Click the image to sign up Whether you like it or not, time never stops; every day it moves us forward. What lies ahead? What does the future hold? Unknown! So, in which direction should one go? And how? These can be clarified through a development plan.
By rights, every company should have its own development plan to clarify its overall direction, analyze the gap between current status and target, design relevant work content and sequence, and avoid blindness and unnecessary detours in the process. At the same time, a development plan connects future work with present work: based on the set development goals, certain tasks need to start today; conversely, much of today's work lays the foundation for future tasks. More importantly, an effective development plan allows us to plan and allocate time more clearly, minimizing waste of our most precious asset—time.
For employees, the company's development plan not only represents the company's future direction and growth space but also includes personal future direction and space. If the company's future direction and growth space are unclear, it's hard for employees to see a clear future within that company.
So, how exactly do you make this development plan? Next, I'll introduce a relatively simple guide to creating a development plan:
Determine the time frame All development plans must specify the time period they cover. Generally, company development plans typically start at three years and extend to ten years. Choose one: three-year, five-year, eight-year, or ten-year.
Work on multiple tracks simultaneously Creating a development plan is not just the boss's job; it should be done on multiple tracks, ideally three. The first track is done by the boss, planning the development path for the next five years based on the company's actual situation. The second track is done by external consultants, standing outside the situation, with a more objective perspective, free from the company's current state, allowing divergent thinking and more new elements. The third track is done by subordinate employees, planning from the grassroots, from an executable perspective, incorporating current problems, making it more pragmatic and grounded. Also, involving employees in the company's development planning, regardless of the quality of the final plan, at least makes employees feel respected, as they can participate in such major company matters. If the company has no external consultants, at least maintain the boss and employee tracks.
It should be emphasized that whether doing two or three tracks, each must maintain independence, not influence, interfere, or comment on each other, and not set thinking frameworks, ensuring each perspective starts from a relatively pure standpoint.
Determine the target point In a development plan, the top item is the target point—what specific goal to achieve after several years. This can be determined from several dimensions, such as company scale, total sales, social status, brand benefits, etc. For example, in five years, achieve sales of 300 million yuan, a team of over 300 employees, rank first in the local industry, and become a well-known local brand. Or larger goals like company listing, or more specific ones like reaching 20 directly-operated stores.
Break down the target point Setting a target point is relatively simple—just a sentence. Of course, the target point is unlikely to be achieved all at once; it needs to be taken step by step. That means breaking down the target point from two aspects: project type and time schedule. Breaking down the target is what we call planning.
For example, if you plan to open 20 stores in five years, you can break it down by time: three stores in the first year, six by the second, ten by the third, fifteen by the fourth, and twenty by the fifth. You can create a preliminary progress schedule:
| Time | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Store opening progress | 3 stores | 6 stores | 10 stores | 15 stores | 20 stores |
| Total sales | 30 million | 70 million | 120 million | 180 million | 250 million |
- Set supporting factors Break a large target point into several smaller ones, but each small target point cannot be achieved all at once either. Each point's achievement requires supporting factors, such as funds, personnel, hardware, products, market activity investments, etc. For each stage and each target point, list the required supporting factors in advance. For example:
| Supporting factors | Target point: 2018, open 6 stores |
|---|---|
| Personnel | Store managers: 6 |
| Internal reserve store managers: 10 | |
| External reserve store managers: 10 | |
| Cashiers: 6 | |
| External reserve cashiers: 8 | |
| Sales staff: 30 | |
| External reserve sales staff: 50 | |
| Product mix | Product structure ratio: |
| Branded products | |
| Profit products | |
| Volume products | |
| Funds | ... |
| Market activity investment | ... |
Management and operation mechanisms To achieve the target points at each stage, many supporting factors are needed. Some are resources, some are personnel, and some are methods. How to introduce, design, integrate, and operate them requires management and operation mechanisms. For example, for funds: use self-owned funds, introduce external funds, internal collective shareholding, or seek government financial allocations. For personnel: how to set up the organizational structure, recruit, train employees, set salary systems, levels and promotion systems, daily management systems, etc.
Opinion aggregation As mentioned earlier, the company's development plan should not be seen as the boss's own affair; actively guide multiple parties to participate. This way, from macro and micro perspectives, current status and innovation, you can collect opinions comprehensively. A development plan that integrates multiple perspectives will be more pragmatic and operable. After gathering opinions from all sides, consolidate and merge the content, still arranged by horizontal time and vertical project dimensions.
Graphical presentation Merge the finalized development plan into a project/time schedule, enlarge it as much as possible, print it as a poster, and post it in the corresponding office. Clearly and completely inform employees of the company's overall development plan, and ask each functional department to set its own related work based on the company's overall plan, ensuring that every department and every person has their own personal or departmental development plan based on the company's plan. The company's overall development plan, in actual execution, is composed of these small plans from various departments and positions.
Safety contingency mechanism Development plans are generally positive and forward-looking; the planned paths and supporting mechanisms are based on normal progress. However, business is not always smooth sailing; various accidents and incidents will keep occurring. Even the best-laid plans become worthless when encountering accidents or changes.
Therefore, after the development plan is basically completed, research and analyze what problems and accidents might occur during its implementation. For example: industry accidents, being implicated, natural disasters, leakage of core secrets, conflicts with intelligent management departments, massive employee turnover, loss of core employees, investors or shareholders withdrawing funds, sudden emergence of heavyweight competitors, etc. Which of these accidents or unexpected events can be prevented, and how? Which cannot be prevented and may occur at any time? If they occur, what response and handling measures are most effective? These issues should be studied in advance and corresponding plans formulated. These are called contingency plans.
- Regular review Creating a development plan is quick, but making it is not a one-time task. After all, the external environment is always changing. The previously made plan may become disconnected from later market changes. So even with a complete development plan, it cannot remain unchanged; regular reviews are needed. There are two purposes for review: first, to check whether the actual progress of various tasks deviates from the planned schedule; second, based on current internal and external changes, whether some parts of the previous plan need improvement or adjustment.
Author: Pan Wenfu Born into a private business owner family, he managed a family distributor company for many years, during which he also served as a business manager and trainer in several production enterprises. His research focuses on internal management of small and medium-sized private enterprises, with main topics including personnel management, cost control, management backend construction, and demobilized military personnel entering private enterprises. He has continuously broken down over 400 topics related to internal management of private enterprises and keeps updating material collection and solutions.