Goals

Defining specific, quantifiable objectives is crucial. For instance, instead of vaguely aiming to “increase sales,” set a clear target like “15% growth in sales, measured by TCV, compared to the previous year.”

Actionable Strategies

Detailing the path to achieve these goals is the next step. For achieving sales growth, strategies such as “upsell 20% of the North American customer base to upgrade 1-2 subscription levels” or “break into two new regional markets to expand the hardware product line” can be laid down.

Detailed Timeline

Having a definitive timeline with deadlines and checkpoints ensures timely progress. For example, set milestones like “market research by end of January; prototype testing by March; official launch in June.”

Allocation of Resources

Allocating necessary human, financial, and technological resources for each task is vital. An example could be “dedicating $50,000 from the marketing budget for the Q2 product launch, with the task assigned to the product marketing team.”

Risk Assessment

Identifying potential challenges and formulating contingency plans is wise. This can be assessed by looking at historical data, market projections, and regulatory or legal documentation.

Success Metrics

Determining the criteria for measuring the success of initiatives is crucial. For new product launches, monitoring metrics like monthly sales revenue, units sold, customer reviews, and return rates can provide valuable insights.

Stakeholder Communication

Deciding on the mode and frequency of updates to stakeholders keeps everyone informed and engaged. Standardizing the format of reporting and communications can simplify stakeholder reviews and streamline decision making.

Key Takeaways 

Reflecting on the past year and planning for the future is the only way to build on the success of the past. Your business success is largely driven by the efforts of annual planning, collaboration, and thoughtful strategy.

So, as you step into the planning phase, consider partnering with a digital agency to translate your business objectives into a well-structured, actionable, and successful annual plan. Your roadmap to success could be one consultation away! Contact us today !

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Annual Business Planning Template

Written by Dave Lavinsky

What is an Annual Business Plan?

An annual business plan is a document that sets out the goals and objectives for a company over the course of a year. It provides a roadmap for how the business will operate and achieve its desired results. The best business plan template will help guide you in creating a comprehensive annual plan.

Steps to Create an Annual Plan

There are seven steps to creating an annual business plan:

• Define the company’s overall vision and strategy.
• Set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year.
• Identify the resources needed to achieve these goals.
• Create a timeline for each goal and objective.
• Assign responsibility for each goal and objective to specific individuals or teams.
• Review and revise the plan on a regular basis.
• Each of these steps is important in creating a well-formulated annual plan. Let’s take a closer look at each one.

Defining the Company’s Overall Vision and Strategy

The first step in creating an annual plan is defining the company’s overall vision and strategy. This involves deciding where the company wants to be in the future and outlining the steps needed to get there. It’s important to be realistic in setting these goals and to make sure they are aligned with the company’s overall strategic vision.

Setting Specific, Measurable Goals and Objectives

Once the company’s overarching vision has been defined, it’s time to set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year. These should be attainable but challenging and should align with the company’s overall strategy. Each goal should have a target date for completion, as well as a specific metric that will be used to measure progress.

Identifying Resources Needed To Achieve Goals

Next, it’s important to identify the resources needed to achieve these goals. This includes everything from manpower and funding, to office space and equipment. It’s also important to assign responsibility for each goal/objective to specific individuals or teams. This helps ensure that everyone is aware of their role in achieving the desired results.

Creating a Timeline

Once goals have been defined and resources have been identified, it’s time to create a timeline for each one. This will help keep everyone on track throughout the year and ensure that tasks are completed in a timely manner. A Gantt chart can be helpful in organizing this information visually.

Assigning Responsibility

Finally, it’s important to assign responsibility for each goal/objective to specific individuals or teams. This helps ensure that everyone is aware of their role in achieving the desired results. By assigning clear responsibilities, tasks can be delegated efficiently and everyone will know who is responsible for what outcomes.

Reviewing and Revising Plan Regularly

It’s important to review and revise your annual plan on a regular basis. This ensures that the goals are still relevant and achievable and that the resources required are still available. It also allows for any necessary adjustments to be made if something isn’t working as planned. A good rule of thumb is to review the plan quarterly or more often if needed.

Parts of the Annual Strategic Plan Template

There are four key parts to the annual plan template:

1. Vision and Strategy

The first step is to define the company’s overall vision and strategy. This will provide a framework for all of the other steps in the process.

2. Goals and Objectives

The next step is to set specific, measurable goals and objectives for the year. These should be aligned with the company’s vision and strategy.

3. Resources

The third step is to identify the resources needed to achieve the goals and objectives. This includes things like budget, staff, and materials.

4. Timeline

The fourth step is to create a timeline for each goal and objective. This will help ensure that everything is completed on time and within budget.

The Importance of a Well-Formulated Annual Strategic Plan

The importance of a well-formulated annual plan cannot be overstated. It provides a clear roadmap for the company’s operations and sets forth a clear vision for its desired results. Additionally, it helps to ensure that all employees are aware of the company’s goals and objectives and are working towards the same end.

The Difference between an Annual Plan and A Company’s Broader Strategic Vision

The difference between an annual business plan and a company’s strategic vision is that the former is more focused on the specific goals and objectives to be achieved over the course of a year, while the latter is more concerned with the company’s long-term direction. An annual business plan lays out a roadmap for the company’s operations over the course of a year and sets specific targets to be met. A company’s strategic plan, on the other hand, is more concerned with the overall direction of the business and its long-term goals.

Ultimately the difference between an annual plan and a company’s broader strategic vision is that the former is more focused on the specific goals and objectives to be achieved over the course of a year, while the latter is more concerned with the company’s long-term direction.

Best Practices for Annual Planning

There are a few key best practices that businesses should keep in mind when planning their annual operations.  

First and foremost, it is important to be realistic about what can be accomplished in a year. Businesses should establish achievable goals and objectives, and then create a plan of action to achieve them. This includes setting timelines and specific tasks that need to be completed in order to reach the goal. 

Another key element of effective annual planning is creating a budget and sticking to it. Budgets help businesses stay accountable and track progress toward their goals. 

In addition, effective annual planning should always include regular review and course correction as needed. Businesses should routinely assess their progress, make necessary adjustments, and ensure they are still on track to meet their goals.

When it comes to business annual planning, there are a few best practices that can help your organization make the most of the process. Here are a few tips to get you started:

•  Set realistic goals. It’s important to set realistic goals for your annual planning process – this way, you’re more likely to achieve them. Be honest with yourself about what’s achievable and what’s not, and make sure your team is on the same page.
• Make a roadmap. Once you’ve set your goals, create a roadmap for how you’ll achieve them. This will help keep everyone on track and ensure that you’re making progress toward your targets.
• Use data to inform your decisions. When making decisions about your annual planning, use data to inform your decisions. This will help you make informed choices based on evidence rather than intuition alone.
• Communicate regularly. Make sure to communicate regularly with your team throughout the annual planning process – this will help keep everyone updated on what’s happening and ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal.
• Celebrate successes along the way. Celebrate successes along the way – this will keep everyone motivated and help ensure that the process is fun as well as productive.

Annual Contingency Plan Example

Sometimes it’s helpful to have a contingency plan or clause in case things don’t go as expected. Below is a sample contingency plan.

“In the event that we are unable to achieve our sales goals for the year, we will implement a number of contingency measures. These measures may include reducing our advertising budget, downsizing our workforce, and suspending operations at certain locations. We will only implement these measures if absolutely necessary and we are confident that they will help us to get back on track.”

Strategic Business Plan Example

Below is an example of a strategic business plan.

“Our long-term goal is to become the leading provider of XYZ products and services in our industry. To achieve this, we will need to increase our market share, expand our operations into new markets, and continue to innovate our product offerings. We are confident that we can achieve these goals and become the industry leader.”

Annual Business Plan Template

Executive summary.

The executive summary is a brief overview of the company’s annual plans while taking into account the company’s broader vision. It should include a description of the company, its products, and services, its marketing and sales strategy, its operations plan, and its financial plan.

Company Overview

The company overview section of the annual planning document should provide a brief history of the company, its mission and vision, and its current status.

Products and Services

This section of the annual plans should describe the company’s products and services in detail. It should also include information on the company’s competitive advantages and any new products or services that will be launched in the coming year.

Marketing Plan

The marketing plan section of the company’s strategy should outline the marketing and sales strategy for the entire organization for the coming year. It should include information on the company’s target market, its branding and positioning strategy, its advertising and promotion budget, and its sales goals.

Operations Plan

The operations plan section of the annual business plan should describe the company’s methods for manufacturing, distribution, and other aspects of its operations. It should also include information on the company’s capacity, its supply chain, and its quality control procedures.

Financial Plan

The financial plan section of the annual business plan should include a summary of the company’s financials, the budgetary approval process, contingency plans, as well as the broader visions and plans for funding and investment.

With regards to financials, you want to include past and projected Income Statements, Balance Sheets, and Cash Flow Statements. Also, if you are seeking external financing, document the amount of funding you need and the key expected uses of these funds.

Annual Goals

When creating your business plan, it’s important to set annual goals and objectives. This will help you track your progress and ensure that you’re on track to reaching your long-term goals. Some things you may want to consider when setting your annual goals include:

• Increasing revenue
• Expanding your customer base
• Improving product or service quality
• Reducing costs
• Developing new products or services
• Enhancing marketing efforts
• Expanding into new markets

One of the most important aspects of any business plan is setting annual goals. These goals should be attainable, yet ambitious, and should help to guide your business in the right direction. Some things you may want to consider when setting your annual goals include increasing sales, expanding your customer base, improving productivity or efficiency, reducing costs, or developing new products or services. Whatever your goals may be, make sure to document them and track your progress throughout the year. This will help you ensure that you are on track to meeting your targets and achieving success for your business.

The appendix of the annual business plan template should include any supporting documentation that is relevant to the plan, such as market research reports, financial projections, and product specifications.

Every company should have an annual business plan. This document helps you track your progress, set goals, plan forward, and make necessary adjustments throughout the year related to key results. Without a business plan, it is difficult to make informed decisions about where to allocate your resources or measure your success. If you need help getting started, we have a great business planning template that can get you on the right track. By following our simple tips and using our template, you can create a comprehensive business plan that will help ensure your success in the coming year. 

How to Finish Your Business Plan Template in 1 Day!

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

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

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A 5-Step Guide to Annual Planning for Your Business

With any luck, you were able to take some time off around the holidays to relax and recharge for the New Year. With time to reflect and decompress, you should be entering your next year of business with a fresh set of eyes and new found energy. Make the most out of this feeling by channeling your energy into annual business planning and give your business the direction and momentum it needs to have its best year yet.

Your business plan doesn’t have to be overly complex, but it does need to be organized and give you the framework to map out your next year of business. When we talk to our customers, we find that many business owners find the following five steps to be helpful and easy to navigate for their planning.

Review and Assess

• Pull reports that give you a clear picture of your revenue year over year and month over month. Try to spot trends that help you identify activities you tried that worked well for your business, or things that didn’t. Next, take a look at your closest competitor. While you won’t be able to know what their books look like, you can get a feel for their revenue growth by looking at their marketing efforts, facility upgrades, etc.
• Going through a traditional SWOT analysis is a great way to get a high-level view of your business over the last year that can help you spot obvious next steps and lessons for your annual business planning.

Define Your Purpose: Who are we here for?

• By identifying your most valuable customers you will learn two things. Firstly, you’ll learn what ‘kind’ of customer is the best fit for your business, which will help you determine your target market and a focus for marketing to similar people that are not yet customers. Secondly, you’ll be able to learn more about your best customers and determine the best way to retain them and brand new customers.
• Look at this group of “best customers” and determine what they’re buying and when they’re buying. This information will help you create a strategy for how to serve them better with more products or services that meet their needs. This is also a good time to think of different ways to reinforce your relationship with your customers by providing value through helpful information, coupons, or just a nice email message.
• Think about your most valuable customers, why do you think they are choosing you over your competitor? If you’re not sure, it might be helpful to provide an easy way for your customers to provide feedback into what they like and don’t like about your business, so that you can continue to build on your strengths and learn from your weaknesses.

Outline High-Level Goals

• To succeed, everyone within your organization needs to understand the underlying mission of your business—for the next year and for the long-term. Starting from the top (you) and down, take an honest look at the priorities each person carries: Do those priorities align with the business’ goals? Is that person working on the most impactful priorities, given their unique set of skills and expertise?
• What does your business want to be when it grows up? With that clear picture in your mind start to think about the messaging and the offerings of the company you aim to be and weave that into your current activities to start building momentum behind the direction you want to move.

Make a Plan

• Keep it short and keep it simple. Start with your goals for the upcoming year, figure out what activities need to happen to get to those goals, assign and delegate as a team, making sure everyone understands their priorities and accountability and give your team the autonomy and tools to succeed.
• When your employees understand and believe in the business’ mission, they will feel a sense of purpose. When they understand how that mission can be achieved, they will feel a sense of direction and focus. Talk to your employees, have candid conversations and take that feedback into consideration in your annual business planning and as you think about the long-term vision of your organization.

Measure Success

• Your annual plan is the road map for you and your employees for the next year. That road map needs milestones (deadlines, success metrics) that carry your plan forward through a series of smaller goals that lead into your larger goal of where you want your business to end up by the end of the year.
• While your plan should provide structure, it should also be pliable. Revisit your plan often and make changes when needed. You are the boss of your plan so own it and let it be the tool that helps you feel ‘in control’ and helps drive the success of your business.

Going through the process of creating an annual plan is something that every business owner can benefit from, regardless of the size of the business. If you are a business of one, share your plan with a mentor or someone you respect in your network for feedback. If you are business of many employees, get feedback from your team to create an informed plan that everyone can buy into and get behind.

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The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Strategic Annual Plan

November 19, 2021 - 10 min read

The first step to achieving goals is to come up with an annual plan. A strategic annual plan makes it easier for managers, team leaders, and company owners to execute their vision for growth. Not only does creating an annual plan give you time to reflect on past accomplishments, but it’s also a great way to make ideas actionable. Keep reading to learn more about what annual planning is and how you can create one that has a significant impact on your organization. 

What is an annual plan?

An annual business plan is a set of goals and milestones that guide a company's operations for the year ahead. It helps guide employees and investors in the right direction. For many people, this year's new year begins with a review of their previous year. They then set goals and make plans for the coming year.

Annual planning is a combination of two other important elements: a business plan and an annual plan. 

A business plan is a document that a company or organization uses to set goals and improve performance. It's similar to a belt-tightening exercise.

An annual plan is a strategy that a company uses to set goals and expectations for the coming year . It helps employees visualize where they are headed and how they can get there. The annual plan also sets out a company's long-term goals and helps guide how it will reach these targets.

An annual business plan helps workers set goals and holds them accountable for achieving those goals for the upcoming 12 months.

Then, there’s strategic planning. A strategic planning process helps an organization identify its mission, vision, and strategic goals.

The strategic plan combined with the annual business plan are two key components of a successful strategy. The former provides a framework for the company's goals and intentions, while the latter provides the necessary tools and processes to execute those goals.

Overview of a strategic annual plan

Here is what is typically included in a strategic annual plan: 

• Analysis of past performance. Reviewing your goals can help you identify areas where you can improve and become more productive.
• Budget estimations. Financial projections are often included in budget planning. They help you plan for the coming year and identify the right course of action for your projects.
• A clear vision statement. Expectations must be clearly stated, as well as responsibilities and clear OKRs. Having these elements in place can help keep teams on track and motivated.
• SMART goals . Set specific, measurable goals and deadlines for your company. This will help you measure how far you've come in terms of meeting the key results.
• Buffer room. A well-written annual plan should include space for emergencies as well. Having a contingency plan can help avoid unexpected expenses.

In a nutshell: the annual plan is a strategy used to plan and execute the organization's goals and objectives. It is usually composed of three phases which are strategy, projects, and timing.

The importance of an annual plan

Annual planning helps define what's important to achieving goals and driving performance. An annual plan also helps keep the workforce united and can be used to motivate and retain employees.

A well-written annual plan can help you set the direction for your company while providing the team with a sense of direction.

Examples of annual strategic planning

Here are some ideas to get you started with your own strategic annual plan: 

1. Coca Cola HBC 2020 Integrated Annual Plan  

Coca-Cola's 246-page report details all aspects of their business. They start by celebrating their wins with statistics. They also include photos of actual customers and partners. Their CEO writes a letter to their stakeholders sharing their biggest accomplishments over the past year. 

Then they go through their vision. Throughout the strategy, you can see that they are using the pillar method for goal planning. Key areas of focus include leveraging existing business, continuing to win the beverage marketplace, making competitive investments, focusing on employee growth, and expanding their licensing.

The overall report is designed well and is reminiscent of a well-crafted white paper. Because the CEO's letter was addressed specifically to stakeholders, we know that this is a tool for increasing investment as well as project planning. Because of this, a lot of the content within it answers the question, “why should I invest in you?”

Throughout the rest of the annual plan, each pillar gets its own section. At the top of each section, there is a list of accomplishments from the past year and priorities for the coming year. They also summarize risks, stakeholders, and KPIs. This makes the packet easy to skim but also easy to remember.

2. pep+ (PepsiCo Positive)

PepsiCo recently announced that their new 2022 initiative will revolve around “the planet and people.” While this is a long-term process for the brand, the launch will mark the core of their strategic annual plan for the foreseeable future. Their keywords include positivity (hence the “+”), sustainability, and “a fundamental transformation of what we do and how we do it.” 

On their dedicated landing page, readers can dig deeper into their annual plan. Also well designed, this presentation shows what the future looks like for PepsiCo through refreshed branding and imagery. Symbols such as smiling farmers and healthy, green fields drive the message home. 

To achieve these new goals, the company will focus on supply chains, inspiring consumers, and driving sustainable change among all its product lines. 

They link several documents throughout the report, including a comprehensive list of goals which is a great example for your own annual plan template inspiration. This three-page chart names pillars on the left-hand side and targets or actions with due dates on the right. 

If their goals have numerical metrics, they include data from past years, along with key benchmarks they hope to reach by the end of the year or in the future. Otherwise, their goals are measured in actions. 

For example, as part of their sustainability pillar, they plan to “develop and deploy disruptive sustainable packaging materials and new models for convenient foods and beverages.” This task is specific and clear, despite the fact that it’s not as quantifiable as some of their other goals. 

3. Nestlé Global’s Annual Report 

Their annual plan is not public but they have shared an annual report on past wins from 2020. In addition to a financial review, Nestlé also shares a new strategy. Starting with important facts and figures the company highlights statistics from organic sales growth and more. They also visualize data about which types of products are selling most and where in the world the company has grown over the past year.

As Coca-Cola did, Nestlé also includes a letter to shareholders. They discuss ways in which they plan to grow in the coming year. This includes what product areas they will invest more in and where they will pause or halt efforts. They also emphasize a new product area which will be the focus moving forward in the short term. In this section, Nestlé touches on long-term strategies and how these short-term goals will affect them. 

In general, their annual report focuses on the word innovation. It mostly has to do with developing new products and revamping old ones. Like PepsiCo, they are using sustainability as a pillar as well as e-commerce.

The report goes on to elaborate on each strategy individually. Nestlé lists action steps and provides clear evidence as to why each is important. They also highlight statistics for growth in key areas and name even bigger numbers for where they hope to be in a year. 

Throughout the report, they include images from ad campaigns that demonstrate the change they wish to continue implementing as part of their marketing plan . Again, branding imagery makes a big difference when creating your own strategic annual plan. It sets the tone for what's written on the page and can help visual learners better understand what you're going for at a glance. 

Although Nestle's strategic annual plan is designed more like a white paper than a chart, this layout is the most magazine-like by far. It serves as a great example of how you can organize ideas on the page in a way that is interesting and attention-grabbing.

One of the most notable aspects of their annual plan is the Materiality Matrix. They use this chart to visualize key areas of interest and prioritize them according to stakeholder values. Within each box, they’ve listed bullet points of business areas this value will impact. It’s a great method for summarizing goals that cover a wide variety of departments and business engagements. 

Understanding strategic planning best practices

Everyone has their own way of thinking about annual plans. Regardless of what you’re trying to achieve, the following strategic planning best practices will help you get there: 

1. Use SMART goals

A variety of SMART goals are commonly used to help guide and motivate people. They help set realistic benchmarks and are designed to help teams achieve success. It will also help you plan for the ups and downs of your business. To reach your goals, divide them up into smaller goals and set specific deadlines. These goals will help you measure how successful you are at reaching them.

2. Include contingencies

For example, having an emergency financial reservoir is a good idea to prevent a potential financial disaster. It can help your company navigate slower seasons while still sticking to your annual plan. 

3. Build in flexibility 

Even minor shifts in external factors can significantly impact on how effective you are at creating and implementing your strategic plan. Never forget that, while we are creating our annual plans in a vacuum, the world will undoubtedly go through more changes this coming year. Even though we can’t predict the future, we can make our plans foolproof by being flexible now. 

What is an annual plan template?

An annual plan template is a document or tool that can be utilized repeatedly to outline the various stages involved in creating an annual plan.

Its purpose is to provide a clear understanding of the annual planning process by specifying the actions to be taken and the timeline to follow in order to develop an effective business plan. By utilizing the annual planning template, individuals or organizations can ensure that they have a systematic approach to reaching specific goals, and can enhance the quality of their business plans.

Using Wrike to assist with an annual plan template

Wrike’s project management software can help you keep track of all your company-related information in one place. It can also streamline your work and help you stay on track. It can also help you keep track of your annual plans and develop a strong strategy.

Start by using last year as a reference. By understanding the issues that affected the previous year, a company can improve its performance in the following year.

Draw reports of time spent per project and see where your team went over or underestimated. Then look at which tasks tend to drain resources the most. Determine whether or not the ROI is worth it moving forward. 

Next, set realistic goals. Reflect on last year's statistics from Wrike Reports and put together a plan with a realistic metric for improvement. 

After, break down big plans into individual steps. Start by focusing on the business goals of the company then outline your key objectives that align with those. Make sure that everyone knows who is responsible for executing and approving each task. 

Draft a Gantt chart that includes each step broken down into relevant tasks. Remember to add deadlines to every action to keep teammates accountable and keep to realistic deadlines.

Then, delegate tasks according to strengths and weaknesses. Use project reporting and individual job performance to assess team members. You may find that those with specialized talent are being tasked with unskilled work when they could help solve major problems elsewhere. 

Don’t forget to involve the whole team. Start early, plan ahead, and keep everyone involved in the process. Doing so will make it easier to overcome obstacles once the projects are underway. 

Additionally, ask them for direct feedback on your ideas for the next year. You will learn from the front line what obstacles they may be facing that will affect the timeline. 

Another bonus of getting your team involved is that it creates more transparency in the workplace. Using Wrike as a part of the process is not only helpful, but the team also keeps learning how to use the system more efficiently as they go. 

Having a work management platform that enables you to plan and execute annual plans is a good idea. Plus, it's also a good idea to use tools that allow you to collaborate and manage complex processes. Create an effective annual plan today with Wrike’s free trial . 

Maria Waida

Maria is a freelance content writer who specializes in blogging and other marketing materials for enterprise software businesses.

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Annual Planning: Plan Like a Pro In 5 Steps (+ Template)

Get ready to take your strategic annual planning game to the next level! This process is essential for companies who want to set a clear direction for the future and ensure everyone is working towards the same goal. 

But, let's be real, executing a killer strategic plan is easier said than done. That's why we're here to help you. 

In this article, we'll dive into the nitty-gritty of annual planning and cover all the tips and tricks you need to know. From involving the right people to communicating your plan like a pro, we've got you covered. 

We'll also share some common pitfalls to watch out for and provide real-life examples to help bring it all to life. 

So, whether you're a seasoned planning pro or just starting out, get ready to learn how to make your annual strategic planning a total success!

In this article, you’ll discover:

What Is Annual Planning?

• The Benefits of The Annual Planning Process

5 Steps To Build A Highly Effective Annual Plan

The only annual planning template you need in 2024.

• 7 Mistakes to Avoid When Conducting Annual Strategic Planning

Build And Execute Your Annual Plan With Cascade 🚀

Annual planning is about turning long-term business goals into short-term action plans for the year ahead. It contains insights from past performance and a clear roadmap with a timeline. This yearly plan should be realistic and achievable, while also being ambitious enough to move the business forward.

Annual planning is your opportunity to take the previous year’s wins, knocks, and lessons and adjust your strategy to help your business grow consistently and become better.

Boilerplate definition aside, imagine if IBM still focused on building business-centric PCs, BMW still only made airplane engines, or Tata focused on producing steel. They wouldn’t be the companies they are today.

Annual planning and regular reviews help you proactively adapt to changes and steer your organization in the right direction to get the business results you want by the end of the year or toward your vision in the future.

The Benefits Of The Annual Planning Process

Whether it’s your IT, supply chain , pricing, marketing, operations , or sales strategy—improving, pivoting, or optimizing your annual planning approach from one year to the next year is non-negotiable. The annual planning process will help you assess the effectiveness of your business strategies and make adjustments to keep up with customer needs and market trends.

An effective annual planning process for the new year can offer:

• Strategic clarity: Annual strategic planning helps define and align goals, mission, and values, leading to more focused and effective decision-making across all levels of the organization. This in turn sets a clear and consistent direction for future initiatives, maximizing the organization's potential to achieve success.
• Focus: By regularly reviewing and updating its strategic plan , your organization stays focused on long-term objectives instead of being constantly sidetracked by day-to-day operations.
• Benchmark performance: An annual strategic planning process helps you measure and track progress on key strategic initiatives , and evaluate the progress made compared to last year.
• Gaps and opportunities: By regularly reviewing your strategic plan, your teams will identify gaps and opportunities for improvement and innovation, which can help you stay ahead of your competition.
• Resource allocation: By aligning your strategic plan with your budget, you can allocate resources that will support your goals and cut costs from misaligned initiatives.
• Engagement and buy-in: Involving key stakeholders in the strategic planning process will increase engagement and buy-in across your organization, leading to a more cohesive and motivated team.

A clear and execution-ready annual plan that focuses on the big picture and pays attention to the details can be the glue that binds your teams together. And this is crucial if you want to reach this year’s goals with greater speed and efficiency. Plus, it’s much better than the alternative of just winging it and hoping for the best!

📚 Recommended read: How To Create An Effective Annual Operating Plan (+Template)

Don’t get us wrong—creating and managing a yearly planning process can be a daunting task. But, with the right approach, you'll be able to get it right and start executing faster. Here's how to do annual planning the right way:

1. Analyze your performance and identify opportunities

Before you set goals , you should do an analysis of your company's current performance, market, and competitors to see where you stand. 

Here are some tools you can use in the process: 

• SWOT analysis
• PESTLE analysis
• Porter’s Five Forces
• Competitive analysis 
• Financial performance of the previous year
• Gap analysis  

A better understanding of your current performance can help you make data-driven decisions in the next steps of the planning process. 

Want to make it fail-proof? Don’t forget to include key stakeholders who will be involved in the day-to-day execution of your annual plan. 

Here’s who should be included in the analysis process: 

• Executive leadership: They are responsible for setting the overall direction and strategy for the organization.
• Department heads and team leaders: They can offer insights into team capabilities and resources. They can provide insight into the specific needs and challenges of their teams and ensure that their operational plans align with the annual plan.
• Employees: Employees often have valuable insights and ideas that can help improve the plan. By involving them in the planning process, you can tap into this wealth of knowledge and potentially identify new opportunities or challenges that may not have been considered otherwise.
• Customers: Customer feedback is critical to understanding the needs and priorities of the target market.
• Suppliers and partners: Depending on the nature of the business, it may be beneficial to involve suppliers and partners in the strategic planning process. They can provide valuable insights into industry trends and potential challenges. 

👉Bonus tip: Don't let analysis paralysis slow you down! Set a timeline, prioritize data, make informed decisions, and don't overthink it. Move into the execution phase as fast as possible. Adapt later.

2. Formulate your strategy 

The data and insights from Step 1 should inform the formulation of your strategy for the coming year. At this point, you should have a clear sense of direction and objectives that your company wants to achieve in the coming year. 

💡 To identify and formulate your strategy, consider the following questions with your team:

• What is the business problem that we are trying to solve?
• What are our core strategic objectives , and how will we measure success?
• What are our key strategic initiatives, and how will we prioritize them?
• What are our key performance indicators , and how will we track progress?
• Are there potential risks , and how will we mitigate them?
• What resources will we need, and how do we allocate them?

Answering these questions will help you test the validity of your strategy and identify any potential gaps or risks that need to be addressed. In this way, you'll build a solid foundation for your annual plan and increase the chances of its successful execution.

3. Build your annual plan

Next, you’ll need to turn your strategy into a detailed roadmap that outlines the steps you’ll take to achieve your annual strategic objectives and goals. 

It’s like taking a map from a broad view of the journey to a more detailed look that zooms in on the roads and landmarks you’ll need to follow to reach your destination.

📝Your annual plan should include the following:

• 🔎 Focus areas: The specific areas of the company or its operations that need improvement.
• 📌Goals and objectives: Specific outcomes the company wants to achieve in its yearly plan. 
• 📈Measures: Deliverables and KPIs to track progress toward your company’s goals and objectives.
• 📤Actions: Specific actions or projects to achieve goals and objectives.
• 😎Owners: Individuals or teams responsible for implementing the actions.
• 📆Due dates: Specific deadlines and milestones throughout the year.
• 💰Budget: Allocating the resources to achieve goals and objectives.

👉Here’s how Cascade can help you:  

Cascade’s strategic planning feature gives your annual planning process a standardized and structured approach that includes all the key elements for success. It helps you set high-level annual goals, break them down into smaller initiatives, and assign owners to drive accountability.

4. Create tight alignment with your teams

If the leadership team’s job is to set high-level company priorities to frame key strategic initiatives, then it’s up to specific business functions or teams to chart out the path to reach those strategic goals .

The first step in ensuring strategic alignment is to clearly communicate the plan to all employees. This can be done through regular meetings, company-wide presentations, and other forms of communication, such as a central location for your annual plan that is easily accessible to your stakeholders.

The key is to make sure that everyone understands the goals and objectives of the plan and how their work fits into the bigger picture.

With Cascade , you can link your annual strategic plan to individual departmental or team plans in a single source of truth. As a result, it's easier to ensure that everyone in the organization is aligned with the goals and objectives and monitor the progress being made toward those goals.

An example of the Cascade alignment view is where you can see how each plan aligns with the company's annual plan and drill down to evaluate performance.

5. Monitor progress and adjust your plan

Gone are the days of static, set-in-stone strategic plans! It's time to embrace flexibility and be willing to make changes as needed. Your annual plan is a flexible, dynamic roadmap that should be adjusted as circumstances change or new information becomes available. The key is to stay focused on your goals and objectives, and be ready to pivot when needed .

Here are some steps that you can take to monitor the annual plan and adapt as needed:

• Set up a system for tracking progress: This can be done using a variety of tools, including spreadsheets, strategy reports , strategic planning software , or status reports . 
• Establish regular review meetings: These meetings can be weekly, monthly, or quarterly, depending on the needs of your organization. The key is to make sure that progress is regularly reviewed and that any issues are identified and addressed in a timely manner.
• Monitor key metrics: Track the most important KPIs that will help you quickly catch underperforming areas and evaluate the success of your annual plan and business strategies. 

If you want to be a savvy business leader, you need to always be monitoring progress, the business environment, and adjusting your plans accordingly. So, let's ditch the rigidity and embrace the flexibility of modern strategic planning and strategy execution! 

With Cascade’s powerful data visualization, you can connect multiple data sources from spreadsheets, project management tools, or business intelligence tools in a single place. You'll be able to uncover powerful insights and deliver accurate reports to help stakeholders make better decisions.

Plus, Cascade's drill-down capabilities allow you to easily explore and interact with your data to gain deeper insights in real time.

Ready for some serious annual planning made easy-peasy? We've got just the thing for you—our annual planning template ! This bad boy is like your own personal planning sidekick, packed with all the goodies you need to align your teams, monitor performance, and rock this year.

Think of it as a one-stop shop for all your annual planning needs. It’s pre-filled with examples that can guide you through the planning process, or you can customize it with your own information.

It’s a great alternative if you want to get out of messy and ineffective spreadsheets. Plus, it's got a super simple layout, so you won't be bogged down by a bunch of unnecessary features. This template can help, regardless of whether you work at a startup or an enterprise-sized company. And no matter the industry you’re in. 

Don't believe us? Give it a try! We guarantee it'll make your annual planning process a whole lot smoother and its execution a whole lot faster. So what are you waiting for? 

Sign up for a free forever plan with Cascade, add the annual planning template to your profile, and level up your game. It’s that simple. 

👉 Click here to get instant access to your annual planning template.

7 Mistakes To Avoid When Conducting Annual Strategic Planning

Alright, before you dive deep into your yearly planning session, let's talk about the elephant in the room: planning and execution mistakes . In this section, we're diving into some of the most common blunders made during the annual planning process, so you can dodge them like a boss. 

• Lack of stakeholder engagement: Failing to involve critical stakeholders in the planning process can lead to a siloed plan that doesn’t align with the organization's capacities, needs, and priorities. 
• Unrealistic goals: Be sure your planning is grounded in your situation's realities and consider your organization's resources, skills, and timelines. This is why it’s crucial that you consult with various stakeholders when planning and executing your strategy. If you need a goal-setting framework, you can check OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Or take a look at these 5 best strategic planning models to help you set SMART goals. 
• Lack of flexibility: View your plan as a flexible roadmap, not a rigid set of rules, and be prepared to adapt as the business environment changes. The “perfect plan” doesn’t exist. As 76% of corporate strategy leaders report significant pivots in strategic plans happening more frequently, you need to be ready to expect the unexpected. 
• Lack of resources: An annual plan that doesn’t consider your team member’s knowledge and skill sets won't result in tangible outcomes. Additionally, ensure that your business has the necessary resources and that your annual plan won’t cause a cash flow crunch.
• Inadequate communication: Clear and transparent communication is crucial for success, so communicate plans to all stakeholders and ensure they understand the goals and how they fit into the organization's overall strategy.
• Lack of follow-through: Nobody wins if your teams aren’t hitting goals, and your strategy is just a document collecting dust. According to Cascade’s Strategy Report , less than 20% of team members review progress weekly. Set up regular progress reviews and take corrective actions as needed. Ignore this pitfall, and you’ll set your strategy up for failure.
• Misalignment between business strategy and team goals: Strategy execution is a team sport, and everyone needs to be on the same page. Share annual business goals with your team leaders and their team members. Let them set their team goals independently, give them feedback, and ensure buy-in early on.

Ready to tackle your annual planning with confidence? 

Remember, the key to success is having a clear plan in a single source of truth, organization-wide alignment, and being flexible enough to adapt when necessary.

And as a final reminder, don't forget to check out our annual planning template! It's the perfect tool to help you structure your plan, get your teams aligned with your strategic priorities, and keep track of your progress so you can adapt quickly if needed. 

So don't miss out, book a demo with one of our strategy experts or sign up today for free , and let's get started!

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How to create a successful annual business plan

Here is what you need to know to create an effective and comprehensive annual plan for your department or company:

What is the purpose of annual planning?

An annual plan acts as a roadmap for your company. Annual planning allows you to go into a new fiscal or calendar year with specific and measurable goals set, budgets finalized, and a plan for how to measure progress on and achieve your company’s organizational and financial goals. Through this process, you develop the vision of where you hope that your company will be at the end of the year and the map of how you will get there.

You can also use annual planning to set goals and plans for individual departments or teams within an organization. Create marketing plans, human resource plans, and more to keep each segment of your business on track, reset your goals, and get your teams aligned towards common goals and initiatives. Since trends, consumer habits, and other factors change frequently, it’s good to create a fresh one-year plan each year.

Annual plans complement strategic planning while providing more short-term (one year) goals that are often tied to financial goals as well as the annual budget. Strategic plans often have more overarching goals that work to advance the company’s mission over three years or longer. Your annual plan will likely include goals that play into these longer-term goals in your company’s strategic plan.

Evaluating existing and prior year goals

Start your process by evaluating your current starting point. Take time to look back at last year’s annual plan and evaluate whether you achieved your set goals or fell short in certain areas. Attempt to determine why you fell short on specific goals and what steps you could take to prevent a repeat of that issue. This will help you set realistic goals for the new year.

This is also a great time to review your company’s:

Mission statement. This is a statement that describes the purpose of your organization. What does your business do and what does it hope to accomplish?

Core values. These are the principles, beliefs, and values that your organization’s culture is built on. These values shape how you do business, and as such, should shape your annual plan.

Strategic plan. Your strategic plan should detail your business plan and long-term goals while taking market conditions into consideration. Your annual plan should complement your overall strategic plan.

Financial reports. Review the prior year’s budget reconciliation, cash flow statements, and year-end reporting. If you have access to budgets or financial forecasts for the upcoming year, review them now. If not, they’ll need to be created later in the annual planning process.

Keep all of these documents handy, as you may need to reference them as you move through the annual planning process.

Create an updated SWOT analysis

It’s also time to update or create a SWOT Analysis chart for your company. A SWOT analysis is typically depicted as a four-quadrant square with the following quadrants:

Strengths. List out the things that your company already does well and your internal strengths. Perhaps you have a large Instagram following with a strong network of influencers promoting your product. Maybe you have unique branding, patents, or technology that set you apart from competitors. This section is your highlight reel from prior years and can also include strengths like new products or developments being released in the new year.

Weaknesses. Now it’s time to consider what can be improved. List out your company’s internal areas of weakness. A good way to identify weaknesses is to look at customer feedback. Do customers like your product but complain about the processing and delivery times? A weakness can also be staffing-related such as high turnover or taking too long to fill open positions. A common marketing weakness may be lack of media mentions or ranking low in Google search results for your product or business type.

Opportunities. These are external opportunities that you can take advantage of in the coming year. Are there new trends or technologies that could boost the success of your business? Is it time to start marketing your products to Gen Z? Are there changes in government regulations or laws going into effect in 2022 that could have a positive impact on your business?

Threats. Explore potential external threats to your company’s growth and success in the coming year. Maybe the current supply chain problems mean that you will have manufacturing or delivery delays in 2022. There could also be legal changes that negatively impact your business. Threats could also come in the form of major competitors or market saturation. Knowing what may threaten your success will help you build a plan to overcome these challenges, so be thorough with your market analysis.

After creating a company-wide SWOT analysis, consider breaking things down even further and creating a SWOT analysis on specific aspects or segments of your business.

For example, a marketing SWOT chart can help you identify what you need to adjust in your marketing strategy for the new year. Many businesses, especially small businesses, may have strong Facebook and Instagram accounts but weaknesses in the area of SEO. Reaching new audiences and market segments through TikTok may be an opportunity if your business has not jumped onto the platform yet. A new year is a great time to do a SWOT and update your ideal customer or target demographics to evaluate opportunities for expansion.

Goal setting with SMART goals

It’s a good idea to start off the new year by setting goals for your employees, departments, and the company overall. This creates trackable metrics to measure your company’s success at each level throughout the year. The best way to create goals is to use the SMART goal system.

Specific. Aim to make your goals specific and to identify who will be involved in the goal. A general goal would be to increase brand awareness. Specific goals would be growing your LinkedIn following to 10,000, obtaining 10 media mentions, or ranking one the first page of Google results for a specific target keyword. Within each of those specific goals you could identify who is responsible for them; a social media manager, PR or media relations team member, an SEO consultant, or in a small business, it may just be a digital marketing manager. Regardless, it’s helpful to define who is involved and who will oversee progress.

Measurable. Define how you will measure the success of each goal. What metric will you use to track progress towards the goal?

Attainable. Your goals should be realistic. They can be somewhat ambitious, but avoid including stretch goals that are unlikely to be achieved within the year with your anticipated staffing levels, budget, and level of consumer awareness. Of course, start-ups would love to score a major investor or have their company go viral and generate a huge amount of buzz with consumers, but unless you have reason to believe either of those is on the horizon, leave out goals that depend on unrealistic or unpredictable events. Also, leave goals that will take several years for your strategic plan.

Relevant. The goals that you set for this year should be relevant to your company’s vision, mission, and long-term objectives. This is why it’s helpful to start the process by looking at your mission statement, vision, and strategic plan.

Time-bound. All goals should have a clearly defined time frame including a specific deadline date. For annual planning, the timeframe may be one year, or you can break your goals down into monthly or quarterly goals and adjust the deadlines as such.

You’ll likely end up with a decently long list of goals for your company. As mentioned in the Specific criteria, breaking down your goals and defining who is responsible for them is important. Try to create goals that span the major business functions of your company such as product, operations, marketing, HR, and leadership . Set company-wide goals and then break them down by teams and later by individual contributors to ensure that everyone knows what goals they need to accomplish in order to help the business meet its overall yearly goals.

Budgeting and financial considerations

An important aspect of annual planning is financial planning. A good business plan should take financial constraints, budgets, and financial goals into consideration and plan accordingly. If you are a start-up and plan to go through a round of fundraising or have other major changes such as going public with an IPO, include those in your annual planning.

Your annual plan should include financial projections for the year. These projections will help you plan for financing needs, changes in cash flow, and evaluate the best timing for new projects or hiring. You’ll want to create sales forecasts to project your expected income. It’s also wise to forecast your anticipated expenses for things like labor, materials. supplies, and overhead.

You’ll also want to verify that you will be able to allocate the funds needed to accomplish the SMART goals that you created earlier. At this point, you may need to revise some of your goals to ensure that they are achievable within your financial constraints. Those that require a larger budget may need to be scaled down or saved for next year.

Contingency planning

Hopefully everything will go as planned, but it’s always good to have a contingency plan in place in case something goes awry. After all, we’ve all seen how unexpected challenges can derail business operations over the past two years.

Plan for potential emergencies or alternate scenarios. Does your annual business plan rely on covid conditions improving in 2022? Create a contingency plan in case there are more hiccups than expected during reopening or the return to the office.

Consider how your business could best handle supply chain issues, unexpected cash flow problems, and major IT or security concerns. If your headquarters is in an area prone to natural disasters such as wildfires or hurricanes, you should always have a plan in place for the safety of your staff, files, as well as assets that would be difficult to replace.

Putting it all together

There are a number of annual business plan templates available online that you can use to craft your final report. Larger companies often use specialized software for their annual business plan. If you plan to use the goals created during the annual planning process for performance management , a software solution may be best so that department leads and individual employees can track their goals throughout the year.

The report should open with an executive summary, although this is actually the last piece that you’ll typically want to write. The executive summary should act as an introduction to and a summary of the full report. Tailor it to your audience depending on whether the plan will be shared with employees, investors, or others.

A description of the product or services including new products, the team, and the company at present may also be included.

Then comes the meat of the report where you explain the goals you’ve created and your plan for achieving and measuring them. Your full report may be separated into marketing planning, financial planning, HR planning for organizational improvement, and other relevant sub-sections. This is where the zoomed-in SWOT analyses and department-level SMART goals will come in handy.

The report should leave the reader with a clear picture of what you will achieve and how you will do it.

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How to Write a Detailed Business Plan, Step-by-Step (Free Templates)

Posted november 14, 2022 by noah parsons.

Writing a business plan is one of the most valuable things you can do for your business. Study after study proves that business planning significantly improves your chances of success by up to 30 percent . That’s because the planning process helps you think about all aspects of your business and how your business will operate and grow.

In fact, writing a business plan is one of the only free things you can do to greatly impact the success and growth of your business. Ready to write your own detailed business plan? Here’s everything you need ( along with a free template ) to create your plan.

Before you write a detailed business plan, start with a one-page business plan

Despite the benefit of planning, it’s easy to procrastinate writing a business plan. Most people would prefer to work hands-on in their business rather than think about business strategy. That’s why, to make things easier, we recommend you start with a simpler and shorter one-page business plan .

With a one-page plan, there’s no need to go into a lot of details or dive deep into financial projections—you just write down the fundamentals of your business and how it works. A one-page plan should cover:

• Value proposition
• Market need
• Your solution

Competition

Target market.

• Sales and marketing
• Budget and sales goals
• Team summary
• Key partners
• Funding needs

A one-page business plan is a great jumping-off point in the planning process. It’ll give you an overview of your business and help you quickly refine your ideas.

If you’re ready to work on your one-page plan, check out our guide to writing a one-page business plan . It has detailed instructions, examples, and even a free downloadable template .

When do you need a more detailed business plan?

A one-page plan doesn’t always capture all the information that you need, however. If that’s the case, then it may be time to expand into a more detailed business plan.

There are several reasons for putting together a detailed business plan:

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

Flesh out the details 

A one-page business plan is just a summary of your business. If you want to document additional details such as market research, marketing and sales strategies, or product direction—you should expand your plan into a longer, more detailed plan. 

Build a more detailed financial forecast

A one-page plan only includes a summary of your financial projections. A detailed plan includes a full financial forecast, including a profit and loss statement , balance sheet , and cash flow forecast —one of the most important forecasts for any business.

Be prepared for lenders and investors

While investors might not ask to actually read your business plan, they will certainly ask detailed questions about your business. Planning is the only way to be well-prepared for these investor meetings.

Selling your business

If you’re selling your business, a detailed business plan presentation will be part of your sales kit. Potential buyers will want to know the details of how your business works, from marketing details to your product roadmap.

How to write a detailed business plan

When you do need to write a detailed business plan, focus on the parts most important to you and your business. If you plan on distributing your plan to outsiders, you should complete every section. But, if your plan is just for internal use, focus on the areas that will help you right now.

For example, if you’re struggling with marketing, spend time working on your target market section and marketing strategy and skip the sections covering the company organization.

Let’s go step-by-step through the sections you should include in your business plan:

1. Executive summary

Yes, the executive summary comes first in your plan, but you should write it last, once you know all the details of your business plan. It is truly just a summary of all the details in your plan, so be careful not to be too repetitive—just summarize and try to keep it to one or two pages at most. If you’ve already put together a one-page business plan, you can use that here instead of writing a new executive summary.

Your executive summary should be able to stand alone as a document because it’s often useful to share just the summary with potential investors. When they’re ready for more detail, they’ll ask for the full business plan.

For existing businesses, write the executive summary for your audience—whether it’s investors, business partners, or employees. Think about what your audience will want to know and just hit the highlights.

The key parts of your plan that you’ll want to highlight in your executive summary are:

• Your opportunity: This is a summary of what your business does, what problem it solves, and who your customers are. This is where you want readers to get excited about your business
• Your team: For investors, your business’s team is often even more important than what the business is. Briefly highlight why your team is uniquely qualified to build the business and make it successful.
• Financials: What are the highlights of your financial forecast ? Summarize your sales goals , when you plan to be profitable, and how much money you need to get your business off the ground.

2. Opportunity

The “opportunity” section of your business plan is all about the products and services that you are creating. The goal is to explain why your business is exciting and the problems that it solves for people. You’ll want to cover:

Mission statement

A mission statement is a short summary of your overall goals. It’s a short summary of how you hope to improve customers’ lives with your products and services. It’s a summary of the aspirations of your business and the guiding north star for you and your team. 

Problem & solution

Most successful businesses solve a problem for their customers. Their products and services make people’s lives easier or fill an unmet need in the marketplace. In this section, you’ll want to explain the problem that you solve, whom you solve it for, and what your solution is. This is where you go in-depth to describe what you do and how you improve the lives of your customers.

In the previous section, you summarized your target customer. Now you’ll want to describe them in much greater detail. You’ll want to cover things like your target market’s demographics (age, gender, location, etc.) and psychographics (hobbies and other behaviors). Ideally, you can also estimate the size of your target market so you know how many potential customers you might have.

Every business has competition , so don’t leave this section out. You’ll need to explain what other companies are doing to serve your customers or if your customers have other options for solving the problem you are solving. Explain how your approach is different and better than your competitors, whether it’s better features, better pricing, or a better location. Explain why a customer would come to you instead of going to another company. 

3. Execution

This section of your business plan dives into how you’re going to accomplish your goals. While the Opportunity section discussed what you’re doing, you now need to explain the specifics of how you’re going to do it.

Marketing & sales

What marketing tactics do you plan to use to get the word out about your business? You’ll want to explain how you get customers to your door and what the sales process looks like. For businesses that have a sales force, explain how the sales team gets leads and what the process is like for closing a sale.

Depending on the type of business that you are starting, the operations section needs to be customized to meet your needs. If you are building a mail-order business you’ll want to cover how you source your products and how fulfillment will work .

If you’re building a manufacturing business, explain the manufacturing process and the facilities you need to use. This is where you’ll talk about how your business “works,” meaning, you should explain what day-to-day functions and processes are needed to make your business successful.

Milestones & metrics

Until now, your business plan has mostly discussed what you’re doing and how you’re going to do it. The milestones and metrics section is all about timing. Your plan should highlight key dates and goals that you intend to hit. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section, just key milestones that you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. You should also discuss key metrics: the numbers you will track to determine your success.

Use the Company section of your business plan to explain the overall structure of your business and the team behind it.

Organizational structure

Describe your location, facilities, and anything else about your physical location that is relevant to your business. You’ll also want to explain the legal structure of your business—are you an S-corp, C-corp, or an LLC? What does company ownership look like?

Arguably one of the most important parts of your plan when seeking investment is the “Team” section. This should explain who you are and who else is helping you run the business. Focus on experience and qualifications for building the type of business that you want to build. 

It’s OK if you don’t have a complete team yet. Just highlight the key roles that you need to fill and the type of person you hope to hire for each role.

5. Financial plan and projections

Your business plan has now covered the “what”, the “how”, and the “when” for your business. Now it’s time to talk about money. What revenue do you plan on bringing in and when? What kind of expenses will you have?

Financial Forecasts

Your sales forecast should cover at least the first 12 months of your business and ideally contain educated guesses at the following two years in annual totals. Some investors and lenders might want to see a five-year forecast, but three years is usually enough.

You’ll want to cover sales, expenses, personnel costs, asset purchases, and more. You’ll end up with three key financial statements: An Income Statement (also called Profit and Loss), a Cash Flow Statement , and a Balance Sheet .

If you’re raising money for your business, the Financing section is where you describe how much you need. Whether you’re getting loans or investments, you should highlight what you need, and when you need it. Ideally, you’ll also want to summarize the specific ways that you’ll use the cash once you have it in hand.

6. Appendix 

The final section of your business plan is the appendix. Include detailed financial forecasts here as well as any other key documentation for your business. If you have product schematics, patent information, or any other details that aren’t appropriate for the main body of the plan but need to be included for reference.

Download a business plan template

Are you ready to write your business plan? Get started by downloading our free business plan template . With that, you will be well on your way to a better business strategy, with all of the necessary information expected in a more detailed plan.

If you want to elevate your ability to build a healthy, growing business, you may want to consider LivePlan.

It’s a product that makes planning easy and features step-by-step guidance that ensures you cover everything necessary while reducing the time spent on formatting and presenting. You’ll also gain access to financial forecasting tools that propel you through the process. Finally, it will transform your plan into a management tool that will help you easily compare your forecasts to your actual results.

Using your plan to grow your business

Your business plan isn’t just a document to attract investors or close a bank loan. It’s a tool that helps you better manage and grow your business. And you’ll get the most value from your business plan if you use it as part of a growth planning process . 

With growth planning, you’ll easily create and execute your plan, track performance, identify opportunities and issues, and consistently revise your strategy. It’s a flexible process that encourages you to build a plan that fits your needs.  So, whether you stick with a one-page plan or expand into a more detailed business plan—you’ll be ready to start growth planning. 

Ready to try it for yourself? Learn how LivePlan can help you use this modern business planning method to write your plan and consistently grow your business.

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Annual Planning: Why Is It So Important?

On a personal level, planning is an essential aspect of everyday life. And when it comes to companies, whether small or large, planning is equally essential. Annual planning is one of the most important activities that companies do every year because it provides an opportunity to set the overall direction of a company by discussing goals, metrics, budget, and performance.  

What Is Annual Planning?

Annual planning can be defined as the process of defining a business roadmap for your company and your employees. It can also be seen as an organization's financial plan for the year, and it is comprised of a series of milestones that help to carry the plan forward through several tasks that lead to a broader vision of where the company aims to be by the end of the year. 

Companies must hold planning sessions to review last year’s performance, as well as specific goals and achievements. These sessions will help to analyze expectations and results from the previous year in order to create an annual plan that gives everyone in the organization a sense of where they’re headed, and where they want to be twelve months from now. 

Is Annual Planning the Same as Strategic Planning?

Strategic planning is about establishing goals to sustain the company’s vision. Is about creating a strategy where the end product is a long-term plan that includes identifying goals, as well as mapping out how exactly those goals will be met. The process of strategic planning involves choosing a methodology, assessing resources, and receiving feedback from both external and internal stakeholders. A strategic plan can also be implemented during the course of years, and not necessarily within one business year. 

To put it simply, the strategic plan will identify the framework for a company to advance on its mission. The annual plan can include goals directly related to the strategic plan but it is largely connected to the budgetary approval process for the next business year, and as such, annual planning is usually conducted by leadership or directors. 

Why Is Annual Planning Important?

A well-formulated annual plan is an opportunity to set the overall direction for your company. It can also help to empower the team by providing a sense of direction. Let’s take a look at the most relevant benefits of annual planning:

• Annual planning generates efficiency because it circles around performance.
• It helps to define what is critical to achieving over the year.
• It delivers clear leadership to employees and it helps to keep the workforce united.
• Employees gain a clear sense of direction in their departments and roles. 
• An annual plan can rally an entire organization around goals. It can also provide a stronger connection to the company’s strategic plan.

What Is Included in an Annual Plan?

Generally, an annual plan will contain the following elements:

Goals. Before you can look forward it’s important to look back. For this, it’s a great idea to review your SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound) goals, they can help to clarify ideas, focus efforts and ensure resources are being used in the most productive manner. Remember, your annual plan should also hold a strong connection to your company’s strategic goals.

Budget. Financial elements are key to annual planning, so it’s important to take into consideration projections for the upcoming 12 months. These projections will help you plan resources, cash flow, and decide the best course of action and timing for individual projects. 

Expectations, responsibilities, and clear OKRs. Goals need to be clearly specified, indicating which teams, individuals, or departments will be responsible for carrying out tasks. Expectations must be exceptionally clear for collaborators. Also, working with well-defined OKRs can help to keep teams on track because they help to provide visibility into what other teams and individuals are working on. It’s all about maintaining the workforce motivated and crystal clear regarding who’s in charge of what. 

Timelines. When measuring performance it’s important to understand how successful your company has been in terms of achieving goals within their deadlines. Split your goals into tasks and set deadlines. 

Contingency plans. A well-formulated annual plan will also consider emergencies. It’s always a good idea to think of alternate scenarios, such as what would happen if suddenly your cash flow would become compromised? 

Values and mission. It’s also instrumental to keep your company’s aspirational future vision in mind when working on your annual plan. 

Annual Planning: 

When it comes to managing annual plans and strategic plans , you need to be on top of everything. A strong annual planning strategy can help to build a company’s broader strategic vision and to set the overall direction of a business roadmap for the next 12 months. However, as you may already know, this process entails keeping track of critical information. This can be an exhausting and difficult process, but it gets easier when you use the right tools. 

Project management software can be a powerful ally for project managers. Instagantt , for instance, allows you to keep information centralized. You can quickly store, update, share, access, and review important company-related information , all in one single place. With gantt charts , you can keep track of your budget and streamline your business plan, making sure you and your team stay on track. Moreover, you can use the same tool to keep track of your strategic and your annual plans, which will help to increase transparency across the organization, keeping track of the key results you’re trying to achieve, and visualizing progress and performance at all times. With the right tools and processes, you can create and execute a strong annual strategy.

Template: Annual Planning Example

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Small Business Annual Planning: A Step-by-Step Guide to Success

As the new year begins, small business owners and startup executives return from holidays to face the realities of running a business. You’re immediately met with a full inbox and the daunting task of setting the course for the year ahead. The dream of a work-life balance seems a distant thought as your workweek stretches ahead.

The solution? Effective annual planning. This guide is your essential tool to turn these overwhelming first weeks into a launchpad for the year. Learn how a well-crafted annual plan can streamline your workload, align your goals, and set the stage for a productive year ahead.

Table of Contents

Why is annual planning important, what should you include in your annual plan , how to create an annual plan: step-by-step guide , common annual planning pitfalls and how to avoid them , save your time for strategic tasks.

• Small business annual planning FAQ

Annual planning is important because it guides you toward your business goals. It’s like the compass of your small business. Businesses that plan ahead often see more success–– 75% of successful companies have a formal and pre-established system to inform on and manage their strategy.

Without a sense of direction, you might lose track of where you're heading. But with clear plans for the year, you know what you're aiming for, whether it's increasing sales or launching new products. 

It keeps you focused and on track, making sure every effort and investment is pushing you in the right direction. Your initial annual planning acts as a benchmark to measure success against at the end of the year 

Finally, the annual planning process is important because it brings your team together. When everyone understands the goals and plans for the year, they can work more effectively. 

This unity is key for small businesses, where teamwork can make a big difference in achieving success. 87% of workers with individual goals tied to company-wide goals say their business is well-prepared to meet customer expectations.

An annual plan serves as a roadmap for your business, guiding you through the year with specific, actionable steps that align with your broader strategic vision. Here’s what to include:

• Connection to strategic planning: Your annual plan should directly reflect the long-term objectives set out in your strategic plan. It translates these broader goals into annual targets, ensuring that every action contributes to your company's overarching vision.
• Previous year's performance analysis: Last year's achievements and challenges provide valuable insights that shape your approach for the coming year.
• Major themes for the year: Identify key themes or focus areas that will drive your business forward. These themes should resonate with your strategic objectives.
• Budget estimates and financial projections: A detailed financial plan is key. It should include budget allocations for different departments and forecasted financial outcomes based on your planned initiatives.
• SMART goals: Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals. 
• Departmental strategies: Outline the strategies each department will employ to achieve their part of the annual goals. This ensures a cohesive and coordinated effort across your organization.
• Milestones for progress tracking: Milestones act as checkpoints to measure progress and adjust strategies as needed. 

Need an actionable guide to creating a new annual plan? Follow these nine steps. 

1. Review the previous year's plan

Start with a look back at the previous year. What worked well? What didn’t? This report sets the stage for your new plan. It helps you understand where you’re starting from and ensures your new goals are grounded in reality.

2. Set major focuses for the year

Your annual plan should outline the major themes or focuses for the year. These are broad areas where you want to see significant progress or change. They should align with your long-term strategy and help to break it down into manageable, yearly chunks.

3. Get input from other departments

Create your annual plan with input from other team members and stakeholders. It should reflect the input and expertise of various departments. Including others guarantees that different perspectives are considered and the plan is realistic and achievable. It also builds a sense of ownership and commitment across the team.

4. Set specific goals

Next, transform your business needs into concrete goals. Use frameworks like SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) and OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) to set your goals. OKRs are great for aligning goals across the company and focusing on measurable outcomes, while SMART goals ensure your objectives are clear and achievable.

5. Craft a detailed action plan

With your goals set, develop a detailed action plan for achieving them. This should include who is responsible for each action, timelines, resources needed, and how you’ll measure success. Break down each goal into smaller, actionable steps. This makes the plan practical and easier to manage.

6. Budget for success

A crucial part of your annual plan is the budget. This includes estimates of your income and expenses, helping you allocate resources and manage cash flow. Accurate financial projections guide your spending and investment decisions throughout the year.

7. Track your progress

Determine the KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and milestones you’ll use to track your progress throughout the year. These are like checkpoints on your roadmap, helping you see how far you've come and what’s left to achieve. Regularly reviewing these milestones keeps your team focused and allows for adjustments if you’re veering off course.

8. Remain adaptable and flexible

Be prepared to adjust your plan as needed. Regular reviews and adaptations based on current data and circumstances will keep your plan relevant and effective.

9. Repeat the annual planning process next year

Finally, repeat this process every year. Each annual plan should align with your broader strategic plan, ensuring continuity in your business direction. This ongoing cycle of planning, executing, and reviewing keeps your business focused and on track for long-term success.

Read more: 13 Ways to Master Your Executive Calendar Management

A successful annual planning session requires a balance of strong project management skills, setting realistic company goals, and properly prioritizing deliverables. 

Here are some common pitfalls to look out for and how to avoid them. 

Lack of stakeholder engagement

• Pitfall: Failing to involve key stakeholders (like team members, department heads, and investors) can lead to a plan that lacks support and diverse insights.
• Avoidance strategy: Actively involve stakeholders in the planning process. Seek their opinions and incorporate their feedback. This ensures broader buy-in and more comprehensive planning.

Setting unrealistic goals

• Pitfall: Goals that are too ambitious can demotivate the team and are often unachievable, leading to disappointment.
• Avoidance strategy: Set realistic, achievable goals using frameworks like SMART. Regularly review and adjust these goals to keep them challenging yet attainable.

Inflexibility in planning

• Pitfall: Sticking rigidly to a plan, even when circumstances change, can lead to missed opportunities and ineffective strategies.
• Avoidance strategy: Build flexibility into your plan. Regularly review external factors and adjust your strategies accordingly. This helps your business stay responsive and agile.  

Inadequate communication

• Pitfall: Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings, misaligned efforts, and a lack of clarity.
• Avoidance strategy: Establish clear, consistent communication channels. Keep everyone updated on progress, changes, and expectations. Effective communication ensures everyone is on the same page.

Strategies for time management

If annual planning feels overwhelming or time-consuming, consider offloading routine tasks to a virtual assistant. This can free up your time for strategic work like annual planning. Virtual assistants can handle administrative tasks, manage emails , schedule meetings, and more, allowing you to focus on the bigger picture.

Clark Morton, partner and senior vice president of the leading insurance brokerage, Woodruff Sawyer, discussed the impact Prialto has had on the team’s efficiency when Prialto assistants took ownership of multiple admin tasks. 

“It got to a point where I had to ask my wife to help me with my expense reports because it was just too much for me to do,” says Morton. “Now, I just flip a quick note to my Prialto assistant Mary Ann, and she takes care of it.”

By working with Prialto virtual assistants, Woodruff Sawyer could save 1000 hours a month. 

Virtual assistants save small business owners from having to take on all the operational and admin tasks. Instead, you can focus your time on effective annual planning and other high-value strategic tasks. Let your Prialto VA handle the grunt work for you and see how much more time you have to focus on growing your business. 

Ready to save hundreds of hours each month? Learn more about how hiring a managed virtual assistant will save you time.

Read More:  4 Time Management Hacks that Will Help You Enjoy the Holidays

Small business annual planning FAQ 

What is annual planning.

Annual planning is the process of setting goals, defining strategies, and allocating resources for a one-year period. This involves reviewing past performance, forecasting future trends, and determining the necessary actions and budgets to achieve organizational objectives within the upcoming year.

  A virtual assistant can also keep track of clients or professional connections who are located in the area you are visiting; in case you want to fit in a networking meetup while on holiday.  

What’s the difference between an annual plan and a strategic plan?

An annual plan focuses on specific goals and actions for a one-year period, often with detailed budgets and short-term objectives. It is typically more tactical and operational. A strategic plan outlines long-term goals and strategies, usually covering three to five years. It emphasizes the broader vision and direction of the organization, focusing on long-term growth and sustainability.

What are the key components of a small business annual plan?

The key components of a small business annual plan include:

• Financial goals and budget: Detailed revenue targets and spending plans.
• Sales and marketing plans: Strategies for market penetration, customer acquisition, and retention.
• Operational plan: Day-to-day operational strategies for efficient business functioning.
• Human resources plan: Staffing requirements and development plans for employees.
• Action plan: Specific actions and timelines to achieve the annual goals.
• Performance metrics: Criteria to measure progress and success of the plan.

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Annual planning template

Every business needs a clear direction. Create an annual planning template to set clear goals and streamline your yearly planning process—so every level of your organization is aligned on what’s important.

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Annual planning is essential to develop a clear strategy and ensure your company, departments, and individual teams are on the same page. But even though it happens every year, annual planning can feel chaotic—with many different stakeholders, deadlines, and decisions that need to be made. 

An annual planning template streamlines the yearly planning process, so you can focus on developing great strategy—not on juggling different planning tasks. 

What is annual planning?

What is an annual planning template .

An annual planning template is a reusable guide that lays out each step in the annual planning process. It helps clarify planning by outlining exactly what you should do—and when you should do it—to craft a successful business plan. For example, your template could include a timeline for strategy sessions, submitting budget and headcount requests, finalizing department objectives, and more.

A great annual planning template also includes space to document company, department, and team goals—so your organization’s North Star is top of mind throughout the annual planning process. With a standardized action plan and visibility into high-level objectives, you can ensure your organization is aligned from the bottom up. 

The benefits of a digital annual planning template

Annual planning often happens at the top of an organization and isn’t effectively communicated to everyone. According to our research , only 16% of knowledge workers say their company is effective at setting and communicating company goals, and only 26% of workers have a clear understanding of how their individual work contributes toward those company goals. 

A digital annual planning template closes this communication gap by setting and tracking yearly goals where work happens. Instead of gathering dust in a spreadsheet, your team and company goals live right next to the work that needs to be done to achieve them. That way, annual planning isn’t just something that happens at the executive level. Instead, it’s an exercise that helps everyone—from the CEO to the summer intern—set measurable goals for their work that align with other teams and your company objectives. 

By consolidating your annual planning process in a work management platform, you can: 

Standardize your strategic planning process across departments and teams.

Create a single system of record for the annual planning process, so everyone is on the same page. 

Ensure company priorities are top of mind when departments and teams set their own annual goals for the new year.

Map out a concrete timeline for your annual planning process.

Assign tasks with specific due dates, so it’s clear who’s responsible for what, by when.

Toggle between project views to visualize your annual business plan in different ways—as a standard list, Gantt chart , calendar, or Kanban board .

How to create an annual planning template

Annual planning looks different at every company. To create your own custom-built template, first ask yourself the following questions: 

Who will be involved in the annual planning process? 

What are the major decisions you need to make, and steps you need to take? 

Who will be making those decisions? 

What is the order in which those decisions need to be made? 

Then, use those questions to fill in a rough timeline. As you map out the annual planning process, use these best practices to build out your template: 

Organize tasks with sections. Keep annual planning steps organized by bucketing them into different sections—like company planning, department planning, and headcount requests. 

Create custom tags to visualize key stages. Annual planning often happens in stages—like pre-planning and strategizing, goal-setting, then allocating resources to achieve those goals. Color-coded custom tags help visualize where each task falls within each annual planning stage.

Indicate which team is responsible for each task. During annual planning, it’s important to know who’s responsible for each step in the process. Label each task with its respective team—like company planning, finance, and HR. 

Include your team and company-wide goals. For annual planning to work, you need constant visibility into high-level company objectives. Include space in your template to set and track business, department, and team goals so you can make sure each level of the organization is aligned. 

Tracking goals in your annual planning template is a great way for individual teams to stay organized, but you can level up your goal-setting process with Asana’s Goals feature . Goals is an organization-wide tool that helps your entire business set, track, and communicate about goals.

Integrated features

Timeline View . Timeline View is a Gantt-style project view that displays all of your tasks in a horizontal bar chart. Not only can you see each task’s start and end date, but you can also see dependencies between tasks. With Timeline View, you can easily track how the pieces of your plan fit together. Plus, when you can see all of your work in one place, it’s easy to identify and address dependency conflicts before they start, so you can hit all of your goals on schedule. 

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. 

Milestones . Milestones represent important project checkpoints. By setting milestones throughout your project, you can let your team members and project stakeholders know how you’re pacing towards your goal. Use milestones as a chance to celebrate the little wins on the path towards the big project goal. 

Start dates . Sometimes you don’t just need to track when a to-do is due—you also need to know when you should start working on it. Start times and dates give your team members a clear sense of how long each task should take to complete. Use start dates to set, track, and manage work to align your team's objectives and prevent dependencies from falling through the cracks. 

Zoom . Asana and Zoom are partnering up to help teams have more purposeful and focused meetings. The Zoom + Asana integration makes it easy to prepare for meetings, hold actionable conversations, and access information once the call is over. Meetings begin in Asana, where shared meeting agendas provide visibility and context about what will be discussed. During the meeting, team members can quickly create tasks within Zoom, so details and action items don’t get lost. And once the meeting is over, the Zoom + Asana integration pulls meeting transcripts and recordings into Asana, so all collaborators and stakeholders can review the meeting as needed.

Vimeo . Text may get the point across, but written words lack tone, emotion, and expression. With video messaging in Asana, powered by Vimeo, you can give your team all the context they need, without having to schedule another meeting. Record short video messages of yourself, your screen—or both—then embed the videos in tasks, projects, messages, and comments to provide additional clarity and context. A transcript of the recording is automatically created by Asana, making it readable and searchable. Give feedback, ask questions, and assign tasks—all without leaving Asana.

Microsoft Teams . With the Microsoft Teams + Asana integration, you can search for and share the information you need without leaving Teams. Easily connect your Teams conversations to actionable items in Asana. Plus, create, assign, and view tasks during a Teams Meeting without needing to switch to your browser.

Google Workplace . Attach files directly to tasks in Asana with the Google Workplace file chooser, which is built into the Asana task pane. Easily attach any My Drive file with just a few clicks.

How should I set goals during the annual 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);}

There are a variety of goal-setting methodologies you can use, including objectives and key results (OKRs) and SMART goals —objectives that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Regardless of the method you choose, make sure you identify key success metrics to track and measure results. That way, you can determine if your business strategy is working—or if you need to do something different. 

It’s also a good idea to evaluate your performance from the previous year when setting business goals. How you did last year is a great benchmark to determine what’s realistic for you to achieve with your new yearly plan.

What types of teams can benefit from this annual planning template?

If you participate in annual planning, this template can help—regardless of whether you work at a small business, startup, or enterprise-sized company. Every department and team should participate in annual planning, and using a template helps standardize the process across your whole company.

When should I use my annual planning template?

The earlier, the better. Start using your annual planning template as soon as your company kicks off the yearly planning process. This often happens in the third quarter, about four months before the start of the new fiscal year. 

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The ultimate guide to annual planning for product teams

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Working with planio, see how our customers use planio.

Free Annual Plan Templates: Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Slides

By Kate Eby | January 17, 2024

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We’ve collected the top annual plan templates in Excel, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Google Slides. Use the templates to build a 12-month strategy that streamlines the annual planning process based on the company’s vision for goal-setting. 

Included on this page, you’ll find an  annual plan slide template , a  yearly planning template with Gantt chart , an  annual planning template with a calendar , and more. You’ll also learn about the  differences between an annual and a strategic plan , as well as  how to create an annual plan .

Annual Plan Templates vs. Strategic Plan

An annual plan and a strategic plan serve different purposes for building and organizing a growth strategy. A strategic plan focuses on a company’s direction and long-term goals. The annual plan defines actionable steps to achieve yearly goals. 

Review the matrix below to understand the differences between an annual plan template and a strategic plan template.

Simple Annual Plan Template

Download a Simple Annual Plan Template for

Excel | Microsoft Word

Ease your way into annual planning with this simple template that organizes any company’s annual goals, objectives, timelines, and budget. Complete the  Overview, Strategies, and  Global Priorities sections to build a foundation for goal-setting. Then use the table to list objectives, timelines, owners, budgets, and statuses. Reuse this template year after year to save time and to streamline the annual planning process.

Annual Plan Slide Template

Download an Annual Plan Slide Template for 

PowerPoint | Google Slides  

Use this annual plan template to outline and present a high-level one-year plan to stakeholders. Objectives are organized by quarters, so it’s easy to follow their timelines. Add more slides, including the company’s marketing plan, sales plan, or strategic plan to create a comprehensive presentation of the company’s overarching goals.

Yearly Planning Excel Template with Gantt Chart

Download the Yearly Planning Template with Gantt Chart in Excel  

Use this yearly planning template with a Gantt chart to list annual objectives. This template is similar to the simple annual plan, but adds a Gantt chart to provide a visual representation of each deliverable’s timeline. Enter the start date and due date for each objective. The template will automatically populate the dates into a Gantt chart making it easy to track each objective’s progress and ensure the plan stays on course.

Annual Planning Template with Calendar

Download an Annual Planning Template with Calendar 

Excel | Microsoft Word  

Track important deadlines with this annual planning calendar template. This template has all the features of the simple annual plan template but adds a calendar. The calendar format provides space to enter details under any day of the year. Promote timeline transparency and guarantee deliverables meet their due dates by sharing this template with your team.

How to Create an Annual Plan

Create an annual plan by first reviewing the previous year’s wins and losses to determine where to focus the upcoming year’s efforts. Brainstorm annual goals, list the actions to achieve them, and assign the action steps to team members. 

Start drafting an annual plan in Q4 to prepare for the upcoming year. Follow the steps below to create an effective annual plan that drives revenue and growth to any business.   

• Review the Previous Year Meet with stakeholders and review the previous year’s plan and successes. Identify areas that need improvement. This review process will help determine where to focus efforts next year. You can skip this step if it’s the company’s first time creating an annual plan.
• Download an Annual Plan Template Download the simple annual plan template. Using a template will help ensure you don’t miss any vital sections of the plan.
• Enter the Company’s Vision Statement The vision statement describes the company’s long-term aspirations, so keep it at the forefront of the decision-making and goal-setting processes.  
• Brainstorm Annual Goals Collaborate with stakeholders and determine what you want to achieve in the upcoming year. Use last year’s wins and losses to set realistic goals that align with the company’s vision statement.
• List Objectives List the action steps required to meet the goals. Categorize them into sections, such as marketing, financial, customer experience, product, etc. 
• Set Timelines Set a start date and end date for each objective. Annual plans are often broken down into quarters, but it’s not uncommon to set monthly and weekly timelines. 
• Determine a Budget Determine a budget based on financial projections. This step helps allocate resources teams or departments will have available to them, which will make planning more realistic.
• Identify Metrics Decide what metrics to use for tracking and monitoring results. The data these provide is important for measuring if objectives are being met.
• Assign Responsibility Assign a team, department, or individual to each deliverable to ensure nothing is missed.  
• Share with Team Members Share the annual plan with team members to create alignment and build motivation around working toward specific goals.

Elements in an Annual Plan

Elements in an annual plan include everything necessary to outline a comprehensive plan for growing any company. Here is a list of elements found in a general annual plan:     

• Budget: The funds allocated to each goal or objective.
• KPIs:  The tools and metrics used to measure the success of the objectives.
• Objectives: Objectives are the action steps to achieve the goals.
• Owner: The owner is the team, department, or individual responsible for completing an objective.
• SMART Goals:  This represents a type of goal-setting where each should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Learn more about  setting SMART goals .
• Strategies:  List the marketing strategies, operational strategies, and sales strategies to provide a comprehensive framework that drives coordinated efforts.
• Timeline:  The length of time dedicated to each deliverable. Deliverable timelines are typically quarters, but they can also be monthly or weekly.
• Values and Mission Statement: These document the foundation for decision making and goal setting.

Different Types Of Annual Plans

Different types of annual plans support specific areas such as budgeting, marketing, operations, and more. Choose an annual plan from the list below that best fits your company’s needs and growth strategy.

Free Annual Sales Report Templates

Use an  annual sales report template to track yearly sales activities and trends.

Free Annual Business Budget Templates

Use an  annual business budget template to evaluate business expenditures vs. revenue over a one-year period.

Free Operational Plan Templates

Use an  operational plan template to lay out specific actions and resources needed to reach certain milestones.

Annual Report Template

Use this  annual report template to document the company’s yearly accomplishments, impact stories, financial data, and donor list.

Annual Marketing Report

Use this  annual marketing report template to document the total projects delivered, KPIs, and marketing financial overview.

Create Your Annual Plan in Smartsheet and Get Gantt Chart and Calendar Views

Empower your people to go above and beyond with a flexible platform designed to match the needs of your team — and adapt as those needs change. 

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. 

When teams have clarity into the work getting done, there’s no telling how much more they can accomplish in the same amount of time.  Try Smartsheet for free, today.

Discover why over 90% of Fortune 100 companies trust Smartsheet to get work done.

Mostly metrics

Your Complete Guide to Annual Planning (Part 1): The Kickoff

Our five part series on annual budgeting for tech startups.

Are you a founder who’s been asked by your board to pull together something called an “annual operating plan” ?

Are you attempting to turn that theoretical hockey stick graph from your Series A pitch deck into a real plan of action ?

Did you recently realize that “Budget” is not just a rental car company?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you’re in the right place. Today we’ll cover what the annual planning process is, why it’s important, and some best practices for getting it (close) to right.

As annual planning season approaches for those of us on December year end schedules (T’s & P’s to all the try-hards on, like, February year ends, or whatever) Mostly metrics is launching a FIVE part series on the budgeting process.

Part I: The Kickoff (this post)

Who’s involved in annual planning?

Bottoms up vs tops Down forecasting

Guiding questions and guardrails

Part II: Building sales capacity

Modeling out rep ramp time

Pod ratios: Business Development Reps, System Engineers, and Sales Managers

Quota deployment and over assignment (shhhh!)

Your Complete Guide to Annual Planning (Part 2): Building Sales Capacity

Part iii: designing a marketing budget.

Modeling Pipeline Coverage and understanding the marketing funnel

Working with your CMO to develop a “GL pick list”

Programs vs People split

Your Complete Guide to Annual Planning (Part 3): Marketing Budget

Part iv: costing out the p&l.

Modeling headcount as an input, and a driver

Forecasting non-people costs

Developing a mutually exclusive list of expense types

Your Complete Guide to Annual Planning (Part 4): Costing out the P&L

Part v: bringing it all together.

Modeling P&L by cost type vs P&L by department

Checking your outputs: CAC Payback, ARR per head, cash runway

Five year plan tie in

Your Complete Guide to Annual Planning (Part 5): Bringing it all together

The guide comes from thousands of hours on the job, designing annual plans for multi billion dollar tech companies. And it’s strongly influenced by the hundreds of hours spent with my entrepreneur friends who are building their first budgets.

This post is for paid subscribers

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The Difference Between Strategic Planning and Annual Planning

For years we’ve been telling anyone who will listen “Not having a strategic plan is like trying to sail without a rudder.” Without a strategic plan, you are at the mercy of the changing winds with little control over how far you’ll drift or where you’ll end up. Of course, while there are lots more of these clever analogies, the fact is that those organizations that have a strategic plan are much more likely to succeed than those that don’t. Organization’s with strategic plans to guide them not only take control of where they are heading, but they are also better positioned to take advantage of new opportunities and to thrive in even the most challenging of times.

At Starboard Leadership Consulting, it is not unusual for us to get a phone call asking if we can facilitate an “annual strategic planning retreat.” It is the word “annual” that is usually the tip-off that the organization is not actually engaged in strategic planning. Rather, it is much more likely that they bring the board together once a year to review what was accomplished in the year that has passed and determine what they want to do in the year ahead. It is good work, and important work, but unless it is linked to a multi-year strategic framework it is probably not very strategic.

Simply put, in a strategic planning process the organization clearly describes or affirms its purpose for being (mission), determines what it wants to achieve over the next few years (vision), and then decides on a set of 3-5 strategic priorities to guide the organization towards achievement of the vision.  This “strategic framework” should then be linked to specific objectives that can guide the development of annual work-plans or action-plans.

What differentiates a strategic plan from an annual work-plan is that the strategic plan is, well, strategic. We think of it this way (returning to our earlier nautical analogy), without a plan of any sort, you aren’t in the boat. You are in the water, struggling to keep your head above the waves. With an annual plan, you are still in the water, but at least you are planning for and anticipating the waves. You may not know in which direction you should swim, but you are doing your best to react to your environment. With a strategic plan, however, you are not only in the boat, but you can see the point on the horizon where you want to head, and you have a strategy for sailing your boat there on the straightest line possible.

So, in short, a strategic plan looks out into the future two, three, or even as many as five years to determine what it is you hope to be accomplishing and then prioritizes the essential strategies for achieving your aspirations. With this strategic framework to guide you, work-plans can be developed annually that include specific objectives, outcome measures, and detailed action plans (who, by when) linked to the operating budget.

Your strategic plan and your annual work-plan go hand-in-hand. The annual work-plan provides the nuts and bolts of how the necessary work will get done, but without the strategic planning framework to guide you, the annual planning process will be anything but strategic.

For more thoughts on strategic planning, visit www.starboardleadership.com . You’ll find more advice, like this blog post by Jeff Wahlstrom, as well as an overview of our consulting services. To contact us for more information, use our contact form to get in touch with us today.

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