---
title: "2022 Annual Planning: Less Empty Talk, More Focus, Practicality, and Detailed Work Items"
description: "As the year draws to a close, many FMCG manufacturers and distributors are once again contemplating their strategies for the coming year. Faced with increasingly complex internal and external environments, the biggest concern for every sales manager is how to 'view, handle, and execute' effectively, and how to formulate marketing strategies that truly align with brand development and market realities. Drawing on recent experiences in corporate strategy discussions, the author shares a methodology that may offer some inspiration. Common pitfalls in strategy formulation include: 1. Content too vague, applicable everywhere..."
author: "邢仁宝"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2021-11-05"
language: "en"
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# 2022 Annual Planning: Less Empty Talk, More Focus, Practicality, and Detailed Work Items

> As the year draws to a close, many FMCG manufacturers and distributors are once again contemplating their strategies for the coming year. Faced with increasingly complex internal and external environments, the biggest concern for every sales manager is how to 'view, handle, and execute' effectively, and how to formulate marketing strategies that truly align with brand development and market realities. Drawing on recent experiences in corporate strategy discussions, the author shares a methodology that may offer some inspiration. Common pitfalls in strategy formulation include: 1. Content too vague, applicable everywhere...

As the year draws to a close, many FMCG manufacturers and distributors are once again contemplating their strategies for the coming year.
Faced with increasingly complex internal and external environments, the biggest concern for every sales manager is how to 'view, handle, and execute' effectively, and how to formulate marketing strategies that truly align with brand development and market realities.
Drawing on recent experiences in corporate strategy discussions, the author shares a methodology that may offer some inspiration.
Common pitfalls in strategy formulation include:
**1. Content too vague, applicable everywhere.**
Phrases like 'comprehensively increase market share, rapidly improve customer satisfaction, optimize channel management quality, strengthen product flow control' are what we often call correct but useless statements. They sound right but have no practical significance.
Such requirements can be used by any company, and they can be used this year and next year. When presented as strategy, no one knows how to implement them.
**2. No focus, trying to grasp everything at once.**
'Must have shelf, freezer, and cashier counter displays, with display share not less than competitors; at least three visual merchandising setups; clear product inventory and age management requirements; 24-hour delivery rate not less than 95%, monthly active rate not less than 30%...'
This channel strategy is very comprehensive, covering almost all possible terminal operations. Anyone seeing such a strategy would feel overwhelmed by its comprehensiveness.
**Mixing process indicators with result indicators, treating sales staff like assembly line workers, will ultimately result in none of them being truly implemented.**
**3. Not grounded in reality, lacking basis for armchair strategies.**
'XX market distribution rate reaches 90% or above, active rate reaches 60% or above' – quantitative targets are essential in strategy, but making them up behind closed doors, simply adding a few percentage points to industry or historical data, or setting targets by intuition, only makes management look good on paper while the execution layer gives up directly.
Moreover, such a one-size-fits-all approach is too absolute, ignoring market differences, and often fails to meet expectations.
**4. Disconnect between levels, strategy and execution as two separate entities.**
After management completes strategy formulation, it needs to be communicated to grassroots units. However, the written requirements are often discounted during execution by frontline teams, with no prioritization of actions, and market performance falls far short of expectations.
**Often, in key months for performance, the situation reverts to 'everything revolves around sales volume, and all strategies are not worth it.' Thus, how to ensure continuous and effective implementation of strategy has always been a major pain point for manufacturers and distributors.**
Thinking about strategy and its effective implementation is like seeing a traditional Chinese medicine doctor: you need a professional to observe, listen, inquire, and take your pulse to find the root cause before prescribing medication. But when prescribing, you must also clarify the dosage of each herb – too little is ineffective, too much has side effects.
Even after this step, if the illness is not cured, you need to follow the doctor's advice, take medication on time daily, and after a period, report your condition back to the doctor. The doctor then adjusts the prescription based on the original formula, and only then can the illness gradually recover.
The author's company formulates strategy every year and has encountered all the above problems. However, this year, thanks to a methodology, the entire strategy thinking and formulation process has become clearer and more efficient. Let me share it in detail below.
**Sharpening the axe is essential for cutting wood**
**'Objectives, Strategies, Work Items, and Work Indicators' (OSWI) is a collective term for these four elements and is a tool for lean management in enterprises.**
**This tool can be used by the headquarters of a manufacturer or distributor, functional departments, or sales regions and offices.**
Different users should analyze and elaborate based on their own corporate positioning and responsibilities, with special attention to always ensuring effective linkage from higher-level departments to lower-level departments.
For example, the strategy of the head office should become the objective of the branch company, and the work items of the head office should become the strategy of the branch company, ensuring that strategy is more precisely cascaded down layer by layer.
**Assess the situation and set reasonable objectives**
Objectives are the foundation of all strategies and the stage where management should spend the most time. It is essential to have a clear assessment of the current economic and social situation, industry development, and the company's operational status. This includes sales targets, expense investment, and profit targets. (Using the brand headquarters strategy as an example)
**1. Objectives should basically align with management or investor expectations**
Because objectives often represent the company's strategic direction and development expectations, setting them too low or too high sends negative signals, affecting customer and employee confidence and motivation.
**2. Understand national policy orientation for the industry**
Consider whether emerging industries have an impact on the industry, how the current pandemic situation affects the market, and research the development trends and marketing actions of major competitors in the industry.
**3. Conduct a thorough summary of the current year's operational status**
Did we achieve last year's growth targets? What is the profitability level? To what extent have various expense budgets been used? What is the profit situation? What are the distribution and inventory levels of channel customers? Has their capital turnover rate increased or decreased compared to previous years? How has sales scale improved in various regional markets? Have gaps widened or narrowed?
**4. Based on the above considerations, adjustments can be made on top of historical growth**
Of course, before finalizing objectives, if management can personally visit frontline markets, communicate with large market leaders or major distributors to gauge their expectations, the conclusions will be more realistic.
**Implement precise measures and formulate customized strategies**
With objectives in place, thinking about specific strategies becomes more targeted.
Strategies are generally analyzed and defined according to departmental structures. Taking the marketing management department as an example, strategies can be divided into regional market strategy, channel operation strategy, market management strategy, and information management strategy. How to deeply explore potential in each dimension and effectively support sales growth? We will illustrate with regional market and channel strategies.
**1. Regional market strategy**
Clarify how to operate different types of markets differently. There are generally two classifications: one based on administrative divisions (cities, counties, towns); the other based on the company's own sales scale or development stage, such as sales contribution markets, growth potential markets, etc.
First, we need to conduct a retrospective analysis of similar markets, looking at sales contribution, historical growth, competitive landscape, and key indicators (distribution/activity/VPO, etc.). Then, bottom-up, identify deficiencies in each type of market. Summarizing these deficiencies at a higher level gives the points that strategy needs to address.
For example, urban markets should implement block management, deeply explore high-potential outlets (VPO 5 boxes or more), incorporate them into business route visits, and establish a refined channel management model aimed at building competitive barriers; county markets should focus on vehicle sales and distribution, strengthening horizontal distribution rate improvement.
**2. Channel strategy**
This covers a lot, including management of distributor and lower-level wholesale customer selection, contracts, pricing, and periodic promotions, as well as management of various terminal displays, visual merchandising, inventory, pricing, and promotions.
Of course, at the strategy level, there is no need for excessive detail, but the analysis process still needs to identify current problems based on these details to determine opportunity points.
For example, based on the actual situation in 2020 where multiple regional markets experienced cross-regional selling, causing a decline in customer willingness to order, we formulated an improvement strategy: in 2021, stabilize market price levels in channels, control abnormal product flow in each regional market to no more than 2%; similarly, the channel requires each regional market to increase distribution rate by more than 10%, and sales contribution markets should rapidly enhance terminal visual merchandising, with in-store elements not less than 3.
**Be down-to-earth and write the best work items**
For strategy to be implemented, it must be broken down into specific work projects. Work items are business actions, and we need to think about which effective actions can gradually achieve the strategy's requirements.
**1. Break down the strategy thoroughly**
For example, the aforementioned urban market block management, deep exploration of high-potential outlets (VPO 5 boxes or more), incorporation into business route visits, and establishment of a refined channel management model aimed at building competitive barriers.
We can break this down into some content:
Within 3 months, re-plan business visit routes for sales staff, design them on a grid basis along main streets, with no overlap between routes.
Within 1 month, inventory terminal outlets and classify them by sales scale. Outlets selling more than 5 boxes per month must be included in regular business visit routes.
Within 3 months, enhance in-store displays and visual merchandising for high-sales outlets. Rapidly improve through increased visit frequency, display expense investment (stack displays or freezers), and use of visual merchandising materials. Core outlets must not have less display share or atmosphere than competitors.
Within half a year, rapidly improve customer satisfaction. Issues such as delivery efficiency, terminal display distribution, and advance payment reimbursement should be handled within 48 hours.
This way, one direction of the strategy is broken down into specific work projects. Try to break it down to the smallest level for more effective implementation.
**2. Conform to SMART principles**
Work items should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant to other objectives, and have clear deadlines. The more they meet these requirements, the more effectively the listed action items will support strategy implementation.
**3. Break down strategy into detailed work items**
When the next-level management unit takes over the 'OSWI' from the upper level, it needs to treat the upper level's work items as its strategy and break them down into work projects within a smaller management radius.
For example, after receiving the above strategy, an office can continue to refine action items: The first group of regional sales staff (Zhang San, Li Si) should complete route sorting before the 10th. For outlets overlapping with other sales staff, complete data handover within three days according to road division principles and inform customers.
From the 1st of next month, for high-sales outlets with monthly sales above 20 boxes, visit frequency should be no less than twice a week, cashier counter stack displays no less than 5 boxes per group, freezer displays no less than one layer (second layer position)... When sales staff receive the 'OSWI' from the office, they can continue to refine it to customer follow-up daily work according to the above principles.
**Adapt to local conditions and let indicators support implementation**
If sales are not tracked, everything is in vain. Will everyone seriously implement what superiors arrange? Not necessarily. With so many requirements and such high sales pressure, few can do it. This is where assessment indicators come in.
Assessment indicators are widely used, and everyone understands them, but if used improperly, they can lead to a situation of 'a lot of fuss, but hard work below.'
**1. Focus on work items with priorities**
Once strategy is refined into work items, defining indicators is not that difficult. But this is where management needs enough courage to dare to reduce the proportion of result indicators, lowering the assessment of payment collection and distribution to below 50%, or even 40%, leaving more room for work items.
As for so many work items, how should we choose? The author suggests sorting work items in chronological order and then selecting the top three most important work items for assessment each month.
**Be sure not to exceed four. Many companies list 8-10 assessment items, each accounting for less than 5%, which will inevitably lead sales staff to selectively abandon their market's weak areas.**
**2. Adapt to local conditions and differentiate assessments**
Market differences cannot be ignored. The work focus of mature markets differs from that of developing markets. Therefore, it is also recommended to conduct 'one city, one policy' assessments based on differentiated work items under the regional market strategy, avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.
**3. Besides assessment, there are other effective methods**
There are so many core work items, but assessment can only cover a few of them. How should the remaining work projects be implemented?
The following methods are suggested: Daily execution dashboard, ranking and publicizing execution status. This indicator can be set a bit more broadly, with problem feedback at morning/evening meetings; set up monthly execution model awards to provide additional incentives for employees with overall good performance; establish a points-based management system where each action execution is assigned a certain score, serving as an important basis for promotion and salary increases.
**4. Leverage digital tools for twice the result with half the effort**
Indicators should be fed back objectively and in real-time through systems. Everyone can know their achievement status and gaps anytime, anywhere, which will more efficiently help strategy implementation and promote market improvement. For related content, refer to the author's previous digitalization series articles; no need to repeat here.
In business operations, when many routine tasks are progressing steadily, there is often a lack of management tools that can truly help enterprises achieve efficient systematic management, and fully enable the team to be united, consistent, firm in goals, mutually empowering, and closed-loop.
**'OSWI' is a very useful management tool that can focus on key points, cascade down layer by layer, with objectives, handles, tight linkage, and throughout. I also hope our FMCG manufacturer and distributor friends can try it this year, feel its charm, and share more usage insights.**
**Extended reading:**
**Are you 'watching' me?**


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