Business Name and Logo (if you have a photograph in the box below)

Insert your logo or a photograph here.

Five Year Strategic Plan for My Business

Date

Author

Instructions on how to use this template can be found on the last page.

Table of Contents

1	Purpose	2

2	Vision	2

3	Mission	2

4	Values	3

5	Long-term Goals	3

6	Tasks and Logistics	4

7	Marketing and Communications	5

8	Financial Plan	5

When you have completed your strategy, click on the Table of Contents. A small box will appear at the top left. Click and Update and select to update the whole table. This is the second last thing that you should do before printing it or creating a PDF to share with someone else.

The last thing you should do before sharing is to run a spell check under the Review ribbon to make sure that there are no spelling or grammar errors.

Make sure that you have deleted all red parts in the document.

Five Year Strategic Plan for My Business

Purpose

Describe the why of your business. Why do you have this business? What is going to motivate you to continue to carry on in tough times? It is important here to have something that is real to you. Do not use something because you think it sounds better. Your purpose is what will keep you going when the going gets tough. It is what will make you get up and work when everyone else is still sleeping. This is the motive for what you want to do.

Examples:

I wanted to own that piano.

Coke's purpose statement is “Refresh the world. Make a difference.”

Audi wants “to play an instrumental role in shaping the transformation as we head into a new age of mobility”.

Nike's purpose “is to unite the world through sport to create a healthy planet, active communities and an equal playing field for all”.

Now, write your purpose here below (it will be in black) and delete the red when you are done:

Vision

This is what you want to achieve to fulfil your purpose. Your vision is where you see yourself doing something (in this case) in five years’ time. Remember it is important to have an action word in your vision. You want to be doing something. Although it is not exactly a requirement, it helps if your vision is SMARTER.

Examples:

I wanted to play Grade 8 piano by the time I was 16.

Coke’s vision: Our vision is to craft the brands and choice of drinks that people love, to refresh them in body & spirit.

Audi’s vision: "Unleash the beauty of sustainable mobility."

Nike’s vision: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.”

Write your vision here below and delete the red when you are done:

Mission

The mission statement describes the broader framework of how you are going to achieve your vision.

I was going to take piano lessons.

Coke’s mission is described as part of their vision: “And done in ways that create a more sustainable business and better shared future that makes a difference in people’s lives, communities and our planet.” Coke then continues to describe their system, which is a way in which they are able to fulfil their mission.

Audi’s mission: We act purposefully, systematically and with our full efforts – in other words, consistently. That is why our mission is “Consistently Audi.”

Nike’s mission: Our mission is what drives us to do everything possible to expand human potential. We do that by creating ground-breaking sport innovations, by making our products more sustainably, by building a creative and diverse global team and by making a positive impact in communities where we live and work.

As you can see, a mission does not have to be very long. It describes the principles of the how.

Write your mission here below and delete the red:

Values

The values by which you want to conduct business – it provides the ethical boundaries within which you operate.

My values were that I was going to earn that music grade.

Coke calls their values the conscience they follow: Do the right thing.

Audi has focussed their values on consistent sustainability.

Nike’s values can be found in their Code of Conduct:

Serve athletes

Create the future of sport

Be on the offense always

Do the right thing

Win as a team

You might think that you know what values you operate by and that it is not important to define them. But sometimes, when things are difficult, it is easy to be blinded by circumstances. Then it is important to have your values written out so that you can refer to them.

Write your values in the space below and delete the red:

Long-term Goals

This is the vision broken up into smaller goals.

So, when my vision was to complete Grade 8 by the time I was 16, my long-term goals were to play an exam every year in such a way that I would have 2 years to do Grade 8. In other words, I had to play Grade 7 by 14 years.

Grade 1 by 8 years.

Grade 2 by 9 years.

Grade 3 by 10 years.

Grade 4 by 11 years.

Grade 5 by 12 years.

Grade 6 by 13 years.

Grade 7 by 14 years.

Grade 8 by 16 years.

Break your vision up into goals and prioritize them or place them chronologically in the space below. Delete the red.

Tasks and Logistics

Now you break the goal for this year up in tasks. If it is a very big goal, you might break it up into three or four smaller goals and then each of those again into three or four smaller tasks. Once you have listed the tasks, rewrite them in order of priority or in chronological order.

Let’s take another example. Say the goal was to submit the annual report and to distribute a printed copy to shareholders.

Priority	Task	Resources Needed	Date to be Completed	Person Responsible
1.	Collect data	Financial Report	2021/01/31	Financial Manager
Operations Report	2021/01/31	Operations Manager
Marketing Report	2021/01/31	Marketing Manager
Maintenance Report	2021/01/31	Maintenance Manager
2.	Write report	Data	2021/02/14	CEO
3.	To Graphic Artist for preparation	Computer and Software	2021/02/20	Graphic Artist
4.	Submit to Board for approval	None	2021/02/23	CEO
5.	Board for approval	None	2021/02/28	Board
6.	Print	Printing house	2021/03/31	CEO and Graphic Artist
7.	Distribute	Envelopes	2021/04/15	Logistics Manager

Break your goals down into tasks in the table below and delete the red. Also delete the lines in the table that you do not need or add more as is required.

Priority	Task	Resources Needed	Date to be Completed	Person Responsible
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Marketing and Communications

We will look at Marketing and Communications in another post. Suffice to say that you need a plan for getting your message out there and get buy-in from customers as well as possible investors.

Add your marketing and communications strategy below or leave it out completely if you want to wait until we have discussed it. Delete the red.

Financial Plan

The financial plan should show the expected income and expenses over the five years that the strategic plan is for. It should demonstrate the expected growth and when break-even is expected. If you want formal financing or to draw investors, it is a better idea to have a professional assist you with this.

Add your financial plan as an Addendum if a professional does it or even if you did yours in other software. Delete the red.

Strategic Plan Template

Copyright

This template is copyrighted to Kanetwen cc. Please do not give it to other people but rather refer them to our website where they can also download it for free as you did.

How to use this template

You can save this document as a template in your word processing program, then click on the template to start the document as a new file.

Read the information in red and fill in your own information in black in the open space below the red. Delete the red.

Delete this last page. There are page breaks so it is a good idea to switch paragraph marks on (¶ - find it on your toolbar) so that you can see what you are deleting.

Make your document look nice:

Do not start a new heading at the bottom of a page; rather move it to the next.

There must be at least two lines of a paragraph at the bottom of the page and two at the top. Otherwise, you need to move the paragraph to a new page.

There should be at least two points of a bulleted list at the bottom of a page and two at the top of the next page. Otherwise, you need to move the list to a new page.

Update the Table of Contents.

Run a spell and grammar check.

Print or create a PDF to share.