All Articles
Most executive teams complete annual planning and have determined their foundational strategic elements—Core Values, Purpose, and BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). Yet many leaders skip a critical middle step: the 3-year strategic plan.
This intermediate planning horizon is your base camp strategy. Just as climbers don't summit Everest in a single push, your organization needs strategic base camps between this year's tactics and your 10-year vision. The 3-year plan gives your leadership team permission to think beyond quarterly results while staying grounded in achievable milestones.
Your 2-day annual planning session is the ideal time to build your 3-5 Year Strategic Plan. But what should come from those intensive sessions? How do you translate bold vision into executable strategy?
The 3-Year Business Plan Framework
Your plan should include:
- 1-3 Targets (measurable outcomes)
- 2-3 Strategic Winning Moves for Revenue (growth strategies)
- 1-2 Strategic Winning Moves for Profit (efficiency and infrastructure strategies)
No template works for every company, but the examples below will help you get started. First, select your planning horizon—whether 3, 4, or 5 years—based on your industry velocity and growth ambitions. Then build your plan around that specific timeframe with your leadership team.
Strategic Planning Targets: What Gets Measured Gets Managed
Revenue is universal, but the most effective strategic plans track 2-3 additional metrics that matter uniquely to your business model.
Annual Revenue
- 2026 Goal: $50M
- 2027 Goal: $70M
- 2028 Goal: $100M
Active Enterprise Customers
- 2026 Goal: 185
- 2027 Goal: 280
- 2028 Goal: 425
Gross Margin
- 2026 Goal: 32%
- 2027 Goal: 37%
- 2028 Goal: 42%
Map each target across all three years to create your growth trajectory.
Other potential targets to consider: Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR), Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lifetime Value (LTV), Net Revenue Retention, EBITDA margin, Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), or market share in key segments.
If you operate multiple business units, this is the time to establish unit-specific targets that ladder up to enterprise goals.
Strategic Winning Moves for Revenue: Your Growth Engine
Revenue growth typically comes from three sources: acquisitions, organic expansion with existing customers, or entering new markets/products. Your winning moves should represent the highest-leverage opportunities specific to your competitive position.
Limit yourself to 2-3 revenue moves. The goal is focus, not a comprehensive list of every possible initiative. These moves should collectively enable you to double revenue within your planning horizon.
Examples of Revenue Winning Moves:
Successfully integrate 2 strategic acquisitions to expand geographic reach and add $25M in annual revenue
Launch AI-powered analytics module to existing customer base, creating new revenue stream targeting $15M by 2028
Expand into healthcare vertical with compliance-ready product version, capturing 8% market share
Increase average contract value by 40% through modular premium features and enterprise tier packaging
Build partner ecosystem generating 25% of new customer acquisition through channel partnerships
Transition 60% of customer base to consumption-based pricing model to better align value with usage
Other proven moves include productizing professional services, entering adjacent markets where you have unique advantages, or developing a platform play that enables third-party innovation on your infrastructure.
Your executive team knows your market better than anyone. If you need help facilitating the discussion and pressure-testing ideas, we have a proven strategic planning process.
Strategic Winning Moves for Profit: Building to Scale
Revenue growth without operational leverage leads to chaos. Your profit-focused moves ensure your infrastructure, systems, and talent can support 2x the revenue without 2x the complexity.
These moves tend to fall into three categories: technology and automation, talent and leadership development, and operational efficiency.
Examples of Profit Winning Moves:
Modernize cloud infrastructure and implement AI automation reducing manual processing time by 35% and supporting 3x customer volume
Build leadership pipeline with formal development program, ensuring 80% of director+ roles filled internally
Increase revenue per employee from $425K to $600K through automation of tier-1 support and customer onboarding
Reduce employee turnover by 40% in critical technical roles through career pathing and competitive total rewards
Implement AI-assisted workflows across sales, marketing, and customer success to improve productivity by 25%
Consolidate vendor relationships and renegotiate contracts to reduce SG&A as percentage of revenue from 28% to 22%
The right profit moves depend on where you are in your growth curve. Earlier-stage companies might focus on building repeatable processes, while scaling companies need to prevent infrastructure from becoming a bottleneck.
How to Bring Your 3-Year Plan to Life
Once you've identified your 3-5 total Winning Moves, take these essential steps:
Assign clear ownership. Each Winning Move needs a single executive accountable for driving it forward. If everyone owns it, nobody is fully responsible.
Define success criteria. Establish Red-Yellow-Green metrics for each move so your team has objective alignment on what winning looks like—and what constitutes a warning sign.
Build financial models. Project the revenue contribution from each Winning Move across all three years. When you total these projections, do they add up to your revenue targets? If there's a gap, you need additional moves or more aggressive assumptions.
Test your assumptions. What must be true for each Winning Move to succeed? What's your customer adoption rate assumption? Market size? Competitive response? Validate the riskiest assumptions with data before committing major resources.
Connect to quarterly execution. Your annual and quarterly plans should explicitly advance your Winning Moves. Key priorities should link back to your strategic plan.
Assess opportunities and threats. Which trends in technology, regulation, or customer behavior could accelerate or derail each move? Plan for both scenarios. Creating a plan B for potential issues ahead of time is much easier than figuring out how to shift in the heat of a crisis.
Your Strategic Anchor
Your 3-year strategic plan bridges the gap between this year's tactical execution and your long-term vision. It gives your annual planning strategic coherence and helps your entire organization understand not just what you're doing, but why.
If you're ready to build your plan but want expert facilitation to guide your leadership team through the process, download our strategic planning template or connect with one of our experienced facilitators who can help you navigate the tough conversations and emerge with clarity.
3-Year Strategic Plan Examples Video
You can download our free strategic planning example template by clicking below.