It’s that time of year again. Yes, it’s back to school.
It’s also likely that your first pass of your annual plan has been submitted. Or has it?
I recently had a PE firm ask me how they should build an annual plan for a mid-sized restaurant company they held. They were between a CEO and a CMO. In particular, they were trying to determine financials tied to revenue, COGS, and any capital associated with driving topline.
Work like this usually sits inside a larger context (see my post on restaurant growth drivers).
In this case, the firm needed a tactical plan outlining activities they could have confidence would deliver the agreed-upon financial targets.
Given where they were in the year and planning cycle, we agreed to focus on finding actions the company could take immediately rather than focus on future development.
In the attached link I share initial thinking about identifying potential growth levers.