business plan operation and management example

How to Write a Business Plan: Step-by-Step Guide + Examples

Noah Parsons

24 min. read

Updated May 7, 2024

Writing a business plan doesn’t have to be complicated. 

In this step-by-step guide, you’ll learn how to write a business plan that’s detailed enough to impress bankers and potential investors, while giving you the tools to start, run, and grow a successful business.

• The basics of business planning

If you’re reading this guide, then you already know why you need a business plan . 

You understand that planning helps you: 

• Raise money
• Grow strategically
• Keep your business on the right track 

As you start to write your plan, it’s useful to zoom out and remember what a business plan is .

At its core, a business plan is an overview of the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy: how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

Most business plans also include financial forecasts for the future. These set sales goals, budget for expenses, and predict profits and cash flow. 

A good business plan is much more than just a document that you write once and forget about. It’s also a guide that helps you outline and achieve your goals. 

After completing your plan, you can use it as a management tool to track your progress toward your goals. Updating and adjusting your forecasts and budgets as you go is one of the most important steps you can take to run a healthier, smarter business. 

We’ll dive into how to use your plan later in this article.

There are many different types of plans , but we’ll go over the most common type here, which includes everything you need for an investor-ready plan. However, if you’re just starting out and are looking for something simpler—I recommend starting with a one-page business plan . It’s faster and easier to create. 

It’s also the perfect place to start if you’re just figuring out your idea, or need a simple strategic plan to use inside your business.

Dig deeper : How to write a one-page business plan

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• What to include in your business plan

Executive summary

The executive summary is an overview of your business and your plans. It comes first in your plan and is ideally just one to two pages. Most people write it last because it’s a summary of the complete business plan.

Ideally, the executive summary can act as a stand-alone document that covers the highlights of your detailed plan. 

In fact, it’s common for investors to ask only for the executive summary when evaluating your business. If they like what they see in the executive summary, they’ll often follow up with a request for a complete plan, a pitch presentation , or more in-depth financial forecasts .

Your executive summary should include:

• A summary of the problem you are solving
• A description of your product or service
• An overview of your target market
• A brief description of your team
• A summary of your financials
• Your funding requirements (if you are raising money)

Dig Deeper: How to write an effective executive summary

Products and services description

This is where you describe exactly what you’re selling, and how it solves a problem for your target market. The best way to organize this part of your plan is to start by describing the problem that exists for your customers. After that, you can describe how you plan to solve that problem with your product or service. 

This is usually called a problem and solution statement .

To truly showcase the value of your products and services, you need to craft a compelling narrative around your offerings. How will your product or service transform your customers’ lives or jobs? A strong narrative will draw in your readers.

This is also the part of the business plan to discuss any competitive advantages you may have, like specific intellectual property or patents that protect your product. If you have any initial sales, contracts, or other evidence that your product or service is likely to sell, include that information as well. It will show that your idea has traction , which can help convince readers that your plan has a high chance of success.

Market analysis

Your target market is a description of the type of people that you plan to sell to. You might even have multiple target markets, depending on your business. 

A market analysis is the part of your plan where you bring together all of the information you know about your target market. Basically, it’s a thorough description of who your customers are and why they need what you’re selling. You’ll also include information about the growth of your market and your industry .

Try to be as specific as possible when you describe your market. 

Include information such as age, income level, and location—these are what’s called “demographics.” If you can, also describe your market’s interests and habits as they relate to your business—these are “psychographics.” 

Related: Target market examples

Essentially, you want to include any knowledge you have about your customers that is relevant to how your product or service is right for them. With a solid target market, it will be easier to create a sales and marketing plan that will reach your customers. That’s because you know who they are, what they like to do, and the best ways to reach them.

Next, provide any additional information you have about your market. 

What is the size of your market ? Is the market growing or shrinking? Ideally, you’ll want to demonstrate that your market is growing over time, and also explain how your business is positioned to take advantage of any expected changes in your industry.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write a market analysis

Competitive analysis

Part of defining your business opportunity is determining what your competitive advantage is. To do this effectively, you need to know as much about your competitors as your target customers. 

Every business has some form of competition. If you don’t think you have competitors, then explore what alternatives there are in the market for your product or service. 

For example: In the early years of cars, their main competition was horses. For social media, the early competition was reading books, watching TV, and talking on the phone.

A good competitive analysis fully lays out the competitive landscape and then explains how your business is different. Maybe your products are better made, or cheaper, or your customer service is superior. Maybe your competitive advantage is your location – a wide variety of factors can ultimately give you an advantage.

Dig Deeper: How to write a competitive analysis for your business plan

Marketing and sales plan

The marketing and sales plan covers how you will position your product or service in the market, the marketing channels and messaging you will use, and your sales tactics. 

The best place to start with a marketing plan is with a positioning statement . 

This explains how your business fits into the overall market, and how you will explain the advantages of your product or service to customers. You’ll use the information from your competitive analysis to help you with your positioning. 

For example: You might position your company as the premium, most expensive but the highest quality option in the market. Or your positioning might focus on being locally owned and that shoppers support the local economy by buying your products.

Once you understand your positioning, you’ll bring this together with the information about your target market to create your marketing strategy . 

This is how you plan to communicate your message to potential customers. Depending on who your customers are and how they purchase products like yours, you might use many different strategies, from social media advertising to creating a podcast. Your marketing plan is all about how your customers discover who you are and why they should consider your products and services. 

While your marketing plan is about reaching your customers—your sales plan will describe the actual sales process once a customer has decided that they’re interested in what you have to offer. 

If your business requires salespeople and a long sales process, describe that in this section. If your customers can “self-serve” and just make purchases quickly on your website, describe that process. 

A good sales plan picks up where your marketing plan leaves off. The marketing plan brings customers in the door and the sales plan is how you close the deal.

Together, these specific plans paint a picture of how you will connect with your target audience, and how you will turn them into paying customers.

Dig deeper: What to include in your sales and marketing plan

Business operations

The operations section describes the necessary requirements for your business to run smoothly. It’s where you talk about how your business works and what day-to-day operations look like. 

Depending on how your business is structured, your operations plan may include elements of the business like:

• Supply chain management
• Manufacturing processes
• Equipment and technology
• Distribution

Some businesses distribute their products and reach their customers through large retailers like Amazon.com, Walmart, Target, and grocery store chains. 

These businesses should review how this part of their business works. The plan should discuss the logistics and costs of getting products onto store shelves and any potential hurdles the business may have to overcome.

If your business is much simpler than this, that’s OK. This section of your business plan can be either extremely short or more detailed, depending on the type of business you are building.

For businesses selling services, such as physical therapy or online software, you can use this section to describe the technology you’ll leverage, what goes into your service, and who you will partner with to deliver your services.

Dig Deeper: Learn how to write the operations chapter of your plan

Key milestones and metrics

Although it’s not required to complete your business plan, mapping out key business milestones and the metrics can be incredibly useful for measuring your success.

Good milestones clearly lay out the parameters of the task and set expectations for their execution. You’ll want to include:

• A description of each task
• The proposed due date
• Who is responsible for each task

If you have a budget, you can include projected costs to hit each milestone. You don’t need extensive project planning in this section—just list key milestones you want to hit and when you plan to hit them. This is your overall business roadmap. 

Possible milestones might be:

• Website launch date
• Store or office opening date
• First significant sales
• Break even date
• Business licenses and approvals

You should also discuss the key numbers you will track to determine your success. Some common metrics worth tracking include:

• Conversion rates
• Customer acquisition costs
• Profit per customer
• Repeat purchases

It’s perfectly fine to start with just a few metrics and grow the number you are tracking over time. You also may find that some metrics simply aren’t relevant to your business and can narrow down what you’re tracking.

Dig Deeper: How to use milestones in your business plan

Organization and management team

Investors don’t just look for great ideas—they want to find great teams. Use this chapter to describe your current team and who you need to hire . You should also provide a quick overview of your location and history if you’re already up and running.

Briefly highlight the relevant experiences of each key team member in the company. It’s important to make the case for why yours is the right team to turn an idea into a reality. 

Do they have the right industry experience and background? Have members of the team had entrepreneurial successes before? 

If you still need to hire key team members, that’s OK. Just note those gaps in this section.

Your company overview should also include a summary of your company’s current business structure . The most common business structures include:

• Sole proprietor
• Partnership

Be sure to provide an overview of how the business is owned as well. Does each business partner own an equal portion of the business? How is ownership divided? 

Potential lenders and investors will want to know the structure of the business before they will consider a loan or investment.

Dig Deeper: How to write about your company structure and team

Financial plan

Last, but certainly not least, is your financial plan chapter. 

Entrepreneurs often find this section the most daunting. But, business financials for most startups are less complicated than you think, and a business degree is certainly not required to build a solid financial forecast. 

A typical financial forecast in a business plan includes the following:

• Sales forecast : An estimate of the sales expected over a given period. You’ll break down your forecast into the key revenue streams that you expect to have.
• Expense budget : Your planned spending such as personnel costs , marketing expenses, and taxes.
• Profit & Loss : Brings together your sales and expenses and helps you calculate planned profits.
• Cash Flow : Shows how cash moves into and out of your business. It can predict how much cash you’ll have on hand at any given point in the future.
• Balance Sheet : A list of the assets, liabilities, and equity in your company. In short, it provides an overview of the financial health of your business. 

A strong business plan will include a description of assumptions about the future, and potential risks that could impact the financial plan. Including those will be especially important if you’re writing a business plan to pursue a loan or other investment.

Dig Deeper: How to create financial forecasts and budgets

This is the place for additional data, charts, or other information that supports your plan.

Including an appendix can significantly enhance the credibility of your plan by showing readers that you’ve thoroughly considered the details of your business idea, and are backing your ideas up with solid data.

Just remember that the information in the appendix is meant to be supplementary. Your business plan should stand on its own, even if the reader skips this section.

Dig Deeper : What to include in your business plan appendix

Optional: Business plan cover page

Adding a business plan cover page can make your plan, and by extension your business, seem more professional in the eyes of potential investors, lenders, and partners. It serves as the introduction to your document and provides necessary contact information for stakeholders to reference.

Your cover page should be simple and include:

• Company logo
• Business name
• Value proposition (optional)
• Business plan title
• Completion and/or update date
• Address and contact information
• Confidentiality statement

Just remember, the cover page is optional. If you decide to include it, keep it very simple and only spend a short amount of time putting it together.

Dig Deeper: How to create a business plan cover page

How to use AI to help write your business plan

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT can speed up the business plan writing process and help you think through concepts like market segmentation and competition. These tools are especially useful for taking ideas that you provide and converting them into polished text for your business plan.

The best way to use AI for your business plan is to leverage it as a collaborator , not a replacement for human creative thinking and ingenuity. 

AI can come up with lots of ideas and act as a brainstorming partner. It’s up to you to filter through those ideas and figure out which ones are realistic enough to resonate with your customers. 

There are pros and cons of using AI to help with your business plan . So, spend some time understanding how it can be most helpful before just outsourcing the job to AI.

Learn more: 10 AI prompts you need to write a business plan

• Writing tips and strategies

To help streamline the business plan writing process, here are a few tips and key questions to answer to make sure you get the most out of your plan and avoid common mistakes .  

Determine why you are writing a business plan

Knowing why you are writing a business plan will determine your approach to your planning project. 

For example: If you are writing a business plan for yourself, or just to use inside your own business , you can probably skip the section about your team and organizational structure. 

If you’re raising money, you’ll want to spend more time explaining why you’re looking to raise the funds and exactly how you will use them.

Regardless of how you intend to use your business plan , think about why you are writing and what you’re trying to get out of the process before you begin.

Keep things concise

Probably the most important tip is to keep your business plan short and simple. There are no prizes for long business plans . The longer your plan is, the less likely people are to read it. 

So focus on trimming things down to the essentials your readers need to know. Skip the extended, wordy descriptions and instead focus on creating a plan that is easy to read —using bullets and short sentences whenever possible.

Have someone review your business plan

Writing a business plan in a vacuum is never a good idea. Sometimes it’s helpful to zoom out and check if your plan makes sense to someone else. You also want to make sure that it’s easy to read and understand.

Don’t wait until your plan is “done” to get a second look. Start sharing your plan early, and find out from readers what questions your plan leaves unanswered. This early review cycle will help you spot shortcomings in your plan and address them quickly, rather than finding out about them right before you present your plan to a lender or investor.

If you need a more detailed review, you may want to explore hiring a professional plan writer to thoroughly examine it.

Use a free business plan template and business plan examples to get started

Knowing what information to include in a business plan is sometimes not quite enough. If you’re struggling to get started or need additional guidance, it may be worth using a business plan template. 

There are plenty of great options available (we’ve rounded up our 8 favorites to streamline your search).

But, if you’re looking for a free downloadable business plan template , you can get one right now; download the template used by more than 1 million businesses. 

Or, if you just want to see what a completed business plan looks like, check out our library of over 550 free business plan examples . 

We even have a growing list of industry business planning guides with tips for what to focus on depending on your business type.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

It’s easy to make mistakes when you’re writing your business plan. Some entrepreneurs get sucked into the writing and research process, and don’t focus enough on actually getting their business started. 

Here are a few common mistakes and how to avoid them:

Not talking to your customers : This is one of the most common mistakes. It’s easy to assume that your product or service is something that people want. Before you invest too much in your business and too much in the planning process, make sure you talk to your prospective customers and have a good understanding of their needs.

• Overly optimistic sales and profit forecasts: By nature, entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future. But it’s good to temper that optimism a little when you’re planning, and make sure your forecasts are grounded in reality. 
• Spending too much time planning: Yes, planning is crucial. But you also need to get out and talk to customers, build prototypes of your product and figure out if there’s a market for your idea. Make sure to balance planning with building.
• Not revising the plan: Planning is useful, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. As you learn more about what’s working and what’s not—revise your plan, your budgets, and your revenue forecast. Doing so will provide a more realistic picture of where your business is going, and what your financial needs will be moving forward.
• Not using the plan to manage your business: A good business plan is a management tool. Don’t just write it and put it on the shelf to collect dust – use it to track your progress and help you reach your goals.
• Presenting your business plan

The planning process forces you to think through every aspect of your business and answer questions that you may not have thought of. That’s the real benefit of writing a business plan – the knowledge you gain about your business that you may not have been able to discover otherwise.

With all of this knowledge, you’re well prepared to convert your business plan into a pitch presentation to present your ideas. 

A pitch presentation is a summary of your plan, just hitting the highlights and key points. It’s the best way to present your business plan to investors and team members.

Dig Deeper: Learn what key slides should be included in your pitch deck

Use your business plan to manage your business

One of the biggest benefits of planning is that it gives you a tool to manage your business better. With a revenue forecast, expense budget, and projected cash flow, you know your targets and where you are headed.

And yet, nothing ever goes exactly as planned – it’s the nature of business.

That’s where using your plan as a management tool comes in. The key to leveraging it for your business is to review it periodically and compare your forecasts and projections to your actual results.

Start by setting up a regular time to review the plan – a monthly review is a good starting point. During this review, answer questions like:

• Did you meet your sales goals?
• Is spending following your budget?
• Has anything gone differently than what you expected?

Now that you see whether you’re meeting your goals or are off track, you can make adjustments and set new targets. 

Maybe you’re exceeding your sales goals and should set new, more aggressive goals. In that case, maybe you should also explore more spending or hiring more employees. 

Or maybe expenses are rising faster than you projected. If that’s the case, you would need to look at where you can cut costs.

A plan, and a method for comparing your plan to your actual results , is the tool you need to steer your business toward success.

Learn More: How to run a regular plan review

Free business plan templates and examples

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How to write a business plan FAQ

What is a business plan?

A document that describes your business , the products and services you sell, and the customers that you sell to. It explains your business strategy, how you’re going to build and grow your business, what your marketing strategy is, and who your competitors are.

What are the benefits of a business plan?

A business plan helps you understand where you want to go with your business and what it will take to get there. It reduces your overall risk, helps you uncover your business’s potential, attracts investors, and identifies areas for growth.

Having a business plan ultimately makes you more confident as a business owner and more likely to succeed for a longer period of time.

What are the 7 steps of a business plan?

The seven steps to writing a business plan include:

• Write a brief executive summary
• Describe your products and services.
• Conduct market research and compile data into a cohesive market analysis.
• Describe your marketing and sales strategy.
• Outline your organizational structure and management team.
• Develop financial projections for sales, revenue, and cash flow.
• Add any additional documents to your appendix.

What are the 5 most common business plan mistakes?

There are plenty of mistakes that can be made when writing a business plan. However, these are the 5 most common that you should do your best to avoid:

• 1. Not taking the planning process seriously.
• Having unrealistic financial projections or incomplete financial information.
• Inconsistent information or simple mistakes.
• Failing to establish a sound business model.
• Not having a defined purpose for your business plan.

What questions should be answered in a business plan?

Writing a business plan is all about asking yourself questions about your business and being able to answer them through the planning process. You’ll likely be asking dozens and dozens of questions for each section of your plan.

However, these are the key questions you should ask and answer with your business plan:

• How will your business make money?
• Is there a need for your product or service?
• Who are your customers?
• How are you different from the competition?
• How will you reach your customers?
• How will you measure success?

How long should a business plan be?

The length of your business plan fully depends on what you intend to do with it. From the SBA and traditional lender point of view, a business plan needs to be whatever length necessary to fully explain your business. This means that you prove the viability of your business, show that you understand the market, and have a detailed strategy in place.

If you intend to use your business plan for internal management purposes, you don’t necessarily need a full 25-50 page business plan. Instead, you can start with a one-page plan to get all of the necessary information in place.

What are the different types of business plans?

While all business plans cover similar categories, the style and function fully depend on how you intend to use your plan. Here are a few common business plan types worth considering.

Traditional business plan: The tried-and-true traditional business plan is a formal document meant to be used when applying for funding or pitching to investors. This type of business plan follows the outline above and can be anywhere from 10-50 pages depending on the amount of detail included, the complexity of your business, and what you include in your appendix.

Business model canvas: The business model canvas is a one-page template designed to demystify the business planning process. It removes the need for a traditional, copy-heavy business plan, in favor of a single-page outline that can help you and outside parties better explore your business idea.

One-page business plan: This format is a simplified version of the traditional plan that focuses on the core aspects of your business. You’ll typically stick with bullet points and single sentences. It’s most useful for those exploring ideas, needing to validate their business model, or who need an internal plan to help them run and manage their business.

Lean Plan: The Lean Plan is less of a specific document type and more of a methodology. It takes the simplicity and styling of the one-page business plan and turns it into a process for you to continuously plan, test, review, refine, and take action based on performance. It’s faster, keeps your plan concise, and ensures that your plan is always up-to-date.

What’s the difference between a business plan and a strategic plan?

A business plan covers the “who” and “what” of your business. It explains what your business is doing right now and how it functions. The strategic plan explores long-term goals and explains “how” the business will get there. It encourages you to look more intently toward the future and how you will achieve your vision.

However, when approached correctly, your business plan can actually function as a strategic plan as well. If kept lean, you can define your business, outline strategic steps, and track ongoing operations all with a single plan.

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

Noah is the COO at Palo Alto Software, makers of the online business plan app LivePlan. He started his career at Yahoo! and then helped start the user review site Epinions.com. From there he started a software distribution business in the UK before coming to Palo Alto Software to run the marketing and product teams.

Table of Contents

• Use AI to help write your plan
• Common planning mistakes
• Manage with your business plan
• Templates and examples

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Operations and Management Business Plan (+Sample in PDF)

Aug.03, 2023

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Table of Content

1. What Is a Management and Operations Plan?

RephraseA manageme­nt and operations plan is a crucial document that outlines the­ direction and management of an organization or e­nterprise. Typically create­d with a specific objective in mind, such as achie­ving company growth, expanding operations, or launching new products, this plan de­tails the organization’s goals and objectives. It provide­s a roadmap for achieving these goals, se­rves as a refere­nce for monitoring progress, and allows for nece­ssary adjustments along the way.

The plan provide­s a comprehensive outline­ of the roles and responsibilitie­s of every manager and staff me­mber within the organization. This crucial information ensure­s effective coordination among the­ management team and he­lps facilitate goal attainment. Additionally, a well-de­veloped manageme­nt and operations plan plays a significant role in attracting and retaining inve­stors and customers.

2. Management and operations business plan Sample

The following management and operations business plan will be based on the successful startup of a new facility management business. Professional Busine­ss Planning service is focused on cre­ating a sustainable facility management busine­ss that prioritizes delivering a unique­ customer experie­nce through comprehensive­ services and cost-effe­ctive solutions.

Facility Management

The main focus will be on providing tailore­d Facility Management service­s to our clients. These se­rvices may include facilities mainte­nance, energy manage­ment, environmental compliance­, landscaping, housekeeping, and se­curity. We also offer after-hours support and mainte­nance to ensure all clie­nt needs are me­t professionally and in a timely manner.

The strategic and business plan operations management will maintain a comprehensive inventory of facility management supplies, crisis management, and equipment, including tools, cleaning and janitorial supplies, and appliance parts. The busine­ss will also keep inventory of safe­ty supplies, including non-slip mats, fire extinguishe­rs, and first-aid kits.

Objectives and Goals

The primary goal of the management and operations of a business plan is to establish a reputation as a reliable and trusted provider of facility management services. The components indicated in the operations and management section of the business plan will strive to develop and maintain close relationships with clients to provide the highest quality of service possible. A business plan’s operations and management section will also work to ensure that each client is satisfied with the quality and value of the services they receive.

The best business plans to launch its facility management services no later than six months after beginning operations. Initially, the business plan management operation and organization will focus on acquiring new clients and establishing a quality service process. After this initial stage­, the business will aim to grow its service­s and customer reach by targeting ne­arby communities and neighboring businesse­s.

Employees and Organizational Structure

The management and operations in the business plan will employ a full-time staff of three and three part-time employees. The staff will have­ several key re­sponsibilities, including scheduling service­s, addressing customer inquiries, managing facilitie­s, and keeping track of inventory. The­y will also undergo comprehensive­ training to ensure exce­llent customer service­. The business will also have a de­dicated service te­chnician available on-call and an administrative assistant to handle custome­r inquiries and scheduling.

3. Operations and management business plan examples

When de­veloping a business plan for operations and manage­ment, it’s crucial to carefully consider the­ unique goals and objectives of the­ business. For instance, if you’re starting a re­staurant, you need to give care­ful thought to aspects such as menu options, operating hours, staffing re­quirements, and other factors that are­ vital for ensuring the success of your e­stablishment. The same consideration must be given when starting a salon, home care business, or law firm. Running differe­nt types of establishments re­quires a tailored approach, including specific staffing and policie­s. Creating a successful operations and manage­ment business plan involves taking a holistic vie­w of the business while ke­eping the customer front and ce­nter.

For a restaurant, an operations and management business plan examples should include key elements like the types of foods they will serve, pricing, and a detailed schedule for opening and closing by Professional Business Plan Writers . The Restaurant Business Plan should also include plans for hiring and managing staff and the necessary systems and procedures to ensure the restaurant runs smoothly. A salon will also have to consider how they will attract customers, manage services, and care for client safety and satisfaction. Home care and law firms should include detailed plans for recruiting, selecting, and training staff; organization policies; service offerings; and customer service processes.

Overall, management and operations in a business plan for service should outline all operational processes, personnel management, customer service, and marketing tactics for the business to succeed. From food offerings to staff selection, business owners should clearly outline their plan of action and adhere to their operations and management business plan for success.

4. Unlock the Path to Growth and Profit with OGS Capital: The ‘Go-To’ Management Plan Experts

At OGS Capital, we are­ experts in operations and manage­ment business plan consulting. With over 15 ye­ars of experience­, our team of skilled business and ope­rations strategists is dedicated to he­lping businesses like yours achie­ve growth and profitability. We have a de­ep understanding of the intricacie­s involved in developing e­ffective operations and manage­ment business plans and specialize­ in creating personalized strate­gies that address each clie­nt’s unique needs.

We provide­ Professional Business Planning Services, starting with our thorough business assessment se­rvices. Our consultants offer personalize­d guidance based on their e­xtensive industry expe­rtise.

At our company, we prioritize­ strategic customer targeting in our ope­rations and management business plan de­velopment service­s. Our expertise lie­s in creating accurate customer se­gmentation models and impactful market positioning plans. The­se plans enable you to e­ffectively identify the­ most suitable customers for your products and service­s, maximizing your chances of capturing your target market.

With OGS Capital by your side every step of the way, you can be confident that your plan will be completed to the highest quality and efficacy standards. Contact us today to unlock your path to success.

Q.How do you write management and operations in a business plan?

In the manage­ment and operations section of a busine­ss plan, it is crucial to provide details about the various tasks re­quired to run your business and the role­s and responsibilities of each te­am member. This section should addre­ss important questions such as who makes decisions, who handle­s daily operations, and how the staff hierarchy is structure­d. Additionally, you should include information on how the business acquire­s resources and manages finance­s.

Q.What is an example of an operation management plan?

An example­ of an operational management plan is a compre­hensive blueprint that outline­s strategies and steps to e­nhance the efficie­ncy and effectivene­ss of producing and delivering goods and service­s. This plan includes specific details about proce­dures for improving processes, se­lecting equipment, allocating labor re­sources, managing inventory, and ensuring quality control. It also e­ncompasses provisions for monitoring, evaluating, and making adjustments to ope­rational changes. Furthermore, the­ plan identifies potential risks and provide­s strategies to mitigate the­m effectively.

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How to Write an Operations Plan Section of your Business Plan

Free Operations Plan Template

Ayush Jalan

• December 14, 2023

Your business plan is an elaborate set of instructions stating how to run your business to achieve objectives and goals. Each section describes a part of the process of reaching your desired goal. Similarly, the operations plan section of your business plan explains the production and supply of your product.

An operations plan is formed to turn plans into actions. It uses the information you gathered from the analysis of the market , customers, and competitors mentioned in the previous parts of your business plan and allows for the execution of relevant strategies to achieve desired results.

What Is an Operations Plan?

An operations plan is an in-depth description of your daily business activities centered on achieving the goals and objectives described in the previous sections of your business plan. It outlines the processes, activities, responsibilities of various departments and the timeframe of the execution.

The operations section of your business plan explains in detail the role of a team or department in the collective accomplishment of your goals. In other words, it’s a strategic allocation of physical, financial, and human resources toward reaching milestones within a specific timeframe.

A well-defined operational plan section of your business plan should be able to answer the following questions:

• Who is responsible for a specific task or department?
• What are the tasks that need to be completed?
• Where will these operations take place?
• When should the tasks be completed? What are the deadlines?
• How will the tasks be performed? Is there a standard procedure?
• How much is it going to cost to complete these tasks?

How to Write an Operations Plan Section?

Creating an operational plan has two major stages, both addressing different aspects of your company. The first stage includes the work that has been done so far, whereas the second stage describes it in detail.

1. Development Phase

In this stage, you mention what you’ve done to get your business operations up and running. Explain what you aim to change and improvise in the processes. These are the elements your development section will contain:

Production workflow

: Explain all the steps involved in creating your product. This should be a highly informative, elaborate description of the steps. Here, you also mention any inefficiencies that exist and talk about the actions that need to be taken to tackle them.

Supply chains

Quality control, 2. manufacturing phase.

The development stage acquaints the reader with the functioning of your business, while the manufacturing stage describes the day-to-day operation.

This includes the following elements:

Outline of daily activities:

Tools and equipment:, special requirements:, raw materials:, productions:, feasibility:, why do you need an operations plan.

An operations plan is essentially an instruction manual about the workings of your business. It offers insight into your business operations. It helps investors assess your credibility and understand the structure of your operations and predict your financial requirements.

An operations plan reflects the real-time application of a business plan.

Internally, an operations plan works as a guide, which helps your employees and managers to know their responsibilities. It also helps them understand how to execute their tasks in the desired manner—all whilst keeping account of deadlines.

The operations plan helps identify and cut the variances between planned and actual performance and makes necessary changes. It helps you visualize how your operations affect revenue and gives you an idea of how and when you need to implement new strategies to maximize profits.

Advantages of Preparing an Operations Plan:

• Offers Clarity: Operational planning, among other things, makes sure that everyone in the audience and team are aware of the daily, weekly, and monthly work. It improves concentration and productivity.
• Contains A Roadmap: Operational planning makes it much easier to reach long-term objectives. When members have a clear strategy to follow: productivity rises, and accountability is maintained.
• Sets A Benchmark: It sets a clear goal for everyone about what is the destination of the company and how to reach there.

Operations Plan Essentials

Now that you have understood the contents of an operations plan and how it should be written, you can continue drafting one for your business plan. But before doing so, take a look at these key components you need to remember while creating your operational plan.

• Your operations plan is fundamentally a medium for implementing your strategic plan. Hence, it’s crucial to have a solid strategic plan to write an effective operations plan.
• Focus on setting SMART goals and prioritizing the most important ones. This helps you create a clear and crisp operations plan. Focusing on multiple goals will make your plan complicated and hard to implement.
• To measure your goals, use leading indicators instead of lagging indicators. Leading indicators is a metric that helps you track your progress and predict when you will reach a goal. On the other hand, lagging indicators can only confirm a trend by taking the past as input but cannot predict the accomplishment of a goal.
• It is essential to choose the right Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) . It is a good practice to involve all your teams while you decide your KPIs.
• An operations plan should effectively communicate your goals, metrics, deadlines, and all the processes.

Now you’re all set to write an operations plan section for your business plan. To give you a headstart, we have created an operations plan example.

Operations Plan Example

Operations plan by a book publishing house

Track and Accomplish Goals With an Operations Plan

Drafting the operations plan section of your business plan can be tricky due to the uncertainties of the business environment and the risks associated with it. Depending on variables like your market analysis, product development, supply chain, etc., the complexity of writing an operations plan will vary.

The core purpose here is to put all the pieces together to create a synergy effect and get the engine of your business running. Create an effective operations plan to convey competence to investors and clarity to employees.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What role does the operations plan play in securing funding for a business.

The operations plan defines the clear goals of your business and what actions will be taken on a daily basis to reach them. So, investors need to know where your business stands, and it will prove the viability of the goals helping you in getting funded.

What are the factors affecting the operations plan?

• The mission of the company
• Goals to be achieved
• Finance and resources your company will need

Can an operations plan be created for both start-up and established businesses?

Yes, both a startup and a small business needs an operations plan to get a better idea of the roadmap they want for their business.

About the Author

Ayush is a writer with an academic background in business and marketing. Being a tech-enthusiast, he likes to keep a sharp eye on the latest tech gadgets and innovations. When he's not working, you can find him writing poetry, gaming, playing the ukulele, catching up with friends, and indulging in creative philosophies.

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Business Plan Operational Plan - Everything You Need to Know

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on the business plan operational plan. A fundamental component of any effective business plan and a key component of growth  As a business owner, executive, or manager, you understand that a well-articulated strategy is crucial for the success and growth of your venture. But have you ever stopped to ponder how this strategy is executed on a day-to-day basis? How do we transform those lofty goals into tangible, everyday actions? This is where an operational plan comes into play. An operational plan outlines the practical details of how your business will operate and deliver on its strategic goals. It describes the inner workings of your business, detailing everything from your daily operations and production processes to your team's roles and responsibilities.  In this guide we will delve into the purpose and scope of an operational plan, its essential elements, and how to develop one effectively. We'll also share valuable tips, best practices, and common pitfalls to avoid. 

Table of Contents

• Operational Plan - The Purpose
• The Essential Elements
• Description of Operations
• Steps for Creating Operational Plan
• Tips & Best Practices

Real-Life Case Study

• Common Pitfalls
• Final Thoughts

Business Plan Operational Plan - The Purpose

The role of an operational plan in a business cannot be overstated. This fundamental document is a strategic guide that outlines the direction, timelines, and resources necessary to achieve specific objectives within an organisation. An operational plan is the driving force behind the execution of your business strategy. It allows you to map out clear and attainable operational goals that align with your overall strategic objectives, breaking them down into manageable, actionable steps.  Whilst acting as a map for your business you can also use to track performance via measurable objectives.

Scope of an Operational Plan in Day-to-Day Operations

The business plan operational plan should detail key elements such as the operational processes, resource allocation, tasks, and timelines. From personnel and location to inventory, suppliers, and operating hours - the operational plan touches every aspect of your business. It's a living document, evolving and changing as your business grows and adapts to market dynamics and industry trends.

Remember, the opening of your Executive Summary sets the tone for the entire document. Make it memorable and compelling to encourage the reader to continue exploring.

Business Plan Operational Plan - The Essential Elements

Creating an operational plan requires thoughtful consideration of several vital components that collectively represent the full breadth of your company's operations. Each one plays a crucial role in defining the day-to-day activities that will lead to the fulfilment of your strategic objectives.

Description of the Business Operations

Every operational plan starts with a comprehensive description of the business operations. This includes outlining your production process, operations workflow, and supply chain management. Defining these processes in clear terms provides a concrete vision of how products or services will be created and delivered, identifying the necessary resources and potential bottlenecks along the way.

People are the lifeblood of your business, and it's essential to define their roles and responsibilities within the operational plan. This involves outlining the team's structure, detailing who is responsible for what, and defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for each role. By assigning clear responsibilities, you ensure the efficient use of human resources and promote accountability.

Your business location and the physical resources at your disposal play a crucial role in your operational plan. Detail the premises your business will operate from, the equipment required, and any associated costs. Whether you're operating from a single office, managing multiple retail outlets, or running a home-based online business, defining your operational space is crucial.

Effective inventory management is crucial for maintaining smooth operations, particularly for businesses dealing with physical products. Your operational plan should outline how you will manage your supplies, including how often you'll restock, which vendors you'll use, and how you'll handle storage and distribution. Remember, balancing supply with demand is key to avoiding unnecessary costs or stockouts.

Your operational plan needs to address your suppliers - who they are, what terms and agreements you have with them, and how you will manage these relationships. The reliability and quality of your suppliers can greatly affect your operations, making this a critical consideration in your planning process.

When constructed effectively, these elements come together to form an operational plan that is clear, comprehensive, and actionable. In the next section, we'll explore the steps to develop such a plan, and later, we'll offer some tips and best practices for bringing your operational plan to life. Stay tuned! Looking an industry specific guide to business plans, then check out our business plan guides homepage .

Steps for Developing an Operational Plan

Creating a comprehensive and effective operational plan involves careful planning, clear communication, and continuous monitoring and evaluation. Let's explore these steps in detail:

• 1. Setting Clear Operational Goals and Objectives: The first step towards developing an operational plan is defining what you want to achieve operationally within a given period. These goals should align with your strategic business objectives and be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).For instance, if your strategic goal is to increase market share, your operational objective might be to ramp up production by a certain percentage within the next quarter. Or, if you aim to improve customer satisfaction, you might focus on improving the quality and durability of the product.
• Regular Monitoring and Evaluation: With your operational goals in place, the next step is to monitor progress and evaluate performance regularly. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics should be set for each operational goal. These could range from production volumes and delivery times to quality measures and cost efficiency.Consistently monitoring these metrics allows you to measure progress, identify any potential issues or bottlenecks early on, and adjust your operational plan as necessary.
• Communication: This is a crucial when implementing your operational plan. Ensure all stakeholders, including team members, suppliers, and partners, are aware of the plan and understand their roles within it.Hold regular meetings to update everyone on progress and address any challenges or changes in the plan. Remember, your operational plan should be a living document, flexible enough to adapt to changes and updates as required.

Business Plan Operational Plan - Tips and Best Practices

Creating an operational plan that works requires more than just defining goals and setting performance metrics. There are nuances and best practices that can significantly enhance the effectiveness of your operational plan. Here are a few tips to guide you:

• Involve Your Team : The people responsible for executing the operational plan should also contribute to its creation. Encourage your team to share their ideas, challenges, and insights. Their first-hand experience can lead to more practical, achievable operational plans. Besides, team involvement promotes ownership and commitment to the plan's execution.
• Keep It Flexible : Operational plans need to be adaptable to accommodate changes in the business environment, such as market dynamics, customer preferences, or new regulations. Regularly review and update your plan to ensure it remains relevant and effective. Remember, the operational plan is a guide, not a set-in-stone document.
• Be Specific : Avoid ambiguity in your operational plan. Use clear, concise language and provide detailed action plans, including what needs to be done, by whom, when, and with what resources. This clarity reduces misunderstanding and keeps everyone on the same page.
• Use Technology : Leverage the power of technology to enhance your operational efficiency. There are numerous tools and software available that can help with project management, process automation, data analysis, and more. Use these tools to streamline your operations, track performance, and improve communication.
• Consistency with the Business Plan : Ensure your operational plan aligns with your broader business strategy. This alignment ensures that your day-to-day operations contribute effectively to achieving your long-term business objectives.

By applying these tips and best practices, you can create an operational plan that's not only effective but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement and strategic alignment in your organisation.

To further illustrate the importance of a well-executed operational plan, let's look at a real-life case study - the global tech giant, Apple Inc. Apple's operational plan is a testament to the company's relentless focus on precision, quality, and groundbreaking innovation. One key operational strategy that Apple uses is its tight control over its supply chain.

• Description of Business Operations: Apple's business operations are highly integrated and efficient. They manufacture and market a variety of products, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, and services like iCloud and Apple Music. Their production process is complex, involving design, prototyping, manufacturing, and distribution, often happening across different continents.
• Personnel: Apple's workforce is highly specialised. Each team and department has clearly defined roles and responsibilities, whether it's designing new products, managing supplier relationships, or ensuring quality control. Employees at Apple are encouraged to think differently, fostering a culture of innovation.
•  Location: Apple operates in multiple locations worldwide, including its iconic headquarters, Apple Park, in Cupertino, California. The company also has a network of retail stores across the globe and contracts with manufacturing facilities, primarily in Asia.
•  Inventory: Apple's inventory management is legendary for its efficiency. Through just-in-time inventory practices, Apple reduces storage costs and minimises the risk of stock obsolescence, contributing to its streamlined operations and impressive profit margins.
• Suppliers: Apple has a vast network of suppliers from around the world. It maintains strong relationships with these suppliers and holds them to strict standards of quality and ethical business practices, ensuring the integrity and excellence of its products.

Apple's operational plan aligns seamlessly with its business strategy, focusing on innovation, quality, and customer experience. This has allowed the company to maintain its status as a market leader and pioneer in the tech industry. This case study illustrates how an effective operational plan can turn a strategic vision into a successful reality. In the next section, we'll delve into common pitfalls to avoid when creating your operational plan.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

As you embark on developing an operational plan for your business, it's crucial to be aware of some common pitfalls that can hinder your plan's effectiveness. Here, we outline these potential obstacles and provide advice on how to avoid them.

• Lack of Alignment with Strategic Goals: One of the most common mistakes is a disconnect between the operational plan and the company's strategic goals. Your operational plan should directly support and drive towards achieving these objectives. Ensure all operational goals, processes, and tasks align with your overarching business vision.
• Overly Complex or Unrealistic Plans: While an operational plan needs to be comprehensive, it also needs to be practical and achievable. Avoid creating overly complex plans that your team cannot implement or that require resources beyond your means. Strike a balance between thoroughness and simplicity for a more manageable plan.
• Neglecting to Involve the Team: Your team members are the ones who will execute the operational plan, and neglecting to involve them in its creation can lead to resistance or confusion. Make sure your team is part of the planning process, understands the plan, and is committed to its implementation.
• Ignoring Market Changes: A business doesn't operate in a vacuum. Failing to consider external factors such as market trends, customer behaviour, and economic conditions can derail your operational plan. Ensure your plan is flexible and adaptable to respond to changing circumstances.
• Insufficient Monitoring and Evaluation: An operational plan is not a set-and-forget document. Regular monitoring and evaluation are critical to assess progress, identify bottlenecks, and make necessary adjustments. Make sure you set measurable KPIs and allocate resources to track and review them.Avoiding these common pitfalls will significantly enhance the effectiveness of your business plan operational plan. With a solid operational plan in place, your business is well-positioned to achieve its strategic objectives, driving growth, and success.

Wrapping It All Up

Operational planning plays a vital role in any business, acting as a roadmap to direct daily operations and align them with the strategic goals of the company. As we have seen in this blog post, creating an operational plan involves several important components and steps, from defining clear goals to continuous monitoring and evaluation. Remember, the key to an effective operational plan is to keep it flexible, involve your team and maintain alignment with your business plan. If you implement those principles and regularly review and update you will have set a solid foundation for future business growth. We wish you all the best on your operational planning journey, and remember - every step you take towards detailed and thoughtful planning is a step towards long-term success and growth for your business. If you require any further help on other sections of your business plan, visit our Learning Zone for several in-depth guides.

Business Plan Operational Plan - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

To wrap up this guide, let's address some frequently asked questions about operational plans in business.

• What is the difference between a strategic plan and an operational plan? A strategic plan outlines a company's long-term vision, objectives, and strategies for achieving those objectives. It's a high-level roadmap for the direction the company intends to go. On the other hand, an operational plan details the day-to-day activities and resources necessary to achieve the strategic goals. It's the 'action plan' that brings the strategic plan to life.
• How often should an operational plan be reviewed? The frequency of review may vary depending on your business size, type, and industry, but generally, it is a good idea to review your operational plan at least quarterly. The regular review ensures that the plan is still relevant and effective, allowing for adjustments as business conditions change.
• How long should an operational plan be? There is no set length for an operational plan, as it will depend on the complexity of the operations. It needs to be comprehensive enough to cover all operational aspects of the business but concise enough to be understandable and manageable.
• Who is responsible for creating an operational plan? While the business owner or top management usually leads the creation of an operational plan, it should involve input from all levels of the organisation. Each department or team can provide valuable insights into their operations, challenges, and opportunities, leading to a more realistic and effective plan.
• How can I measure the success of my operational plan? The success of an operational plan is measured by how effectively it helps achieve the strategic objectives. Regular monitoring of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) related to your operational goals will provide a clear indication of your plan's success. If these KPIs are consistently met, your operational plan is likely successful. If not, adjustments may be needed.

• Grasshopper

Operations Plan

• Lesson Materials Operations Plan Worksheet
• Completion time About 40 minutes

The operations section of your business plan is where you explain – in detail – you company's objectives, goals, procedures, and timeline. An operations plan is helpful for investors, but it's also helpful for you and employees because it pushes you to think about tactics and deadlines.

In the previous course, you outlined your company's strategic plan, which answers questions about your business mission. An operational plan outlines the steps you'll take to complete your business mission.

Your operations plan should be able to answer the following:

• Who – The personnel or departments who are in charge of completing specific tasks.
• What – A description of what each department is responsible for.
• Where – The information on where daily operations will be taking place.
• When –The deadlines for when the tasks and goals are to be completed.
• How much – The cost amount each department needs to complete their tasks.

In this session, we explain each item to include in your operations plan.

Goals and Objectives

The key to an operations plan is having a clear objective and goal everyone is focused on completing. In this section of your plan, you'll clearly state what your company's operational objective is.

Your operational objective is different than your company's overall objective. In Course One , you fleshed out what your strategic objective was. Your operational objective explains how you intend to complete your strategic objective.

In order to create an efficient operational objective, think SMART:

• Specific – Be clear on what you want employees to achieve.
• Measurable – Be able to quantify the goal in order to track progress.
• Attainable & Realistic – It's great to be ambitious but make sure you aren't setting your team up for failure. Create a goal that everyone is motivated to complete with the resources available.
• Timely – Provide a deadline so everyone has a date they are working towards.

Different departments will have different operational objectives. However, each department objective should help the company reach the main objective. In addition, operational objectives change; the objectives aren't intended to be permanents or long term. The timeline should be scheduled with your company's long-term goals in mind.

Let's look at the following example for a local pizza business objective:

• Strategic objective : To deliver pizza all over Eastern Massachusetts.
• Technology department operational objective : To create a mobile app by January 2017 to offer a better user experience.
• Marketing department operational objective : To increase website visitors by 50% by January 2017 by advertising on radio, top local food websites, and print ads.
• Sales department operational objective : To increase delivery sales by 30%, by targeting 3 of Massachusetts's largest counties.

Sales department operational objective: To increase delivery sales by 30%, by targeting 3 of Massachusetts's largest counties.

Production Process

After you create your objectives, you have to think strategically on how you're going to meet them. In order to do this, each department (or team) needs to have all the necessary resources for the production process.

Resources you should think about include the following:

• Suppliers – do you have a supplier (or more) to help you produce your product?
• Technology team: app developing software
• Marketing team: software licenses for website analytical tools
• Sales team: headsets, phone systems or virtual phone system technology
• Cost – what is the budget for each department?

In addition to the production process, you'll also need to describe in detail your operating process. This will demonstrate to investors that you know exactly how you want your business to run on a day-to-day basis.

Items to address include:

• Location – where are employees working? Will you need additional facilities?
• Work hours – will employees have a set schedule or flexible work schedule?
• Personnel – who is in charge of making sure department tasks are completed?

Creating a timeline with milestones is important for your new business. It keeps everyone focused and is a good tracking method for efficiency. For instance, if milestones aren’t being met, you'll know that it's time to re-evaluate your production process or consider new hires.

Below are common milestones new businesses should plan for.

When you completed your Management Plan Worksheet in the previous course, you jotted down which key hires you needed right away and which could wait. Make sure you have a good idea on when you would like those key hires to happen; whether it’s after your company hits a certain revenue amount or once a certain project takes off.

Production Milestones

Production milestones keep business on track. These milestones act as "checkpoints" for your overall department objectives. For instance, if you want to create a new app by the end of the year, product milestones you outline might include a beta roll out, testing, and various version releases.

Other product milestones to keep in mind:

• Design phase
• Product prototype phase
• Product launch
• Version release

Market Milestones

Market milestones are important for tracking efficiency and understanding whether your operations plan is working. For instance, a possible market milestone could be reaching a certain amount of clients or customers after a new product or service is released.

A few other market milestones to consider:

• Gain a certain amount of users/clients by a certain time
• Signing partnerships
• Running a competitive analysis
• Performing a price change evaluation

Financial Milestones

Financial milestones are important for tracking business performance. It's likely that a board of directors or investors will work with you on creating financial milestones. In addition, in startups, it's common that financial milestones are calculated for 12 months.

Typical financial milestones include:

• Funding events
• Revenue and profit goals
• Transaction goals

In summary, your operations plan gives you the chance to show investors you know how you want your business to run. You know who you want to hire, where you want to work, and when you expect projects to be completed.

Download the attached worksheet and start putting your timelines and milestones together on paper.

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Free Operational Plan Templates

By Andy Marker | July 11, 2022

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We’ve rounded up the most useful collection of free organizational plan templates to record and track the goals and resource needs of your business or organization. 

Included on this page, you’ll find a basic operational plan template , a nonprofit operational plan template , a three-year operational plan template , and a five-year operational plan template .

Basic Operational Plan Template

Download Basic Operational Plan Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Word  

Use this basic, customizable operational plan template to create a detailed roadmap for your organization. With this template, the path to reaching your goals will be clear to all stakeholders, and team members will know exactly what tasks need to be completed and when. 

Having efficient and clear processes in place is critical for reaching your organizational goals. Learn more in this guide to operational excellence principles .

Nonprofit Operational Plan Template

Download Nonprofit Operational Plan Template Microsoft Excel | Microsoft Word

Nonprofit organizations often have complex, long-term strategic goals. This operational plan template for nonprofits will help you develop a clear set of tasks and accountability measures to keep everyone apprised of next steps. Use this template to identify your goals, establish a clear plan, set and track your budgets, assign stakeholders, and implement reporting protocols. 

This guide to operations strategies will give you an overview of the steps necessary to develop a comprehensive plan for your organization.

Three-Year Operational Plan Template

Download Three-Year Operational Plan Template — Microsoft Excel  

Your operational plan might include long-term tasks and deliverables. Use this operational plan template to chart your organization’s needs over a three-year period. Enter specific goals, delivery dates, responsibilities, and necessary resources on this customizable template to track progress and ensure that you are on your way to reaching your strategic goals. 

Your business or organization might also benefit from an operational audit, which is a chance to conduct a deep dive into strategic planning and to increase accountability. See this comprehensive guide to operational audits to learn more and gain access to additional resources and templates.

Five-Year Operational Plan Template

Download Five-Year Operational Plan Template — Microsoft Excel  

Long-term planning is a key element of any organization. This five-year operational plan template gives you a detailed look at the steps and resources needed to reach your goals. Track deliverables, responsible parties, and resources in this customizable template. This template also helps team members visualize long-term needs and stay on top of their responsibilities and timelines. 

See this guide to operations management for more information, tips, tricks, and future trends in managing your organizational resources.

What Is an Operational Plan Template?

An operational plan template is a form that captures key details about a work plan. An operational plan includes specific actions and resources needed to reach certain milestones. It is more detailed and specific than a strategic or business plan.

Operational plans help project managers identify resource needs, maintain accountability, implement a reporting process, and maintain a budget.

Operational plan templates templates vary by type but typically include the following:

• Delivery Date: Enter target completion dates for each task in your plan.
• Evidence of Success: Write a short statement explaining how you will know when the goal has been achieved. 
• Executive Summary: Describe the plan in a short paragraph that specifies how it differs from or relates to other plans in your organization.
• Goals: Enter specific goals or milestones of your larger strategy or business plan.
• Responsible Parties: Include the names of the stakeholders who are responsible for each task.
• Resources Needed: Enter all resources necessary to complete each task, including on-hand resources and those you will need to procure.
• Risks: Note any risks you may encounter.
• Title: Enter the plan name or title.

Stay on Top of Operational Goals and Resource Needs with Smartsheet

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.

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Operational Planning: How to Make an Operations Plan

The operations of your business can be defined as the sum of all the daily activities that you and your team execute to create products or services and engage with your customers, among other critical business functions. While organizing these moving parts might sound difficult, it can be easily done by writing a business operational plan. But before we learn how to make one, let’s first understand what’s the relationship between strategic and operational planning.

Operational Planning vs. Strategic Planning

Operational planning and strategic planning are complementary to each other. This is because strategic plans define the business strategy and the long-term goals for your organization, while operational plans define the steps required to achieve them.

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Operational Plan Template

Use this free Operational Plan Template for Word to manage your projects better.

What Is a Strategic Plan?

A strategic plan is a business document that describes the business goals of a company as well as the high-level actions that will be taken to achieve them over a time period of 1-3 years.

What Is an Operational Plan?

Operational plans map the daily, weekly or monthly business operations that’ll be executed by the department to complete the goals you’ve previously defined in your strategic plan. Operational plans go deeper into explaining your business operations as they explain roles and responsibilities, timelines and the scope of work.

Operational plans work best when an entire department buys in, assigning due dates for tasks, measuring goals for success, reporting on issues and collaborating effectively. They work even better when there’s a platform like ProjectManager , which facilitates communication across departments to ensure that the machine is running smoothly as each team reaches its benchmark. Get started with ProjectManager for free today.

What Is Operational Planning?

Operational planning is the process of turning strategic plans into action plans, which simply means breaking down high-level strategic goals and activities into smaller, actionable steps. The main goal of operational planning is to coordinate different departments and layers of management to ensure the whole organization works towards the same objective, which is achieving the goals set forth in the strategic plan .

How to Make an Operational Plan

There’s no single approach to follow when making an operation plan for your business. However, there’s one golden rule in operations management : your strategic and operational plans must be aligned. Based on that principle, here are seven steps to make an operational plan.

• Map business processes and workflows: What steps need to be taken at the operations level to accomplish long-term strategic goals?
• Set operational-level goals: Describe what operational-level goals contribute to the achievement of larger strategic goals.
• Determine the operational timeline: Is there any time frame for the achievement of the operational plan?
• Define your resource requirements: Estimate what resources are needed for the execution of the operational plan.
• Estimate the operational budget: Based on your resource requirements, estimate costs and define an operational budget.
• Set a hiring plan: Are there any skills gaps that need to be filled in your organization?
• Set key performance indicators: Define metrics and performance tracking procedures to measure your team’s performance.

Free Operational Plan Template

Leverage everything you’ve learned today with our template. This free operational plan template for Word will help you define your budget, timeline, KPIs and more. It’s the perfect first step in organizing and improving your operations. Download it today.

What Should be Included in an Operational Plan?

Your operational plan should describe your business operations as accurately as possible so that internal teams know how the company works and how they can help achieve the larger strategic objectives. Here’s a list of some of the key elements that you’ll need to consider when writing an operational plan.

Executive Summary

An executive summary is a brief document that summarizes the content of larger documents like business plans, strategic plans or operation plans. Their main purpose is to provide a quick overview for busy stakeholders.

Operational Budget

An operational budget is an estimation of the expected operating costs and revenues for a given time period. As with other types of budget, the operational budget defines the amount of money that’s available to acquire raw materials, equipment or anything else that’s needed for business operations.

It’s important to limit your spending to stay below your operational budget, otherwise, your company could run out of resources to execute its normal activities. You can use our free operating budget template for Excel to track your operating costs.

Operational Objectives

It’s essential to align your operational objectives with your strategic objectives. For example, if one of your strategic objectives is to increase sales by 25 percent over the next three years, one possible operational objective would be to hire new sales employees. You should always grab your strategic plan objectives and turn them into one or multiple action items .

Processes & Workflows

Explain the various business processes, workflows and tasks that need to be executed to achieve your operational objectives. Make sure to explain what resources are needed, such as raw materials, equipment or human resources.

Operational Timeline

It’s important to establish a timeline for your operational plan. In most cases, your operational plan will have the same length as your strategic plan, but in some scenarios, you might create multiple operational plans for specific purposes. Not all operational plans are equal, so the length of your operational timeline will depend on the duration of your projects , workflows and processes.

Hiring Plan

Find any skills gap there might be in your team. You might need to hire a couple of individuals or even create new departments in order to execute your business processes .

Quality Assurance and Control

Most companies implement quality assurance and control procedures for a variety of reasons such as customer safety and regulatory compliance. In addition, quality assurance issues can cost your business millions, so establishing quality management protocols is a key step in operational planning.

Key Performance Indicators

It’s important to establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the productivity of your business operations. You can define as many KPIs as needed for all your business processes. For example, you can define KPIs for marketing, sales, product development and other key departments in your company. This can include product launch deadlines, number of manufactured goods, number of customer service cases closed, number of 5-star reviews received, number of customers acquired, revenue increased by a certain percentage and so on.

Risks, Assumptions and Constraints

Note any potential risks, assumptions and time or resource constraints that might affect your business operations.

What Are the Benefits of Operational Planning?

Every plan has a massive effect on all team members involved, and those can be to your company’s benefit or to their detriment. If it’s to their detriment, it’s best to find out as soon as possible so you can modify your operational plan and pivot with ease.

But that’s the whole point of operational planning: you get to see the effect of your operations on the business’s bottom line in real time, or at every benchmark, so you know exactly when to pivot. And with a plan that’s as custom to each department as an operational plan, you know exactly where things go wrong and why.

How ProjectManager Can Help with Operational Planning

Creating and implementing a high-quality operational plan is the best way to ensure that your organization starts out a project on the right foot. ProjectManager has award-winning project management tools to help you craft and execute such a plan.

Gantt charts are essential to create and monitor operational plans effectively. ProjectManager helps you access your Gantt chart online so you can add benchmarks for operational performance reviews. You can also create tasks along with dependencies to make the operation a surefire success.

Whether you’re a team of IT system administrators, marketing experts, or engineers, ProjectManager includes robust planning and reporting tools. Plan in sprints, assign due dates, collaborate with team members and track everything with just the click of a button. Plus, we have numerous ready-made project reports that can be generated instantly, including status reports, variance reports, timesheet reports and more.

Related Operations Management Content

• Operational Strategy: A Quick Guide
• Operations Management: Key Functions, Roles and Skills
• Operational Efficiency: A Quick Guide
• Using Operational Excellence to Be More Productive

Operational planning isn’t done in a silo, and it doesn’t work without the full weight of the team backing it up. Ensure that your department is successful at each benchmark. ProjectManager is an award-winning pm software dedicated to helping businesses smooth out their operational plans for a better year ahead. Sign up for our free 30-day trial today.

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• Strategic planning |

Operational plan template

Operational planning is simpler when you have a system. Learn how Asana’s operations team uses standardized processes to streamline strategic planning—no matter how many stakeholders are involved.

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• A library of 70+ ready-made templates
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Operational planning is highly cross-functional. It touches every team and can drive real change—but it also involves lots of coordination. For it to work, you need to bring together almost every team in the company, including executives, finance, product, legal, human resources, and more. 

With so many relationships to manage, templatized workflows are key. Templates give stakeholders a plan for how to work together—so instead of constant back-and-forth conversations, you can make plans and take action quickly. At Asana, we use predefined workflows to streamline our operational planning processes—from annual planning to business planning meetings. 

What is operational planning?

Operational planning is the process of organizing how your company comes together to make strategic decisions. It’s similar to project management, except instead of looking at a single project, you’re charting the course for the entire company. The goal of operational planning is to drive alignment and clarity across all business divisions—so company leaders can work together to make decisions, and the rest of the company can understand and take action on those decisions. 

For example, operational planning involves: 

Organizing monthly and quarterly business reviews

Annual planning

Project management for strategic initiatives

What is an operational plan template? 

An operational plan template is a pre-made workflow for any essential operational planning process—like annual planning or quarterly business reviews. The template lays out each step of the process, so stakeholders know exactly how to collaborate with each other. For example, if you build an annual planning template , you no longer have to start from scratch for each new planning cycle. Instead, you can just copy the template and follow a predefined workflow.

Why use a digital operations plan template?

Since operational planning involves so many stakeholders, it’s common to run into pitfalls like long and confusing email chains, too many meetings, and losing information in the shuffle. There’s a lot to keep track of, and static tools like email and Google Docs often add to the confusion. 

Using a work management platform solves these problems by centralizing your strategic planning process in one place. That way, everyone has a single source of truth where they can communicate, share updates, and make plans in real time. 

Here’s what you can do with a digital operations plan template:

Create a single system of record for operational planning work. 

Centralize conversations with stakeholders in one place, so no information is lost.

Share status reports with stakeholders without scheduling extra meetings.

View project reports and graphs to quickly understand how initiatives are performing. 

Automate operations workflows—so teams can spend less time coordinating work and more time on high-impact initiatives.

Easily update project schedules, tasks, and owners as circumstances change.

Use forms to standardize how teams share information. 

Switch between project views to visualize operations workflows in different ways—including task lists , Gantt charts , calendars , or Kanban boards . 

Types of operational planning templates

When creating operational planning templates, it’s best to focus on a single use case at a time. Below, we’ve outlined two specific use cases we utilize at Asana—plus the key elements of each.

Annual planning template

With everything streamlined and the busywork automated, we can focus on the work of planning, collaborating, and creative problem-solving—instead of the busywork of coordinating planning, and wishing we had more time to collaborate and think creatively.”

Annual planning is a highly cross-functional process. There are top-down company goals and bottom-up team and department plans, all happening at the same time. At Asana, our strategic planning team uses predefined workflows to streamline the planning process, share information across teams, and help everything come together into a coherent, integrated plan. Here’s how. 

Create a single system of record for all annual planning tasks. During annual planning, you need to coordinate tasks across many different teams. Make sure nothing gets lost by centralizing everything in one project, so you can see what each team is responsible for and by when. 

Define each annual planning phase. At Asana, we break the annual planning process into phases, each with a specific goal and time frame. When building your template, create a section at the top to define each annual planning phase—including the goal of that phase and when it occurs. By clearly defining what you want to achieve by when, stakeholders can understand how their individual annual planning tasks fit into the overarching process. 

Create sections for each department or team. Organize each team’s tasks into a single section, so they can easily see what they’re responsible for accomplishing during the annual planning cycle. 

Use custom tags to add additional information. At Asana, we use custom tags to view important details about each task. For example, we use tags to identify which team is responsible, which planning workstream the task falls under, whether it’s a concrete deliverable or a decision to be made, and whether a meeting is required. 

Identify key milestones in your plan. Create milestones to identify important checkpoints throughout the annual planning process. This helps teams understand what they’re working toward and how it fits into the overall planning roadmap. 

Once you’ve created your annual plan, share and track it with Asana’s Goals feature. Goals is an organization-wide tool that can help your entire company set, monitor, and communicate about goals.

Business planning meeting template

Bringing together the leaders of our business org across sales, marketing, biz tech, people ops, customer success, and business strategy is critical to ensure ongoing cross-functional clarity and alignment. But, it can also be extremely costly if it’s not done so effectively and efficiently.”

Business leaders need to stay aligned. One way to keep executives on the same page is by hosting regular business planning meetings—where leaders can share updates, align on action items, and create plans. 

At Asana, we’ve created a standardized workflow to streamline business planning meetings and ensure we’re using meeting time as efficiently as possible. Thanks to this workflow, we no longer have to scramble to pull together and prioritize the right topics. Instead, presenters have plenty of lead time, and meeting attendees can focus on what’s most important for the business—not just what’s top of mind. Here’s how.

Create a single source of truth for meeting planning and follow-up. Centralize planning tasks in one place, so stakeholders can easily see what’s coming up and who’s responsible for each presentation. Create a single task for each agenda item—and then when the meeting is over, add that same task to other projects (like meeting notes or action items) without duplicating work. 

Use sections to organize information. Make tasks easier to find by bucketing them into sections, like upcoming topics, new topic submissions, and meeting agendas. 

Submit new discussion topics with forms. Create a topic request form to standardize how new agenda items are added. Forms ensure you have all the information you need to plan agenda topics—like a brief description of the agenda item, goals for the discussion, the facilitator, and time required.

Create custom tags to see key information at-a-glance. Add custom tags to get a quick view of each task’s category and status. For example, use custom tags to identify whether agenda items are set or still open. 

Recommended features and integrations

As you build out your operational planning templates, customize your team’s workflows with these features and app integrations. 

Integrated features

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. 

Adding tasks to multiple projects . The nature of work is cross-functional. Teams need to be able to work effectively across departments. But if each department has their own filing system, work gets stalled and siloed. Asana makes it easy to track and manage tasks across multiple projects. This doesn't just reduce duplicative work and increase cross-team visibility. It also helps your team see tasks in context, view who’s working on what, and keep your team and tasks connected.

Automation . Automate manual work so your team spends less time on the busy work and more time on the tasks you hired them for. Rules in Asana function on a basis of triggers and actions—essentially “when X happens, do Y.” Use Rules to automatically assign work, adjust due dates, set custom fields, notify stakeholders, and more. From ad hoc automations to entire workflows, Rules gives your team time back for skilled and strategic work.

Forms . When someone fills out a Form, it shows up as a new task within an Asana project. By intaking information via a Form, you can standardize the way work gets kicked off, gather the information you need, and ensure no work falls through the cracks. Instead of treating each request as an ad hoc process, create a standardized system and set of questions that everyone has to answer. Or, use branching logic to tailor questions based on a user’s previous answer. Ultimately, Forms help you reduce the time and effort it takes to manage incoming requests so your team can spend more time on the work that matters.

Recommended apps

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.

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.

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.

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.

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With Asana you can create—and customize—templates to fit any business operations use case. Here are some places to start: 

Business plan template

Operations project plan template

All company meeting template

Startup checklist template

Business continuity plan template

Team goals and objectives planning template

Can a project management platform help my business achieve strategic goals faster?

Project management platforms like Asana can significantly improve team efficiency, allowing you to accomplish more with fewer resources. According to an independent report , Asana cuts the time it takes to complete a project by up to 50%—meaning it could help your team get work done in half the time. With less time wasted day-to-day, your team can focus on high-impact work, like driving revenue and achieving strategic goals.

What’s the best way to monitor all operational workflows in one place?

With Asana Portfolios , you can see a high-level view of all operational planning initiatives—including project status, progress, and owners. If an initiative is off track, it’s easy to click in, identify the blocker, and create an action plan to get things back on track. 

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Nonprofit business plan template

Success doesn’t just happen—it’s planned. Stay focused on your most crucial work with a custom nonprofit business plan template.

Contingency plan

Using a contingency plan template will help you create well-developed strategies to help you protect your business from potential risk. Learn how Asana can help.

Requirements traceability matrix

A requirements traceability matrix template is a tool to help organize project requirements in a concise manner. Learn how to create one for your team.

Creating a digital punch list template can help streamline the final bits of a project for your team. Here’s how to create one.

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Simplify your GTM strategy with a go-to-market strategy template that aligns teams and keeps work on track. Learn how in Asana.

Project closure template

Endings are important. Create a project closure template to help your team tie up loose ends and finish their projects with confidence.

Project reporting

Stay on top of your project’s performance. Keep everyone on the same page about what’s been completed and where your project is headed.

Product roadmap

What if you could create, share, and update your product roadmap in one place? Everyone could see you’re tackling the right priorities. Start planning your product roadmap with this template.

Program roadmap

Create a program roadmap template and know the exact structure of each program, how they operate, and their future plans—company-wide.

Strategic planning template

When you’re launching a new product, team, or even a new business, strategic planning templates keep you laser-focused and on task.

Set clear goals and streamline your planning process—so every level of your company is aligned on what’s important.

Competitive analysis template

The more you know about your competitors, the better your strategy will be. Competitive analysis templates use a data-driven approach to see exactly how your business, products, and features compare to your competition.

Crisis management plan

Does your team know what to do during a crisis? Using a crisis management plan template can help keep all your employees on the same page.

Business plan

A business plan is the first step to start your business and secure financing. Use our business plan template so you don’t have to start from scratch.

SIPOC template

Use your SIPOC template to ensure that the processes outlined in your SIPOC diagrams are consistent and up to your standards.

Create templates with Asana

Learn how to create a customizable template in Asana. Get started today.

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Writing A Business Plan: Operations And Management

Feb 1, 1997

Generally, there are seven major components that make up a business plan. They are:

1. Executive summary

2. Business description

3. Market strategies

4. Competitive analysis

5. Design and development plans

6. Operations and management plans

7. Financial factors

The operations and management plan is designed to describe just how the business functions on a continuing basis. The operations plan will highlight the logistics of the organization such as the various responsibilities of the management team, the tasks assigned to each division within the company, and capital and expense requirements related to the operations of the business. In fact, within the operations plan you'll develop the next set of financial tables that will supply the foundation for the "Financial Components" section. The financial tables that you'll develop within the operations plan include:

*The operating expense table

*The capital requirements table

*The cost of goods table

There are two areas that need to be accounted for when planning the operations of your company. The first area is the organizational structure of the company, and the second is the expense and capital requirements associated with its operation.

Organizational Structure

The organizational structure of the company is an essential element within a business plan because it provides a basis from which to project operating expenses. This is critical to the formation of financial statements, which are heavily scrutinized by investors; therefore, the organizational structure has to be well-defined and based within a realistic framework given the parameters of the business.

Although every company will differ in its organizational structure, most can be divided into several broad areas that include:

*Marketing and sales (includes customer relations and service)

*Production (including quality assurance)

*Research and development

*Administration

These are very broad classifications and it is important to keep in mind that not every business can be divided in this manner. In fact, every business is different, and each one must be structured according to its own requirements and goals.

Terence P. McGarty in his book, Business Plans That Win Venture Capital , lists four stages for organizing a business:

1. Establish a list of the tasks using the broadest of classifications possible.

2. Organize these tasks into departments that produce an efficient line of communications between staff and management.

3. Determine the type of personnel required to perform each task.

4. Establish the function of each task and how it will relate to the generation of revenue within the company.

Once you have structured your business, however, you need to consider your overall goals and the number of personnel required to reach those goals.

In order to determine the number of employees you'll need to meet the goals you've set for your business, you'll need to apply the following equation to each department listed in your organizational structure:

In this equation, C represents the total number of customers, S represents the total number of customers that can be served by each employee, and P represents the personnel requirements. For instance, if the number of customers for first year sales is projected at 10,110 and one marketing employee is required for every 200 customers, you would need 51 employees within the marketing department.

10,110 ÷ 200 = 51

Once you calculate the number of employees that you'll need for your organization, you'll need to determine the labor expense. The factors that need to be considered when calculating labor expense (LE) are the personnel requirements (P) for each department multiplied by the employee salary level (SL). Therefore, the equation would be:

P × SL = LE

Using the marketing example from above, the labor expense for that department would be:

51 × $40,000 = $2,040,000

Once the organization's operations have been planned, the expenses associated with the operation of the business can be developed. These are usually referred to as overhead expenses. Overhead expenses refer to all non-labor expenses required to operate the business. Expenses can be divided into fixed -- those that must be paid, usually at the same rate, regardless of the volume of business -- and variable (or semivariable) -- those which change according to the amount of business.

Overhead expenses usually include the following:

*Maintenance and repair

*Equipment leases

*Advertising & promotion

*Packaging & shipping

*Payroll taxes and benefits

*Uncollectible receivables

*Professional services

*Loan payments

*Depreciation

In order to develop the overhead expenses for the expense table used in this portion of the business plan, you need to multiply the number of employees by the expenses associated with each employee. Therefore, if NE represents the number of employees and EE is the expense per employee, the following equation can be used to calculate the sum of each overhead (OH) expense:

OH = NE × EE

In addition to the expense table, you'll also need to develop a capital requirements table that depicts the amount of money necessary to purchase equipment you will use to establish and continue operations. It also illustrates the amount of depreciation your company will incur based on all equipment elements purchased with a lifetime of more than one year.

In order to generate the capital requirements table, you first have to establish the various elements within the business that will require capital investment. For service businesses, capital is usually tied to the various pieces of equipment used to service customers.

Capital for manufacturing companies, on the other hand, is based on the equipment required in order to produce the product. Manufacturing equipment usually falls into three categories: testing equipment, assembly equipment, and packaging equipment.

With these capital elements in mind, you need to determine the number of units or customers, in terms of sales, that each equipment item can adequately handle. This is important because capital requirements are a product of income, which is produced through unit sales. In order to meet sales projections, a business usually has to invest money to increase production or supply better service. In the business plan, capital requirements are tied to projected sales as illustrated in the revenue model shown earlier in this chapter.

For instance, if the capital equipment required is capable of handling the needs of 10,000 customers at an average sale of $10 each, that would be $100,000 in sales, at which point additional capital will be required in order to purchase more equipment should the company grow beyond this point. This leads us to another factor within the capital requirements equation, and that is equipment cost. If you multiply the cost of equipment by the number of customers it can support in terms of sales, it would result in the capital requirements for that particular equipment element. Therefore, you can use an equation in which capital requirements (CR) equals sales (S) divided by number of customers (NC) supported by each equipment element, multiplied by the average sale (AS), which is then multiplied by the capital cost (CC) of the equipment element. Given these parameters, your equation would look like the following:

CR = [(S &3247; NC) × AS] × CC

The capital requirements table is formed by adding all your equipment elements to generate the total new capital for that year. During the first year, total new capital is also the total capital required. For each successive year thereafter, total capital (TC) required is the sum of total new capital (NC) plus total capital (PC) from the previous year, less depreciation (D), once again, from the previous year. Therefore, your equation to arrive at total capital for each year portrayed in the capital requirements model would be:

TC = NC + PC - D

Keep in mind that depreciation is an expense that shows the decrease in value of the equipment throughout its effective lifetime. For many businesses, depreciation is based upon schedules that are tied to the lifetime of the equipment. Be careful when choosing the schedule that best fits your business. Depreciation is also the basis for a tax deduction as well as the flow of money for new capital. You may need to seek consultation from an expert in this area.

The last table that needs to be generated in the operations and management section of your business plan is the cost of goods table. This table is used only for businesses where the product is placed into inventory. For a retail or wholesale business, cost of goods sold , or cost of sales , refers to the purchase of products for resale -- the inventory. The products that are sold are logged into cost of goods as an expense of the sale, while those that aren't sold remain in inventory.

For a manufacturing firm, cost of goods is the cost incurred by the company to manufacture its product. This usually consists of three elements:

1. Material

3. Overhead

As in retail, the merchandise that is sold is expensed as a cost of goods, while merchandise that isn't sold is placed in inventory. Cost of goods has to be accounted for in the operations of a business. It is an important yardstick for measuring the firm's profitability for the cash-flow statement and income statement.

In the income statement, the last stage of the manufacturing process is the item expensed as cost of goods, but it is important to document the inventory still in various stages of the manufacturing process because it represents assets to the company. This is important to determining cash flow and to generating the balance sheet.

That is what the cost of goods table does. It is one of the most complicated tables you'll have to develop for your business plan, but it is an integral part of portraying the flow of inventory through your operations, the placement of assets within the company, and the rate at which your inventory turns.

In order to generate the cost of goods table, you need a little more information in addition to what your labor and material cost is per unit. You also need to know the total number of units sold for the year, the percentage of units which will be fully assembled, the percentage which will be partially assembled, and the percentage which will be in unassembled inventory. Much of these figures will depend on the capacity of your equipment as well as on the inventory control system you develop. Along with these factors, you also need to know at what stage the majority of labor is performed.

Part six of seven. Tomorrow, we'll cover the financial factors that go into your plan. Tips are updated daily at 8:30am PST or 11:30 EDT.

Want to be an Entrepreneur Leadership Network contributor? Apply now to join.

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Operational Planning: How to Make an Operational Plan

June 6, 2022 - 10 min read

Having a strategic plan is essential to any company, but it’s not enough. To ensure that the broader organizational goals are within reach, you need an operational plan for day-to-day work. 

Using templates to manage your operation plan can help simplify your complex processes and save you time. You know how a shopping list helps you remember what to buy at the store? Templates are like that for your work. And Wrike has many templates ready to go for different kinds of jobs. 

For example, you can use the retail trade template to see what step comes next when adding something new for customers to buy. Then there’s the business operations template , which helps you and your team keep track of your business plan without getting wires crossed. And when you need to manage bills, you can use the invoice tracking template . All these templates are great tools for keeping an operational plan ticking over.

In this blog post, we’ll explain what an operational plan is, show you how to create one without feeling overwhelmed, and provide you with an example of an operational plan. We’ll also share our prebuilt templates to get you up and running quickly.

What is an operational plan?

An operational plan is a document that outlines the key objectives and goals of an organization and how to reach them.

The document includes short-term or long-term goals in a clear way so that team members know their responsibilities and have a clear understanding of what needs to be done.

Crafting an operational plan keeps teams on track while guiding them in making crucial decisions about the company's long-term strategy.

Operational planning vs strategic planning

Though related to each other, these two planning strategies differ in their focus.

Operational planning is the process of the day-to-day work to execute your strategy. It ensures you have all the resources and staff necessary to get work done efficiently.

On the other hand, strategic planning is about looking ahead into the future, identifying the upcoming pipeline, and figuring out how you can prepare for it.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, nearly 7 million Americans are self-employed, with an additional 10 million employed by small businesses. 

If you're working at a large corporation, chances are your company will have some form of strategic goals in place. However, if you're one of the millions who work remotely and independently, your success will rely on operational planning instead.

What are the key elements of an operational plan?

The success of operational planning largely depends on setting realistic expectations for all teams.

Here are the key elements of a functional operational plan:

• Clearly define the ultimate vision or objective for the plan
• Review and break down the smaller goals for the operating budget, team, and resources required to put the plan into action
• Assign budgets, team members, key stakeholders, and resources
• Monitor progress with consistent reports
• Refine the operational plan and be ready to pivot if needed

Ensure all teams understand the parameters of success. Doing this shows how their work contributes to wider company goals and ensures better decision-making for the business operation.

How to create an operational planning process

Think of an operational plan as a key component in a team puzzle. It provides employees with a manual on how to operate the company.

It should be created in tandem with other foundational documents like an organizational mission statement, vision document, or business strategy. Daily, it can help answer questions such as:

• Who should be working on what?
• How can we mitigate those risks?
• How will resources be assigned for different tasks?
• Are there any internal and external risks facing the business?

To create a successful operational plan, it's important to define goals clearly. Here are several steps that will help you develop a functional operating plan:

Start with the strategic plan

Before defining an operational goal, make sure your strategic objectives are in place and relevant.

Prioritize the most critical activities first

Once these goals have been decided on, prioritize the most critical activities required to achieve these aims.

Stop diluting team efforts and let them focus on the most important goals first. Doing this means everyone works on a smaller set of tasks, instead of spreading themselves thin in multiple areas. It also helps in optimizing available resources.

Use predictive indicators

For a robust operational plan, consider using key performance metrics or indicators that can help you determine project progress and lend visibility to team activities. 

While lagging indicators look backward, leading indicators look to the future. Think of the plan as a car — the rear-view mirror would be a lagging indicator, while the windshield would be the leading indicator.

A leading indicator could be a new product, higher customer satisfaction levels, or new markets. Examples of lagging indicators include the number of people who attended an event or the monthly operating expenses for specific departments. 

Instead of lagging indicators, use leading indicators. Lagging metrics will show that your efforts are falling short only after you execute the operations.

Leading KPIs include predictive measures that allow early identification of problems before they become critical and impact business performance negatively.

Get team buy-in

The key to defining appropriate KPIs is involving the whole team in the process. Meet to discuss the business goals and figure out what measurements are right for the team instead of working independently or outsourcing them.

Ensure consistent communication

Communication is key. By understanding your company's metrics and what they mean, you'll be able to work together more effectively with colleagues to reach common goals.

Operational plan example

Let’s say that a company plans to increase production volume by 50% at the end of a fiscal year.

When the company goal is clear, the team will make a strategic plan with three main components: marketing, sales, and operations.

This can be further broken down into an operational plan, which will assign resources, teams, budgets, and timelines for different departments such as manufacturing, sourcing, accounts, finance, and logistics to achieve the increase in production. Such a plan should include a financial summary and financial projections as well.

Operational plan template

Think about the example above. The goals and parties involved are clear as part of the operational plan. At the same time, to remain on track, the plan requires continuous analysis and reviews. An operational plan template can be extremely helpful to achieve that.

An operational template can be a simple document that is reused for different plans by the same organization. However, it is also possible and extremely helpful to make use of project management software tools to create one.

For instance, Gantt charts can serve exactly that purpose. Using a Gantt chart as an operational plan template, it is possible to create and manage plans, track changes and edit project-related activities in real time. The chart allows clear visibility for timelines, tasks, responsibilities, and team members.

Operational planning advantages and disadvantages

Most businesses utilize an operational plan to keep track of their daily tasks. 

The plan outlines the day-to-day activities for running the organization — teams, managers, and employees are then able to visualize their contribution, which is crucial for reaching company goals.

But every process has two sides. Let’s review the operational planning advantages and disadvantages in more detail.

Operational planning advantages

Clarifies organizational goals.

An operational plan helps managers and department heads define their daily tasks, responsibilities, and activities in detail.

It also illustrates how individual team members contribute to the overall company or department goals. Without a clearly defined plan, managers and employees have no way to measure their daily tasks against predefined outcomes.

Boosts team productivity

Business owners are always looking for ways to increase productivity, which in turn translates into higher profits. One of the best and easiest ways to boost efficiency is through an operational plan.

Employees are more productive when they know their daily objectives and responsibilities. Conversely, if they're unsure of what is required of them, chances are their productivity will suffer. 

An operational plan provides this vital information to employees in each department and across the company as a whole.

Enhance organizational profitability

Having a plan helps in keeping projects and teams on track.

When operations are managed properly, teams are able to consistently increase revenue and develop new products.

Innovation pays off. A BCG survey points out that 60% of companies that are committed to innovation report steadily increasing revenues year after year. With an operational plan in place, teams are able to innovate better and faster.

Improves competitive advantages

Competitive advantages are made up of multiple levels and components.

Coordinating the different parts with an operational plan will make your workflows run more smoothly. This allows you to deliver high-quality deliverables on time, creating an outstanding customer experience and keeping you ahead of the competition.

Operational planning disadvantages

Possibility of human error.

Human error is a common problem in manufacturing that can often occur when transitioning from production to sale.

Operations management teams will need to coordinate effectively with diverse cross-functional teams such as finance, accounting, engineering, and human resources. In doing so, each team will have a clear understanding of the end goals of each department.

Interdependency amongst parts

One of the main disadvantages of implementing an operations planning process is that its success depends on coordination across parts.

Plans end up failing due to one part not working, which can have an adverse impact on the subsequent process. Disruptions in one process can end up affecting the entire process, making the entire operational plan useless.

Using Wrike for operational planning

Boost your organization’s efficiency by ensuring every project starts off on the right foot. Wrike’s award-winning project management tools can help you create and execute operational plans with various prebuilt templates . 

Establish your plan, monitor progress, and be prepared to pivot if necessary. With Wrike, you can share real-time data, making all milestones crystal clear for your team and helping them stay updated and on track.

These templates keep processes running smoothly so you can focus on doing your work well. Want to try them out? They’re just a click away.  

Choose the most suitable template and start a free two-week trial of Wrike today!

Yuvika Iyer

Yuvika is a freelance writer who specializes in recruitment and resume writing.

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Work Skills You Need on Your Resume in 2021

Navigating the highly competitive job market can be brutal. In a recent Jobvite survey, nearly three in four respondents said they believe finding a job has become much harder following the pandemic.  It’s clearer now more than ever how important it is for your resume to stand out. In fact, nearly 24% of hiring managers spend 30 seconds or less reviewing a resume to determine whether a candidate is qualified for a position or not. You quite literally have seconds to catch their attention before your resume ends up in the recycling bin with the rest of the candidates that didn’t make the cut. So, how exactly do you set yourself apart and stand out from the crowd? Highlighting your work skills on your resume is the best place to start. We did some digging and pulled together some work skills examples in various categories to inspire you to revitalize your resume.  Important social work skills for the workplace What are social work skills? Social skills, otherwise known as interpersonal skills, are essential in helping us communicate with one another in the workplace. These skills allow us to build relationships, interact, and communicate with those around us in a meaningful and effective way. This includes verbal and nonverbal cues.  Social work skills are essential in every job. Whether you work on a team, are in a client-facing role, or are an individual contributor reporting to a direct manager, solid social skills will help you succeed in your position.  Let’s take a look at some of the most important social work skills for the workplace:  1. Empathy One of the best ways to interact well with others is to put yourself in their shoes and understand how they feel. Empathetic people can understand how others are feeling and can identify with those feelings in some way.  Having empathy is a vital trait, especially for those who hold leadership positions. Being empathetic isn’t something you can force, and it doesn’t happen overnight if it doesn’t come naturally to you. This skill takes a conscious effort to build and will help you forge and maintain stronger workplace relationships. 2. Active listening Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation with a colleague and felt like they weren’t paying attention to a single word you were saying? Or have you ever been chatting with a coworker and felt like they heard you and gave you their utmost attention? The latter is known as active listening.  Active listening involves giving someone your full, undivided attention and it allows you to build trust and strong relationships with your colleagues and clients. Active listening requires practice, but it is a skill that can be acquired with proper training and effort. 3. Emotional intelligence At a high level, emotional intelligence refers to recognizing and being aware of the emotions of both yourself and other people. Those with high emotional intelligence are known for being self-aware and can practice self-regulation, particularly in stressful and potentially overwhelming situations at work. Emotional intelligence is critical in the workplace because it contributes to strong, long-term relationships and can help you manage and appropriately tailor your reactions.  4. Conflict resolution According to recent research, 65% of workers experienced conflict with another coworker. Conflict is inevitable in the workplace, which means developing a solid set of conflict resolution skills can help you manage and navigate these situations efficiently.  Conflict resolution is the ability to address the root cause of disagreements and devise a solution that works for all parties involved. You can use various techniques to help resolve conflicts, so it’s essential to learn and understand how to address different disputes. 5. Written communication Social skills refer to how we communicate with one another, which means written skills are a must. Some forms of written communication include emails, instant messages, documents, reports, slide decks, and your resume. Using appropriate grammar, proper spelling, and following formatting guidelines will allow you to communicate effectively with others. 6. Nonverbal communication When it comes to communication, it’s easy to think about what we are saying, but we don’t always focus on how we are saying it. Nonverbal skills can dramatically impact the way your message is received.  Your body language, eye contact, facial expressions, and tone can completely change the message you are trying to deliver to your coworkers. It’s important to be aware of these subtle cues so that you can make sure your message isn’t misconstrued or misinterpreted.  Work-related skills for virtual environments You might not be working with your colleagues side-by-side in the same office. In addition to the skills we discussed above, remote work requires some different skills and disciplines.  Below are a few competencies that you’ll definitely want to have when collaborating in virtual work environments:  Self-motivation: There’s a big difference between in-person office environments and virtual workplace settings. At the office, your manager can simply stop by your desk or quickly check in to see how things are going. While your supervisor can technically do the same via email or instant message, you ultimately don’t have anyone looking over your shoulder 24/7 at your home office (unless you have pets, children, or spouses nearby!). That means self-motivation and knowing how to hold yourself accountable to get your work done are vital to helping you thrive in a virtual role. Adaptability: Adaptability is beneficial in any setting, but it’s a particularly beneficial skill in virtual environments. Whether you’re working with a distributed team and constantly trying to navigate time zones or your presentation gets interrupted due to an unreliable internet connection, adaptability is an important skill to help you navigate the unexpected and ever-changing conditions you may find yourself running up against. Digital and technical knowledge: In virtual environments, employees work remotely and generally rely on several tools to collaborate and tackle their to-do lists. Between project management software, instant messaging, video conferencing, document sharing, and email, there are many different technologies to navigate daily. If you’re working in a virtual environment, it’s essential to feel comfortable using these platforms if you want to keep up with the pace of your work. It’s also worth mentioning that, while you still may be able to reach the IT help desk, you may not receive assistance as quickly as you would in an office setting. That means you might have to do some troubleshooting and problem-solving on your own. What teamwork skills are important for 2021? Teamwork makes the dream work, right?  Teamwork skills are a subset of skills that enable us to work well with groups of people (meaning, our teams) to achieve a shared goal or outcome. In 2021 and beyond, as we see a shift toward hybrid work models, honing in on your teamwork skills can help you land your dream gig. Here are the teamwork skills that are important to develop for 2021 and beyond: 1. Reliability Being reliable is arguably the most crucial teamwork skill. Those who are reliable can be depended on and trusted to do their part time and time again. They show a certain level of commitment to their work and colleagues, meet deadlines (or even get work in early), and follow through on any action or task they say they will do.  You want to be a reliable teammate so your colleagues and your employer will have faith in you. And the more trustworthy you are, the more responsibility you will be trusted with over time, which may boost your career growth in the long run. It’s even more important to showcase your reliability in a virtual workplace environment through clear and frequent communication. 2. Accountability Accountability goes hand-in-hand with reliability. But beyond being reliable, accountability is all about taking responsibility for one’s work — even when that includes mistakes or failures.  There’s no room for the blame game or pointing fingers on teams that work well with one another, which means you have to hold yourself accountable and take fault when necessary. Your teammates will likely think more of you if you’re willing to admit you’re wrong, as opposed to constantly shifting blame or pointing fingers when issues arise. 3. Respectfulness A little bit of respect goes a long way, especially at work. According to Indeed, respectfulness in the workplace reduces stress, increases productivity and collaboration, improves employee satisfaction, and creates a fair environment. You need to respect your team members, manager, and clients to do your best work together.  Acts of respect include acknowledging others and calling them by name, encouraging and exchanging opinions and ideas without judgment, giving credit where it’s due, and listening to and understanding your teammates. 4. Collaboration There is no successful teamwork without collaboration. Collaboration is working together with one or more people on a project or toward a shared goal.  When employees can work together and collaborate successfully, they can share ideas and come up with practical solutions to complex problems. Brainstorming, open discussions, workshops, and knowledge sharing sessions are all examples of collaboration that lead to great teamwork.  5. Persuasion Have you ever worked with a teammate who insists on working their way, even if the rest of the team agrees to pursue another route? How do you keep making progress on your project or goal if one team member isn’t on the same page? That’s where your skills of persuasion come in handy.  Sometimes you might have to persuade a team member to see another point of view and change their mind to benefit the rest of the group. But persuasive skills are more than just getting someone to change their mind and see your perspective — it’s about doing so in an empathetic and respectful way in order to maintain a healthy working relationship. 6. Constructive feedback for improvement You should be able to offer your teammate constructive feedback to help them improve and vice versa. Exchanging feedback not only benefits individuals and the team as a whole but also adds value to your organization by creating an opportunity for constant growth.  Giving feedback requires offering suggestions for improvement in a positive way, while receiving feedback requires listening with an open mind and a willingness to change.  Work skills that work on any resume Sure, there are specialized skills for different roles and industries. Engineers add their programming skills to their resume, project managers add project management certifications and relevant skills, and HR professionals add the performance management and HRIS systems they’ve previously used. While there are specialized skills you’ll want to emphasize on your resume based on your industry and role (and trust us, those are important), there are also some work skills that are relevant on any resume. These include:  Creativity: Creativity is an essential component of innovation and complex problem-solving. In its most basic form, creativity requires thinking about a problem or task differently and using your imagination to form and test new ideas. Problem-solving: All employers value problem-solving abilities because they want to hire people who can break down problems and develop effective solutions. To showcase your problem-solving skills, you might possess a range of qualities such as analysis, evaluation, decision-making, and communication. Time management: No employer wants to hire someone who doesn’t make good use of their time and will have a hard time getting their work done. Your future employer wants to know that you’ll be able to meet deadlines, effectively use your workday to get tasks accomplished, and handle your workload without a lot of babysitting. Examples of specific time management responsibilities include goal setting, prioritizing tasks, meeting deadlines, and minimizing or eliminating distractions for optimal focus. Leadership: Showcasing how you’ve demonstrated leadership in your previous roles can demonstrate to your future potential employer what type of employee you are. Being an effective leader can increase your advancement opportunities within your organization. Use specific examples of successful leadership on your resume for the most significant impact.  So how do you showcase these skills on your resume? Now that you know what work skills for resumes employers want to see, you’re bound to have this question: Where do you put them? Keep in mind that the goal of your resume is to prove that you’re a qualified, no-brainer fit for the role you’re applying for. That’s why your smartest move is to tailor your resume to a specific job. Take a fine-tooth comb to the job description and identify words or skills that are repeated or emphasized. Those are traits that you should be incorporating in your own resume (provided you honestly possess them, of course). The most important skills should go as close to the top of your document as possible, because remember, hiring managers are only skimming for a few seconds. As for where you can work these skills in, you have a number of options, including:  Your professional summary at the top of your document A dedicated key skills section where you can bullet out your most relevant abilities Your past positions, where you can demonstrate how you applied your skills in previous jobs Finally, remember that many of your work skills and social work skills — from communication and time management to problem-solving and active listening — will be on display throughout the hiring process and your interviews.  So, it should go without saying, but show up on time, respond to messages promptly and respectfully, and treat everybody respectfully. After all, when it comes to your work skills, employers want you to show — and not just tell.

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Operations Management Plan

As a business entity, you need to be able to manage the complexities of your processes, business management reports , corporate and professional relationships, operational systems, and other relevant activities that you and your stakeholders are involved in. The entire operations of your business is essential to be organized so you can give focus on the action plans that you need to prioritize as well as on the quality standards that you need to incorporate in all your procedures. Having an operations management plan can help you a lot with regards this matter or undertaking. It will be easier for you to develop your own operations management plan if you will use templates and other document guides and references.

• Marketing Plan Executive Summary Examples – PDF
• Security Operational Plan Examples – PDF

We have listed several examples of operations management plan templates that you can use if you want to create the specified document for your organization. Ensure that you will check out and download the examples that we have provided you with so you can have a more efficient time when developing the operations management plan of your business.

Operations Management Plan Template Example

• Google Docs

Size: A4, US

Operational Plan and Management Strategies Format

Size: 172 KB

Construction Management and Operational Plan

Size: 579 KB

Continuity of Operations Plan Template

Size: 778 KB

What Is an Operations Management Plan?

If you want your business to attain success, you have to ensure that you will develop carefully curated plans that can serve as the guide of your business operations. Even if not all businesses have an operations management plan of their own, it is still essential for you to consider the benefits that the specified document can provide you with. One of the initial things that you need to do if you want to immerse in the processes of organizing and directing your operations is to be knowledgeable of what an operations management plan is and how it can be helpful to the management of your business operations. An operations management plan can be defined as follows:

• An operations management plan is a business document that contains all the plans of action, strategies, and tactics that your organization needs to execute for the development of your operations. Hence, this document presents the responsibilities and obligations that your team members should take ownership of so that particular objectives can be established and achieved in a timely manner.
• An operations management plan provides a physical presentation of the opportunities that you can take and seize for the growth, development, and improvement of your overall operations. By using this document, you can be more directed when it comes to managing all the areas of your business operations as well as the elements and factors that affect your successes.
• An operations management plan allows the incorporation, alignment, and linking of your corporate goals with the objectives that you would like to realize for your operations. With this, you can be more tactical and strategic when planning call-to-actions which can result to getting maximum results from all the efforts that you will provide and the resources that you will use.
• An operations management plan can help you highlight the touch points that are necessary to be taken cared of so that you can promote an open line communication with all the areas and divisions of the business. Using an operations management plan can help you achieve your business goals accordingly as it makes the operational procedures of the business become a collaborative effort from all of your stakeholders.
• An operations management plan, like school operational plan examples , ensures that there is a clear direction with where you would like to be at which can also help organize the work processes of your members. From the intermediate or first steps that you need to execute up to the final phases of your operational year, having an operations management plan can truly strengthen the structure of your action implementation.
•  An operations management plan is a management tool that helps you to become more prepared in terms of meeting challenges, threats, and risk impacts head on. Developing an operations management plan can help you a lot as it can provide an idea about the counteractions that you can execute during particular instances. It can also give an overview of the level of impacts that you need to be ready for and the ways on how you can minimize the effects of problems and issues to the operations of the business.

Transportation Business Operations and Management Plan

Operations Management Plan Methodology

Size: 500 KB

Project Management and Operational Plan Layout

Key Principles of an Effective Operations Management Plan

Your business operations are not limited to the processes, activities, and programs that you implement for sales purposes. Aside from earning a profit, business operations also consider the presence of various procedures and efforts that gives your organization the ability to accomplish or achieve corporate goals and objectives. This is the main reason why you need to have a deep and full understanding of the key principles of an effective operations management plan as well as how they can work together for the maximum benefit of the business and its stakeholders. Listed below are some of the essential items that you should always consider when creating an operations management plan.

• The operations management plan that you will create must be realistic, attainable, and measurable. It is important for you to focus on the issues and concerns at hand rather than the specific techniques that you will implement. Keep in mind that there are different problems that your business operations might experience, which is why you have to think of different ways on how to resolve the core of your problems rather than try to formulate a general or universal solution which will only end up as inefficient and ineffective.
• The scopes, terms, and limitations of the operations management plan usage must be set. Managers and team members should know the specific usage of particular action plans so that the operations can be managed appropriately.
•  The organization of your operations management plan is essential. Just like when creating an  affiliate marketing business plan , you have to ensure that all the processes and activities within the undertaking are laid out accordingly. There should be a system that can allow you to point out all the segments and areas of the discussion with ease. Being organized can also help you showcase the interconnection of the items or elements that you put together in the document.
• The basic information that should be placed in the document should be complete and detailed. You have to ensure that the fundamentals of your operations management plan contain all the necessary details that can contribute to the successful implementation of your plan of action.
• The specification of all the details must be specific and consistent. Being able to execute this in your operations management plan can promote predictability when it comes to the items that are needed to be looked into. This can help you achieve your objectives accordingly especially in cases where concerns are similar or closely related to one another.
• The processes, tactics, and strategies that you will use must have variety. Again, just because one action plan worked for one instance does not mean that it can also resolve all the problems of the operations. Hence, you need to ensure that you will think of variance whenever you plan to manage your operations.
• The team members who will be given responsibilities must be aware of the tasks that they need to execute within a particular time frame. It is important for ownership and accountability to be established so that all work functions can be covered as specified in the timeline that you will use for your operations management plan.
• The metrics for successes is important to be established. Doing this can help you properly and objectively measure the effects and impacts of the operations management plan to your business. This can also allow you to use previous operations management plans as references whenever there is a need to update the current document or if you need to implement changes for the improvement of your operations.

Operations Management and Maintenance Plan

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Work Operations Management Plan Instructions

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Project Operations Management Plan Example

Operation and Maintenance Plan Document Example

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Tips in Developing an Outstanding Operations Management Plan

In comparison to an incident action plan , an operations management plan must also be packed with well-thought call-to-actions, activities, and strategies. Your operations management plan can be used at its maximum level if you can create a comprehensive discussion of your desired results and the steps that are needed to be taken so that you can get to the level or stage that you aspire your business operations to be at. A few of the useful tips that can help you make an impressive operations management plan for your business include the following:

• Include different kinds of stakeholders when developing your operations management plan. You may even consider to ask your customers on how they perceive the operations of the business and what are the things that they expect from the organization when it comes to providing them the services and quality of products that they need. In this manner, you can ensure that the document that you will develop is multifaceted and is composed of opinions and suggestions from different areas of the operations.
• Always track your improvement. The creation of the operations management plan must be backed up by maintenance and updating methods that will allow you to measure the growth that has already existed or transpired within a particular period. This can give you an idea on how the document can truly affect the business.
• Know the purpose or the reason on why you need to create and implement an operations management plan. This can help you be directed when thinking of the procedures of your plan execution as well as the ways on how you can get the maximum benefits out of the undertaking.
• Be focused when plotting the strategies and action plans that you will include in the operations management plan. You have to think of all the elements that you need to put together, the resources that you will use, the internal and external factors that can affect your decisions, and the help that you will be needing from your stakeholders. Knowing what you need and when you need them can help you be precise with the moves that you will do to manage the business operations in the best way possible.

Event Operations and Management Plan Guideline Example

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Operational Plan and Strategic Resourcing Guide Example

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Do You Want to Start Making an Operations Management Plan?

If you have already decided to develop an operations management plan, we recommend you to use templates for formatting purposes. Some of the things that you can achieve if you will use templates in the processes of developing your own operations management plan include the following:

• A more professional-looking and business-appropriate final document output
• An understandable operations management plan discussion flow
• A presentable segmentation and separation of operations management plan ideas
• A well-formulated and detailed clause specification for every operations management plan area discussion

Just like when creating a  monthly sales plan  and other kinds of business documents, using references when making your operations management plan can benefit you a lot. Download the template examples in this post and begin the creation of your business’s operations management plan.

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Writing the Organization and Management Section of Your Business Plan

What is the organization and management section in a business plan.

• What to Put in the Organization and Management Section

Organization

The management team, helpful tips to write this section, frequently asked questions (faqs).

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Every business plan needs an organization and management section. This document will help you convey your vision for how your business will be structured. Here's how to write a good one.

Key Takeaways

• This section of your business plan details your corporate structure.
• It should explain the hierarchy of management, including details about the owners, the board of directors, and any professional partners.
• The point of this section is to clarify who will be in charge of each aspect of your business, as well as how those individuals will help the business succeed.

The organization and management section of your business plan should summarize information about your business structure and team. It usually comes after the market analysis section in a business plan . It's especially important to include this section if you have a partnership or a multi-member limited liability company (LLC). However, if you're starting a home business or are  writing  a business plan for one that's already operating, and you're the only person involved, then you don't need to include this section.

What To Put in the Organization and Management Section

You can separate the two terms to better understand how to write this section of the business plan.

The "organization" in this section refers to how your business is structured and the people involved. "Management" refers to the responsibilities different managers have and what those individuals bring to the company.

In the opening of the section, you want to give a summary of your management team, including size, composition, and a bit about each member's experience.

For example, you might write something like "Our management team of five has more than 20 years of experience in the industry."

The organization section sets up the hierarchy of the people involved in your business. It's often set up in a chart form. If you have a partnership or multi-member LLC, this is where you indicate who is president or CEO, the CFO, director of marketing, and any other roles you have in your business. If you're a single-person home business, this becomes easy as you're the only one on the chart.

Technically, this part of the plan is about owner members, but if you plan to outsource work or hire a virtual assistant, you can include them here, as well. For example, you might have a freelance webmaster, marketing assistant, and copywriter. You might even have a virtual assistant whose job it is to work with your other freelancers. These people aren't owners but have significant duties in your business.

Some common types of business structures include sole proprietorships, partnerships, LLCs, and corporations.

Sole Proprietorship

This type of business isn't a separate entity. Instead, business assets and liabilities are entwined with your personal finances. You're the sole person in charge, and you won't be allowed to sell stock or bring in new owners. If you don't register as any other kind of business, you'll automatically be considered a sole proprietorship.

Partnership

Partnerships can be either limited (LP) or limited liability (LLP). LPs have one general partner who takes on the bulk of the liability for the company, while all other partner owners have limited liability (and limited control over the business). LLPs are like an LP without a general partner; all partners have limited liability from debts as well as the actions of other partners.

Limited Liability Company

A limited liability company (LLC) combines elements of partnership and corporate structures. Your personal liability is limited, and profits are passed through to your personal returns.

Corporation

There are many variations of corporate structure that an organization might choose. These include C corps, which allow companies to issue stock shares, pay corporate taxes (rather than passing profits through to personal returns), and offer the highest level of personal protection from business activities. There are also nonprofit corporations, which are similar to C corps, but they don't seek profits and don't pay state or federal income taxes.

This section highlights what you and the others involved in the running of your business bring to the table. This not only includes owners and managers but also your board of directors (if you have one) and support professionals. Start by indicating your business structure, and then list the team members.

Owner/Manager/Members

Provide the following information on each owner/manager/member:

• Percentage of ownership (LLC, corporation, etc.)
• Extent of involvement (active or silent partner)
• Type of ownership (stock options, general partner, etc.)
• Position in the business (CEO, CFO, etc.)
• Duties and responsibilities
• Educational background
• Experience or skills that are relevant to the business and the duties
• Past employment
• Skills will benefit the business
• Awards and recognition
• Compensation (how paid)
• How each person's skills and experience will complement you and each other

Board of Directors

A board of directors is another part of your management team. If you don't have a board of directors, you don't need this information. This section provides much of the same information as in the ownership and management team sub-section. 

• Position (if there are positions)
• Involvement with the company

Even a one-person business could benefit from a small group of other business owners providing feedback, support, and accountability as an advisory board. 

Support Professionals

Especially if you're seeking funding, let potential investors know you're on the ball with a lawyer, accountant, and other professionals that are involved in your business. This is the place to list any freelancers or contractors you're using. Like the other sections, you'll want to include:

• Background information such as education or certificates
• Services provided to your business
• Relationship information (retainer, as-needed, regular, etc.)
• Skills and experience making them ideal for the work you need
• Anything else that makes them stand out as quality professionals (awards, etc.)

Writing a business plan seems like an overwhelming activity, especially if you're starting a small, one-person business. But writing a business plan can be fairly simple.

Like other parts of the business plan, this is a section you'll want to update if you have team member changes, or if you and your team members receive any additional training, awards, or other resume changes that benefit the business.

Because it highlights the skills and experience you and your team offer, it can be a great resource to refer to when seeking publicity and marketing opportunities. You can refer to it when creating your media kit or pitching for publicity.

Why are organization and management important to a business plan?

The point of this section is to clarify who's in charge of what. This document can clarify these roles for yourself, as well as investors and employees.

What should you cover in the organization and management section of a business plan?

The organization and management section should explain the chain of command , roles, and responsibilities. It should also explain a bit about what makes each person particularly well-suited to take charge of their area of the business.

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Business Plan Section 3: Organization and Management

This section explains how your business runs and who’s on your team. Learn how to present the information in this section of your business plan.

This section of your business plan, Organization and Management, is where you’ll explain exactly how you’re set up to make your ideas happen, plus you’ll introduce the players on your team.

As always, remember your audience. If this is a plan for your internal use, you can be a little more general than if you’ll be presenting it to a potential lender or investor. No matter what its purpose, you’ll want to break the organization and management section into two segments: one describing the way you’ve set up the company to run (its organizational structure), and the other introducing the people involved (its management).

Business Organization

Having a solid plan for how your business will run is a key component of its smooth and successful operation. Of course, you need to surround yourself with good people, but you have to set things up to enable them to work well with each other and on their own.

It’s important to define the positions in the company, which job is responsible for what, and to whom everyone will report. Over time, the structure may grow and change and you can certainly keep tweaking it as you go along, but you need to have an initial plan.

If you’re applying for funding to start a business or expand one, you may not even have employees to fit all the roles in the organization. However, you can still list them in your plan for how the company will ideally operate once you have the ability to do so.

Obviously, for small businesses, the organization will be far more streamlined and less complicated than it is for larger ones, but your business plan still needs to demonstrate an understanding of how you’ll handle the workflow. At the very least, you’ll need to touch on sales and marketing, administration, and the production and distribution of your product or the execution of your service.

For larger companies, an organizational plan with well-thought-out procedures is even more important. This is the best way to make sure you’re not wasting time duplicating efforts or dealing with internal confusion about responsibilities. A smooth-running operation runs far more efficiently and cost-effectively than one flying by the seat of its pants, and this section of your business plan will be another indication that you know what you’re doing. A large company is also likely to need additional operational categories such as human resources and possibly research and development.

One way to explain your organizational structure in the business plan is graphically. A simple diagram or flowchart can easily demonstrate levels of management and the positions within them, clearly illustrating who reports to whom, and how different divisions of the company (such as sales and marketing) relate to each other.

Here is where you can also talk about the other levels of employees in your company. Your lower-level staff will carry out the day-to-day work, so it’s important to recognize the types of people you’ll need, how many, what their qualifications should be, where you’ll find them, and what they’ll cost.

If the business will use outside consultants, freelancers, or independent contractors, mention it here as well. And talk about positions you’d want to add in the future if you’re successful enough to expand.

Business Management

Now that we understand the structure of your business, we need to meet the people who’ll be running it. Who does what, and why are they onboard? This section is important even for a single practitioner or sole proprietorship, as it will introduce you and your qualifications to the readers of your plan.

Start at the top with the legal structure and ownership of the business. If you are incorporated, say so, and detail whether you are a C or S corporation. If you haven’t yet incorporated, make sure to discuss this with your attorney and tax advisor to figure out which way to go. Whether you’re in a partnership or are a sole owner, this is where to mention it.

List the names of the owners of the business, what percent of the company each of them owns, the form of ownership (common or preferred stock, general or limited partner), and what kind of involvement they’ll have with day-to-day operations; for example, if they’re an active or silent partner.

Here’s where you’ll list the names and profiles of your management team, along with what their responsibilities are. Especially if you’re looking for funding, make sure to highlight the proven track record of these key employees. Lenders and investors will be keenly interested in their previous successes, particularly in how they relate to this current venture.

Include each person’s name and position, along with a short description of what the individual’s main duties will be. Detail his or her education, and any unique skills or experience, especially if they’re relevant to the job at hand. Mention previous employment and any industry awards or recognition related to it, along with involvement with charities or other non-profit organizations.

Think of this section as a resume-in-a-nutshell, recapping the highlights and achievements of the people you’ve chosen to surround yourself with. Actual detailed resumes for you and your management team should go in the plan’s appendix, and you can cross-reference them here. You want your readers to feel like your top staff complements you and supplements your own particular skill set. You also want readers to understand why these people are so qualified to help make your business a success.

This section will spell out the compensation for management team members, such as salary, benefits, and any profit-sharing you might be offering. If any of the team will be under contract or bound by non-compete agreements, you would mention that here, as well.

If your company will have a Board of Directors, its members also need to be listed in the business plan. Introduce each person by name and the position they’ll hold on the board. Talk about how each might be involved with the business (in addition to board meetings.

Similar to what you did for your management team, give each member’s background information, including education, experience, special skills, etc., along with any contributions they may already have had to the success of the business. Include the full resumes for your board members in the appendix.

Alternately, if you don’t have a Board of Directors, include information about an Advisory Board you’ve put together, or a panel of experts you’ve convened to help you along the way. Having either of these, by the way, is something your company might want to consider whether or not you’re putting together the organization and management section or your business plan.

NEXT ARTICLE > Business Plan Section 4: Products and Services

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Business Plan – Operations &...

Business plan – operations & management plan.

Summary: Operations & Management Plan is an essential section in your business plan. Learn from this article what are the elements you should include into this section.

Image: Freepik

The operations and management plan describes how your business operates on a continuing basis.

This section covers things that are critical to operations such as your business’ physical location, labour, facilities, equipment and processes. This way, you will answer readers’ questions about operations without overwhelming them.

The section also highlights the management team such as the various responsibilities and tasks of the team. This is where you acknowledge your team and advisers who contribute to your business and success.

Location and Facility Management

If you have a retail location, describe the surrounding area and explain to your readers why is the location effective. 

Tell your readers how your location provides access for the clients and suppliers. For example, your location might make it convenient for your potential clients to park their cars when they come to your office.

You can also attach the drawings of the building to show its structure and size.

In this part, do indicate the operating hours such as the opening hours and shifts.

And then list out your day-to-day operation details.

You should also talk about your products and/or services that you provide, how you provide them, standard operating procedures for the process and customer services.

The inputs that go into making your product will be your supplies and the final product will be your inventory.

So in this part, you should list your suppliers, their background their reputation.

It is also crucial to explain how you will manage your inventory. If you have too much inventory, you’re wasting money that could be put to active use elsewhere in the business.

If you have too little inventory, you might be losing out on potential sales and loyal customers. If you don’t have what they want, when they want it, they will go somewhere else, and they will likely turn to that company first the next time they need the item you used to sell them.

Management Team and Employees

Remember, your team of managers and employees play important roles in carrying out most of your company’s operating plan. Thus, it is important to describe who they are, what their qualifications are and what their responsibilities will be.

You should consider of having an organization chart that shows the hierarchical structure of your business. This will make it easy for your readers to understand.

You can also talk about how your measure employee and management performance and reward them or let them go if needed.

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Top 10 Business Operational Plan Templates with Samples and Examples

Aditya Chakraborty

 Are you aspiring for the best outcomes from your business model? Do you want to set the pace of the organization in the right direction?

The right kind of business operational plan will set teams in motion to achieve desired organizational goals. With the assistance of powerful PPT models, businesses are able to direct the process’s blueprint to the employee and all stakeholders. A clearer picture of the state of operations and targets always helps teams be comfortable with what they are doing. They also know what success looks like. 

Running, and even thriving in you business, could be a greater challenge when the marketplace is tough. If your enterprise can be taken as a ship, a business operation plan can be considered as its lighthouse. It (the business operational plan) reminds teams & stakeholders of the way to go and highlights potholes or obstructions the path ahead. 

A well-designed PPT Presentation is the answer to ensure your venture prospers and has answers to most problems that will come your way. Start your business operational plan today with help of suitable presentations that suit your requirements. SlideTeam offers you PPT templates that assist in shaping business operational plans.  Download  slides that assist businesses to tackle operational challenges with flair and effectiveness. 

Why Do You Need Business Operational Plan? 

Companies often tend to spend time and resources in strategic planning for long-term goals. While it is necessary to make strategic plans, most of these miss out on a key strategic element: a business operating plan. 

“The proper outlining of business operational plan for daily needs leads to best outcomes for the organizations. Research has indicated better allocation of resources in organizations with well-laid operating plans.”

The operator should be able to answer these questions:

• What are the operational strategies in line with the vision of the organization? 
• How to perform and outshine in changing business environment?
• What are the tasks to be completed on regular basis?
• How to prevent risks associated with the implementation of plans? 

Let us look at the list of PPT models to fit business operating models: 

Template 1: Business Operational Plan 

This PPT Template is meant to ensure a pictorial depiction of the company’s sales & marketing goals. Use this presentation deck to highlight the executive summary, company vision, company strategy, changes in the competitive environment, revenue sources, objective for the next 12 months, milestones, financial summary, and others. The deck also contains slides related to acquisition of new customers, customer lifetime Value, and risk mitigation strategies to fit sales requirement.

Download Now

Template 2: Business Plan Operational Strategy 

The PPT slide deck is helping businesses overcome fears and tackle challenges. It displays the company mission and objective, KPIs, business problems & solutions, changes in the competitive environment, financial summary, revenue growth, and others. Businesses are able to optimize their performance with information related to gross margin improvement, operating expenses, product roadmap , and more.

Download now

Template 3: Business Operational Planning Process 

  The specific kind of PowerPoint Deck is focusing on the condition of the company, key performance indicators, operating highlights, hiring plans, and more to boost the overall outcome. It will help businesses devise top strategies to support product roadmap, operational challenges, risk & mitigation plans, and others. Put forth all details in the respective slides to make the presentation fruitful and result-oriented.

Template 4: Business Operation Planning 

  If you’re planning to set long-term business goals, then this PowerPoint Deck will be a desirable option. It includes slides related to the executive summary, business solutions, details related to key stakeholders, analysis of competitors, budget, source of revenue, and more. Highlight milestones of the company through visuals, establishing operational highlights.

Template 5: Business Operational Plan PPT Infographics 

  The business operational plan PPT infographic will help companies establish their goals efficiently. It includes details related to mission & objectives, strategic intent, budget, performance indicators, time, responsibility, and progress. We provide thousands of editable icons on each topic and adjust sizes easily. Companies can use their own icons in the PPT Slides and edit the color of the graphics. Highlight details accurately through infographics and boost the overall output of presentations.

Template 6: Business Operational Plan Pie Charts 

  Graphical presentation of data assists in easier understanding of key business indicators. The business operational plan pie charts are creating huge impact on business meetings through the guided presentation. We provide thousands of editable icons for each category to make business presentations successful. Our pie charts are easy to understand, and comparison in the meeting rooms become easier with this.

Template 7: Business Operational Plan Timeline Pictures Infographics 

Plan the best moves for the company with a business operational plan timeline PowerPoint Deck. The infographics used in the PPT will help businesses analyze present costs and plan future timeline. Use the editable infographics and pictures to highlight details related to the strategic intent of the company, performance indicators, budget, progression, risks mitigation, and others.

Template 8: Business Operational Readiness Plan with Multiple Tasks 

  Select Business Operational Readiness Plan with Multiple Tasks PPT to describe aspects of operations minutely. It is the best option for businesses looking for pro-presentation solutions to highlight essential details. The slides can be easily edited, as per the preferred size and color to fit the business presentation requirements.

Template 9: Essential Elements of Business Operational Readiness Plan 

Businesses need to add backdrops in their presentations to describe subjects minutely. The Essential Elements of Business Operational Readiness Plan PPT deck is designed by our experts to make the teams ready for efficient operations. Edit the slides as per choice and improve the output of business meetings. Download the PPT deck today to ensure the completion of business pro presentations timely. 

Template 10: Business Operational Plan for Organizational Governance Infographic Template 

  The governance of organizations needs to be chalked out accurately for optimal output. Our Business Operational Plan for Organizational Governance Infographics Template provides you detailed-reports on specific subjects. The editable slides suit pro-business presentation requirements and incorporate icons that fit business needs. Download it today to present detailed reports on the company’s progression and govern the organization suitably. 

Final Thoughts!

The operational plan templates prove to be the idle option to develop the presentations to be showcased in business conferences. Such plans should be in line with the strategic plans of the company and ensure focus on specific goals. Take the stakeholders & business partners in the loop to focus on the right objective of the business. The templates will work as the top option to solve specific problems in company operations and achieve long-term goals. 

What is an example of an operational plan?

An operational plan focuses on the future of the business and identifies its activities. It helps in better outlining of the purpose of businesses and understand specific activities to achieve desired goals. If you desire to grow your business by 25%, over the next few years, then the creation of an operational plan becomes critical to meeting targets. An example is given below: 

Goal: 25% growth in business by evaluating the revenues. 

Timeline: 2-5 years. 

Tasks: Engaging with customers and advertising brand products to generate leads for business. 

Resources: Specific skills and customer servicing needs. 

Budget: $5,000-$10,000 for each year. 

Output Monitoring: Revenue analysis for the next few years 

How do you write a business operational plan?

Write business plans in templates to ensure a simple understanding of facts that help in getting desirable output at all levels. Plan presentations critically as the checklist for dealing with business problems & solutions. 

A business operational plan includes

• Defining employee roles and contributing to the business outcomes. 
• Detailed instructions on daily operations within organizations. 
• Creation of risk and mitigation plans.  
• Defining short and long-term business operational goals. 
• Detailed reporting on financial summary of businesses. 
• Providing realistic goals to key stakeholders for achievement of goals. 
• Create transparency to earn the trust and loyalty of employees. 

What are the seven things an operational plan should contain?

A business operational plan helps in decide on a strategy that will deliver the best results. If you want to run projects successfully, then prepare operational plans that help to build revenues. The operational strategy of a company is future-oriented and set the plans that fit the requirements. 

Let us look at the seven things to be included in a business operational plan:

• Precise objective 
• Delivery of activities 
• Quality standards 
• Best outcomes 
• Staffing & resourceful needs
• Milestone tracking 
• Keep revising and updating monitoring procedures 

What are the three types of business operational plans?          

The business operational plan is acting as the blueprint for business procedures and helps your reach your milestones with both speed and ease. The three types of business operational plans include

Single-use plans: It is meant for a specific purpose in business operations and handle challenges promptly. The development of single-use plans helps deal with problems for top outcomes. 

Multi-use plans: It includes plans for stages of the business operation and implements these accurately. These work at many level with accuracy and efficacy. 

Ongoing plans: It is the best way to solve repetitive, assembly-line like issues in daily operations. Such plans help in business growth and thus eliminate prevailing troubles. 

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How to create an operating plan: Examples with template

In today’s business environment, clear and consistent communication enables your team to have a shared understanding of the status and direction of your product. To this end, an operating plan collects your strategic objectives in one place, allowing everyone to grasp what they need to do, and how the product will remain successful.

In this article you will learn what a product operating plan is, how it can help you achieve your objectives, and best practices for effectively implementing one within your project team.

What is an operating plan and why is it important for product managers?

A product operating plan is a document that outlines the strategic actions your team will take to achieve a specific goal. Most operating plans only cover a period of one to two years and serve a crucial role in the product development process . You can expect your operating plan to include budgets, resource allocation, timelines, and key performance indicators (KPIs).

The operating plan moves away from the big picture vantage point of vision and strategy, towards a more granular and tactical plan for the execution of product strategy.

The operating plan helps product managers assess the impact of changing business priorities and customer needs on the product roadmap . Product managers can use the operating plan as a tool to factor in and communicate changes across the organization, allowing the product development process to remain agile.

What goes into an operating plan?

An operating plan seeks to outline your product strategy to guide decisions and deliver on your stated goals. The operating plan comprises of the following:

• Product goals and objectives — Define the product goals and objectives based on your product vision. Objectives should have clear deadlines and measurable outcomes that align with the business strategy
• Milestone based plan — Create a milestone oriented plan to map your goals and objectives that can be tracked and measured against target
• Structure of team, budget, resource, and timeline — Design your team, resources for the project, and budget allocation in order to work on the scope of the project and adhere to the milestones
• Product metrics to measure progress — Identify and create the product metrics which can be used to measure the success of the product once it goes live to customers
• Status check and interactive corrections — Iterate to customer requirements and watch for opportunities to make changes to the product

How to develop an effective operating plan

To better understand what goes into an effective operating plan we will breakdown each step and discuss best practices for approaching the following:

Identifying the product goals and objectives

Aligning with the strategy and vision of the product, selecting and tracking the product metrics.

The product goals derive from the product vision and strategy. To define these you should:

• Break your vision into executable tasks (include the ‘what’ and not the ‘how’)
• Ensure consistency with the product vision
• Make you have a way to measure success

In order to align with the product strategy and vision, one should:

• Infuse the product strategy and vision into all the steps of the product life cycle
• Align the product vision with customer and business needs, as well as the values and principles of the company
• Check alignment and correct any deviations with the vision

Identifying and tracking the right metrics is key to the success of any product and therefore the product team. Below are the steps to identify and track the right product metrics:

• Identify the goal of your business and business strategy
• Ask the right questions to help determine which goals would help track the success of your product against the business goals
• Assign metrics as acquisition, engagement, retention, revenue, or referral
• Create a platform to visualize and track the metrics

Implementing and monitoring an operating plan

A product operating plan provides you with an instrument to ensure your product will deliver on the stated vision, strategy, and goals. However, the success of your operating plan depends upon your ability to manage and monitor it throughout the course of the product lifecycle. Proper management of the operating plan includes:

Tracking success

Adjusting and/or pivoting course, keeping stakeholders aligned.

You can measure the success of a product operating plan by developing product metrics which allow you to quantify and track the progress of the plan. Also, having a visual representation of the metrics allows you to make better interpretations and display your progress visually.

Product metrics let you determine whether a product operates to plan or not. When your team performs as planned, there’s no need for further adjustment.

However, when the team misses, or finds themselves falling short of the agreed upon target, you need to take corrective action and pivot course.

Here, corrective action could come from aligning or augmenting resources, changing the budget allocation, or moving around the tasks based on the dependencies in the plan.

Because the operating plan has many moving parts and stakeholders involved, you need to ensure that you have the buy-in from all the stakeholders involved.

The best practices for ensuring stakeholder buy-in include:

• Communication — Constant and consistent communication with all stakeholders will allow all everyone to be on board and aligned with the operating plan
• Transparency — Being transparent with all stakeholders in terms of progress updates and any challenges/roadblocks that crop up during the course of executing the operating plan will ensure all stakeholders are are able to provide their full support
• Status updates — Providing status updates to leadership and obtaining regular status communication from other stakeholder teams will ensure everyone remains aware of the state of your product

Common challenges and how to overcome them

As with anything, challenges will arise while working with a product operating plan. Rather than allowing these to grow into a bigger problem, you should work to mitigate following issues before they impact the health of your product:

Lack of authority

Communication challenges, visibility restraints.

Similar to the product manager role, the product operations or operating plan team has to work without direct authority, or people management responsibilities. You should be aware of this while trying to push the team towards your deliverables and use the operating plan as an influencing tool.

Communication is key to maintaining the flow of delivery across the product lifecycle. Insufficient communication or communication gaps can result in teams and stakeholders missing out on necessary changes or tasks. These knowledge gaps could result in misalignment, which impacts the product delivery timelines, as well as the scope.

Since the product operations team is a level above the product management, the product operations team may have limited visibility of the roadmap, customer needs, or the technical architecture/design information.

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Operating plan example

Below is an example of an operating plan that provides an illustration of what the process might look like for you. The operating plan focuses on two main steps:

Product vision and strategy

Product operating plan components.

To provide a mobile based shopping experience for a retail grocery store shopper (in addition to in store shopping which is currently available)

Product goal(s):

• Complete an end-to-end customer journey on a mobile app (viewing inventory by categories, adding to cart or wish list, checkout, and completing payment)
• Seamless experience in terms of navigation on the site, as well as understanding the pricing and assortment to the mobile platform users
• Additional benefits of the mobile shopping experience in terms of reordering items, mobile based return/refund for eligible items
• Discuss the scope of work needed to deliver complete functionality in terms of the mobile shopping experience to the mobile platform users
• Create the plan for delivering the identified scope (e.g., to have the first version of the mobile grocery shopping platform released to customer within the next six months)
• Identify the data engineering needs to provide a seamless mobile platform experience for grocery shopping (e.g., identify what categories of products will be available for user selection in the first version of mobile application and how many concurrent users can shop on the platform)
• Determine the structure of the team and resourcing needs to deliver to scope and planned timelines (e.g., scrum team would develop the mobile platform in terms of frontend and backend and user experience engineers)
• Identify the success metrics for the product (e.g., how many users were activated on the mobile platform, how many users could complete one successful workflow of the mobile grocery shopping experience, or the time taken to complete a checkout in store checkout)

Operating plan template

To help you get started on your own operating plan, use this template . The template includes all the key parameters that need to be tracked and mobilized in order to make the product operating plan successful.

The product operating plan is a key component of the product development and delivery lifecycle. Having a product operating plan allows you to outline the tactical steps and ensure successful product delivery and tracking of your product.

The product operating plan also fosters alignment with the vision, stakeholder buy-in, and sets the product and the product organization up for success.

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How to Write a Property Management Business Plan (Free Template)

If you’re looking to start a property management business, you’ve come to the right place. The success of property management companies—or any companies, for that matter—absolutely depends on first creating a well-researched and thorough business plan .

Luckily, this guide aims to help you do just that. First, we’ll explain what a property management business plan encompasses, why you need one, and tips for going about it the right way. Then, we’ll walk you through the recommended business plan outline step-by-step and share details of what to include in each section.

Finally, we’ll send you off with a free template you can download and update with your business’s own information. Creating a business plan was never so easy!

Let’s dive in.

Don’t see the form to download our free property management business plan template? Click here .

What is a property management business plan?

A property management business plan is a document that summarizes your property management business: its current operations, goals for the future, strategies for achieving those goals, and other supporting details.

While you’ll want to create your business plan before launching your businesses, it’s not a one-and-done document. Instead, you should update it yearly and after major company and industry changes.

Why do you need a property management company business plan?

Whether you’re looking to start a new property management company or grow your existing one, you’re probably eager to get started. But while it can feel productive to hit the ground running, a business plan is crucial to drive your strategy and decision-making . It will serve as a roadmap you can refer back to as you get started and grow your business.

Moreover, business plans are also crucial as tools to help sell your property management agency to potential partners, investors, and banks . There’s no point in asking for their support if you can’t show you know what you’re doing, and business plans are one of the best ways to do that.

Finally, beyond mere financial gains, a thorough property management business plan enables you to measure your success accurately and pinpoint areas for improvement . It empowers you to zero in on critical indicators like your budget, local market insights, and expansion opportunities.

How do you write a property management business plan?

Do your research first.

It’s easy to spot the differences between a well-researched business plan and one that was written haphazardly. And those differences will be just as easy to mark in the results your business sees once it’s up and running.

Tailor it to your type of property management business

Chances are, you’re going to start your business plan from a standard template. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s recommended, and we provide a free property management business plan template at the end of this article, if you’re still looking for one.

However, as you fill in your information, be sure to tailor your plan to your specific business. For example, what type of properties does your business manage? Common types of property management include:

• Residential rental property management , including both single-family and multifamily residences
• HOA property management , which typically involves working directly with homeowners’ associations
• Commercial property management , including office, retail, and industrial buildings
• Vacation rental property management , involving managing vacation rentals such as Airbnbs for their owners

Remember your goals

You might wonder whether you really need to include this much detail in your business plan, but remember what you’re hoping to achieve. And we don’t just mean a successful property management agency, but the specific things you’ll use your business plan for.

For example, if you’re hoping to find a partner for your business, your prospects will certainly appreciate a high level of detail in your operations plan. Similarly, potential investors will want to see solid financials.

Use a property management business plan template

Finally, don’t make it harder for yourself than you have to! You’re already going to have to do a significant amount of research, calculations, and brainstorming. Make it easier for yourself by starting with a template you can input specifics to, like the one pictured below:

Don’t have a template already? Scroll to the bottom of the article to download ours!

What is the outline of a property management plan?

Business plans, whether for property management or other industries, tend to follow this standard format:

Executive summary

Company overview, market analysis, marketing plan, operations plan, management team, financial plan, growth opportunities.

Keep reading for more information on what to include in each section. Or scroll to the bottom of the page to download our business plan template for property management and get started.

What to include in a business plan for property management

Your business plan should begin with an executive summary. This section serves as an introduction to both your business plan and your business , and should include information such as:

• The type of property management you plan to do
• How far along your business is
• Your target market
• Your strategy for achieving these goals

Depending on how thorough you want to be, you could even include a brief overview of every section of your business plan. Your goal should be to give a snapshot of your business that compels your readers—whether they be potential partners, investors, or banks—to finish reading your plan.

Pro tip: Because your executive summary needs to sum up your overall business plan, it’s often easiest to write it last. That way, you’ll have all the details ironed out and won’t forget to include anything.

In this section, you’ll give an overview and analysis of your property management company itself.

To start, explain how your company got started and which of the property management niches we explained above you fit into. You’ll also want to share your legal business structure (for example, sole proprietorship, LLC, C corporation, or S corporation).

The majority of this section, however, should be devoted to your competitive differentiators. What core competencies are you bringing to the market?

A market analysis isn’t only an important addition to your business plan. It’s also absolutely essential that you understand your market inside and out before you even consider launching a property management agency.

To be as thorough as possible, make sure that your market analysis includes specific analyses of your industry, target customers, and competitors.

Industry analysis

Provide an overview of your specific niche of the property management industry. Include as much detail as you can to help you become an expert in your industry, such as:

• Market size (in dollars)
• History of the industry
• Prospected growth

Customer analysis

Who are your target customers? Start with your property management niche, and then get even more specific:

• Residential rental property management → Will you target single-family or multifamily residences? Apartment buildings or individual homes? Affordable housing or high-end residences?
• HOA property management → Do you have specific HOAs in mind?
• Commercial property management → Will you manage office, retail, or industrial buildings?
• Vacation rental property management → Do you want to work with a specific type of vacation rental property or owner?

Be sure to include your target customers’ specific needs, goals, and any other information you can find to build a robust profile. The more detailed you can be, the easier it will be to target them with your services!

Competitive analysis

This is where you analyze your competitors, both direct and indirect:

• Your direct competitors include other property management companies in the same niche as you. These companies will likely be located nearby as well.
• Your indirect competitors include other options your customers have outside of property management agencies. This might include property owners who decide to manage their properties themselves, in-house managers, and even automated tools that claim to take the place of property managers.

After identifying the competition, you’ll want to provide additional information about your direct competitors. Who are their target customers? What services do they offer, and how much do they charge?

Gather as much information as you can, and then perform a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats) analysis to identify potential competitive advantages. Your goal is to determine how you’ll outperform your competitors—whether via superior or additional services, lower prices, greater efficiency, or something else.

Remember: If you can’t identify any clear competitive advantages, your customers won’t be able to, either.

So, you have superior property management services at competitive rates. But how do you plan on getting in front of your target customers?

This is where your marketing plan comes in. Think about what marketing channels you’ll use, prioritizing those which will best reach your target customers. Consider both online and offline marketing, including the following options:

• Business cards
• Advertising in local newspapers and relevant magazines
• SEO marketing
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Paid advertising

Creating your business plan has forced you to set some specific goals. How do you plan on meeting them?

This is exactly what your operations plan sets out to cover, with details on both short- and long-term processes.

Your short-term processes will include everything involved in the day-to-day running of your property management business . Again, these tasks will vary drastically depending on your property management niche. However, the following questions are a good starting point:

• Who will be in charge of running the business?
• Do you need to hire any additional staff? If so, how many people and for which roles?
• How will you structure your team?
• What are your service standards?
• Which manuals will you need to develop?
• What property management software will you use?

Once you’ve defined your daily operations, take a step back and think long-term. At any point in your business’s trajectory, do you plan to:

• Hire additional employees?
• Reach a certain sales figure?
• Grow your portfolio?
• Expand to a new location?

Having these long-term goals documented will not only show potential partners and investors that you’re thinking about the future. It will also give you something to refer back to in order to measure your progress.

Your property management business will only be as strong as the team leading it. So, once you’ve assembled the dream team, you’ll want to highlight its strengths in your business plan, paying specific attention to each member’s background, skills, and relevant experience.

If no one on your management team has property management or real estate experience, or your team is lacking in any way, it might be worthwhile to put together an advisory board. This board consists of a handful of mentors who have the experience necessary to guide your business in the right direction (and reassure any potential investors).

And now for everyone’s favorite part: the financial plan.

Specifically, your financial plan should consist of a five-year financial statement. The first year of your financial statement should include monthly and quarterly projections, with the remaining years including annual figures.

What goes in a financial statement? Let’s break it down:

• Profit and loss statement: Also referred to as an income statement, a profit and loss statement subtracts your costs from your revenue to find your profit. As you can imagine, you’re going to be making a lot of calculated assumptions at this point. Try to be as accurate as possible when predicting your costs and revenue. Otherwise, your profit and loss statement won’t paint a very accurate picture.
• Balance sheet: A balance sheet details your business’s assets (what you own) and liabilities (what you owe) in order to provide a snapshot of its finances. Your assets might include office space or software solutions, whereas liabilities would include any loans you’ve taken out to start your business.
• Cash flow statement: A cash flow statement shows how changes in your income and balance sheet affect your cash flow—and your ability to operate in the short- and long-term. Its goal is to show how much money you need to run your business so that you don’t run out of cash.

If you’re just getting started, it may feel too soon to consider growth opportunities. But thinking about your business’s long-term goals and plans is essential to set yourself up for success. After all, you don’t only want to succeed now. You want to make sure you have what’s necessary to succeed for years to come.

On that note, analyze the property management and real estate market in your area to identify growth opportunities for your business over the next five to 10 years, such as:

• Upgrades to your tech stack
• Strategic partnerships
• Expansion plans
• Opportunities to take advantage of new market trends

If you have any supporting documentation that could strengthen your business plan, such as buyer personas for your target customers or more complete financial projections, feel free to attach them in the appendix. That way, the additional information is there for anyone who wants to see it, but it doesn’t clutter up your business plan.

Property management business plan example

Curious about what a business plan for property management looks like? We’re including a property management business plan sample (the company overview, specifically) below to give you an idea:

Want a customizable version? Scroll to the bottom of the article to download our free template!

Download our free property management business plan template

Ready to get started? We’re here to help!

Download our free template below and simply fill in your own information. Our straightforward guide includes all the details you need to cover before starting your new business.

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Travel Agency Operational Plan

I. executive summary.

In this Operational Plan, we outline the strategic actions and processes that are crucial for achieving optimal performance and realizing our agency's objectives. This plan serves as a blueprint for the efficient operation of our business, ensuring that all functions align with our overarching goal of delivering exceptional travel experiences to our clients. Key objectives of this plan include:

Enhancing service delivery to improve customer satisfaction

Streamlining operational processes to increase efficiency

Integrating advanced technology to support operations and marketing

Expanding market reach through strategic partnerships and innovative marketing

II. Organizational Structure

Our organizational structure is designed to support efficient operations and clear communication across all departments. Below is a table outlining the roles and responsibilities within our agency:

III. Operations Strategy

A. core business activities.

Our core business activities are fundamental to our mission of providing top-notch travel solutions. These activities include:

Travel Planning and Booking : Customizing travel itineraries based on client preferences and managing all booking aspects.

Customer Support : Offering ongoing support before, during, and after travel.

Marketing and Promotion : Implementing strategies to reach new customers and retain existing ones.

Partnership Management : Collaborating with hotels, airlines, and other service providers to offer comprehensive travel packages.

B. Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)

To ensure consistency and quality across our services, we have developed detailed Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). These SOPs cover various aspects of our operations including:

Booking Process

Customer Complaint Handling

Staff Training

Emergency Response

By adhering to these SOPs, we ensure that all operational activities are conducted in a standardized and efficient manner, enhancing overall productivity and customer satisfaction.

IV. Service Delivery

A. travel services.

Our agency provides comprehensive travel services designed to meet the diverse needs of our clients. From adventure travel to luxury retreats, our offerings are tailored to ensure an exceptional travel experience. Our methods for delivering these services include:

Personalized Travel Itineraries : Creating custom travel plans based on individual client preferences.

Group Tours : Organizing guided tours for groups, which include special events and exclusive experiences.

Corporate Travel Management : Offering full-service management of business travel for corporate clients.

Specialty Travel Packages : Designing travel packages that cater to specific interests such as culinary tours, wellness retreats, and cultural exploration.

B. Bookings

Efficient and accurate booking processes are essential for client satisfaction and operational success. We manage bookings through:

Online Booking System : Allowing clients to book travel arrangements directly through our website.

Phone Reservations : Providing personal assistance via telephone to help clients plan and book their travel.

Email : Confirming and adjusting bookings via email, providing a written record for both parties.

In-Person Appointments : Offering personal consultations at our offices for customized travel planning.

C. Customer Inquiries

Responding to customer inquiries promptly and effectively is a priority. We handle customer inquiries through:

24/7 Support Line : A dedicated phone line that offers around-the-clock assistance to address any travel concerns.

Email Support : Providing detailed responses to queries received via our customer service email.

Live Chat : A feature on our website that offers real-time assistance from travel experts.

FAQ Section on Website : A comprehensive resource where customers can find answers to common questions instantly.

D. Complaints

Handling complaints efficiently and with a customer-focused approach is crucial for maintaining satisfaction and trust. Our methods for managing complaints include:

Immediate Acknowledgment : Recognizing receipt of the complaint and providing a timeline for resolution.

Dedicated Complaints Team : Specialists trained to handle complex issues and ensure a satisfactory resolution.

Follow-up Calls : Personal calls to ensure that the resolution was satisfactory and to regain the trust of the customer.

Feedback Surveys : Post-resolution surveys that help us understand the customer's experience and identify areas for improvement.

V. Technology and Systems

In our commitment to delivering exceptional service and enhancing operational efficiency, we continuously evaluate and upgrade our technology and systems. Below is a table outlining our current technology, alongside planned upgrades:

These upgrades are strategically chosen to enhance our service delivery capabilities, improve customer interactions, and optimize our marketing efforts. Implementing advanced technologies will allow us to better understand customer needs, personalize our services, and streamline internal operations, thus driving overall business growth and customer satisfaction.

VI. Marketing and Sales

Our marketing and sales strategies are designed to enhance brand visibility, attract new customers, and retain existing ones. These strategies include:

Digital Marketing : Utilizing SEO, PPC, and social media platforms to increase online presence and attract bookings from key target markets.

Content Marketing : Developing engaging content that highlights our travel packages and expertise, distributed through blogs, videos, and e-newsletters.

Partnership Marketing : Collaborating with airlines, hotels, and local tour operators to create exclusive travel deals that can be marketed jointly.

Customer Loyalty Programs : Implementing a loyalty program that rewards repeat customers with discounts, upgrades, and special offers.

Referral Programs : Encouraging satisfied customers to refer friends and family with incentives for both the referrer and the new customer.

Trade Shows and Events : Participating in trade shows and industry events to network with potential clients and promote our services.

VII. Financial Management

Effective budget management is essential for maintaining financial health and supporting strategic investments. We allocate our budget across various departments and projects to ensure optimal resource utilization and achievement of our financial goals. Below is a table providing a detailed breakdown of our annual budget:

B. Revenue Stream

Our agency generates revenue through several primary streams that support the sustainability of our business. Below is a table illustrating these revenue sources:

C. Cost Control Measures

To maintain financial stability and profitability, we implement several cost control measures:

Regular Financial Audits : To ensure expenses align with budget allocations and to identify any financial discrepancies or areas of overspending.

Strategic Vendor Negotiations : To obtain the best possible prices and terms for services and products we require.

Efficiency Improvements : Continuous review of operational processes to find efficiency gains that can reduce costs.

Preventative Maintenance : Regular maintenance of technology and equipment to avoid costly emergency repairs.

VIII. Risk Management

Effective risk management is crucial for minimizing potential disruptions to our operations. Below is a table outlining key risks, their likelihood, and potential impacts:

IX. Monitoring and Evaluation

To assess the effectiveness of our operational plan, we monitor specific key performance indicators. Below is a table with these metrics and their target values:

Evaluations occur quarterly and annually, involving comprehensive reviews of these metrics through internal audits and performance reports. Adjustments are made based on these evaluations to ensure continuous improvement and alignment with our strategic goals.

X. Conclusion

This Operational Plan sets a clear path forward for our agency, outlining the strategies, resources, and controls necessary to achieve our objectives. By meticulously planning and monitoring our operations, we ensure that we can adapt to changes, overcome challenges, and capitalize on opportunities to drive success and growth in the competitive travel industry.

Travel Agency Templates @ Template.net