internal department business plan

• Customer Reviews
• Net 30 Account
• Wise Services
• Steps & Timeline
• Work at a Glance
• Market Research at a Glance
• Business Plan Writing Services
• Bank Business Plan
• Investor Business Plan
• Franchise Business Plan
• Cannabis Business Plan
• Strategic Business Plan
• Corporate Business Plan
• Merge and Acquisition Business Plan (M&A)
• Private Placement Memorandums (PPM)
• Sample Business Plans
• Professional Feasibility Study
• PowerPoint Presentations
• Pitch Deck Presentation Services
• Business Plan Printing
• Market Research
• L-1 Business Plan
• E-2 Business Plan
• EB-5 Business Plan
• EB-5 Regional Centers
• Immigration Attorneys
• Nonprofit Business Plan
• Exit Business Planning
• Business Planning
• Business Formation
• Business License
• Business Website
• Business Branding
• Business Bank Account
• Digital Marketing
• Business Funding Resources
• Small Business Loans
• Venture Capital
• Net 30 Apply

Building a Solid Internal Business Plan: Expert Guidance and Insights

An internal business plan is like a compass for your organization, guiding your team towards common goals and strategies. In this guide, we’ll break down each component of an internal business plan in simpler terms and share expert tips to help you create a plan that keeps your team on the same page.

• Key Highlights
• An internal business plan is a roadmap that guides your team towards common goals and strategies.
• It helps align your team, make better decisions, and achieve success.
• Create a clear and concise plan with SMART goals, action steps, and communication strategies.

What is Internal Business Plan?

Differences between internal and external business plans:.

• What's the Purpose of an Internal Business Plan?
• Here's Why It Matters:

Benefits of an Internal Business Plan:

• 1. Mission and Vision: Your Organization's Purpose (Around 200 words)

2. Organizational Goals: What You Want to Achieve (Around 250 words)

3. swot analysis: understanding your internal landscape (around 300 words).

• 4. Key Strategies: How You'll Achieve Your Goals (Around 250 words)

5. Action Plans: Who Does What (Around 350 words)

6. budget and resources: what you need (around 250 words), 7. monitoring and evaluation: keeping things on track (around 300 words), 8. communication plan: keeping everyone informed (around 200 words), common mistakes to avoid, tips to overcome challenges, measuring success, effective metrics for internal business plan success, interpreting data and making data-driven decisions:, what must an entrepreneur do after creating a business plan, 1. secure funding, 2. assemble your team, 3. execute your strategies, 4. foster communication and collaboration, 5. measure performance and analyze data.

A business plan acts as a blueprint for your organization’s future, detailing its goals, strategies, and financial projections. An internal business plan takes this concept further, focusing specifically on aligning your team and ensuring everyone understands their roles and responsibilities in achieving your shared vision.

Here’s a breakdown of the key differences between internal and external business plans:

What's the Purpose of an Internal Business Plan?

Think of an internal business plan as your team’s GPS for success. It’s all about getting everyone on the same page and heading toward the same goals. Unlike the fancy plans you show off to investors, this one is all about making sure your team knows where you’re headed and how to get there together.

Here's Why It Matters:

• Teamwork and Focus: It spells out what your gang is trying to achieve and gives everyone a clear focus on the mission.
• Smarter Choices: Helps everyone make better decisions by laying out the game plan. It's like having a playbook for your business moves.
• Using Resources Wisely: Shows where the money, people, and tech need to go, making sure everything's used just right.
• Making Everyone Accountable: Sets goals and ways to measure success so that everyone's accountable for their part.
• Happy Teams: When everyone knows what they're doing and why, it makes the team feel united and pumped up.
• Spotting Trouble Early: It's like having a radar for problems, so you can plan ahead and steer clear of disasters.

An internal business plan isn’t just a document—it’s your team’s guidebook, making sure everyone’s rowing in the same direction and making the right moves to reach those big goals.

• Improved Communication and Alignment: Creates a shared understanding of goals, strategies, and responsibilities within the organization.
• Enhanced Decision-Making: Provides a data-driven foundation for strategic decision-making and resource allocation.
• Increased Accountability and Performance: Establishes key performance indicators (KPIs) and promotes accountability for achieving goals.
• Boosted Team Morale and Motivation: A clear roadmap fosters a sense of purpose and direction for team members.
• Improved Risk Management: Identifies potential challenges and facilitates the development of contingency plans.

Overall, an internal business plan serves as a vital tool for achieving organizational goals, fostering collaboration, and ensuring long-term success.

Checkout our free sample business plans now!

1. mission and vision: your organization's purpose (around 200 words).

Your mission defines why your organization exists, while your vision outlines what you aim to achieve in the future. Keep these statements clear and inspiring, as they set the direction for your entire team.

• Expert Tip 1: "Your mission and vision should motivate and unite your team. They're your organization's North Star." - Maria Rodriguez, Management Consultant.

Lay out your short-term and long-term goals. Make them specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). These goals give your team a sense of purpose and direction.

• Expert Tip 2: "Goals should be like checkpoints in a race - clear and achievable. They keep your team focused and motivated." - Mark Thompson, Organizational Strategist.

Conduct a SWOT analysis to identify your organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This helps your team understand your current position and potential challenges.

• Expert Tip 3: "SWOT analysis is like a diagnostic checkup. It helps you know where you're strong and where you need to improve." - Emily Turner, Business Analyst.

4. Key Strategies: How You'll Achieve Your Goals (Around 250 words)

Outline the strategies your organization will use to achieve its goals. These could include expanding to new markets, improving processes, or developing new products or services.

• Expert Tip 4: "Your strategies should align with your goals. They're the 'how' behind your 'what'." - David Reynolds, Strategy Consultant.

Break your strategies down into actionable steps. Assign responsibilities to specific team members, set deadlines, and define key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress.

• Expert Tip 5: "Action plans turn ideas into actions. They make your strategies a reality." - Laura Martinez, Project Manager.

Detail the budget and resources required to execute your action plans. This includes finances, manpower, technology, and any other resources necessary for success.

• Expert Tip 6: "Budgets ensure you have the resources to implement your plans. They're like a financial roadmap." - Susan James, Financial Analyst.

Explain how you’ll monitor progress and evaluate the success of your action plans. Regular assessments help your team stay on course and make adjustments as needed.

• Expert Tip 7: "Monitoring and evaluation ensure you're headed in the right direction. It's about continuous improvement." - John Stevens, Management Expert.

Hire our professional business plan writers now!

Describe how you’ll communicate the plan to your team. Transparency and clear communication are crucial to ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities.

• Expert Tip 8: "A well-communicated plan fosters teamwork and alignment. It's the glue that holds your organization together." - Maria Rodriguez, Communication Specialist.

While crafting and implementing your internal business plan, be mindful of these common pitfalls:

• 1. Lack of Clarity and Specificity: Vague goals and objectives lead to confusion and hinder progress. Ensure your plan outlines SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals with clear action steps.
• 2. Ignoring Internal Analysis: Neglecting a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) leaves you blind to internal challenges and untapped potential. Conduct a thorough assessment to gain a realistic understanding of your organization's capabilities.
• 3. Unrealistic Budgeting: Overestimating resources or underestimating costs can derail your plan. Develop a realistic budget based on accurate data and forecasts to avoid financial constraints.
• 4. Inadequate Communication: Failing to communicate the plan effectively to your team leads to misalignment and inefficiency. Foster open communication channels and ensure everyone understands their roles and responsibilities.
• 5. Rigid and Inflexible Approach: The business landscape is dynamic, so your plan should be adaptable. Be prepared to adjust your strategies and tactics as needed based on market changes, performance data, and feedback.
• Seek feedback: Enlist the help of colleagues and stakeholders to review your plan and identify areas for improvement.
• Promote collaboration: Encourage open communication and brainstorming sessions to foster innovative ideas and solutions.
• Track progress regularly: Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure progress and identify areas needing adjustments.
• Be proactive: Anticipate potential challenges and develop contingency plans to minimize disruptions.
• Embrace flexibility: Be prepared to adapt your plan as needed based on evolving circumstances.
• Goal Achievement: Track progress towards achieving your defined SMART goals.
• Financial Performance: Monitor key financial metrics like revenue, profitability, and cost-effectiveness.
• Operational Efficiency: Measure improvements in efficiency through process metrics like cycle time and error rates.
• Team Performance: Evaluate team effectiveness by tracking KPIs like productivity, engagement, and satisfaction.
• Market Share and Growth: Monitor your market share and growth rate to assess your competitive position and market penetration.
• Analyze trends and patterns: Identify trends and patterns emerging from your data to understand the underlying drivers of success or failure.
• Investigate root causes: Delve deeper into the root causes behind performance data to pinpoint areas for improvement.
• Test and experiment: Utilize A/B testing and other experimental methods to validate your assumptions and optimize your strategies.
• Communicate data insights: Share key data insights with your team to promote transparency and inform decision-making.
• Make data-driven decisions: Base your strategic decisions on evidence and insights gleaned from your data analysis.

By implementing these tips and practices, you can avoid common pitfalls and effectively measure the success of your internal business plan. Remember, a successful plan requires continuous monitoring, feedback, and adaptation to ensure it remains relevant and effective in driving your organization towards its goals. Ready to write an internal business plan but don’t know what to do? Explore WiseBusinessPlans’ professional business plan writers to get started today!

With your internal business plan finalized, it’s time to shift gears and focus on its execution. This crucial phase requires action, dedication, and strategic implementation to transform your vision into reality. Here’s what you, as an entrepreneur, must do after creating an internal business plan:

• Assess your financial needs: Review your budget and determine the funding required to execute your plan. Explore various funding options, including personal savings, loans, grants, and angel investors.
• Craft a compelling pitch: Develop a concise and persuasive pitch deck that highlights your vision, market potential, and financial projections to attract investors.
• Build relationships with potential investors: Network with individuals and organizations interested in your industry and build relationships that can pave the way for funding opportunities.
• Identify key roles: Determine the skills and expertise needed to implement your plan effectively.
• Recruit talented individuals: Find passionate and qualified individuals who share your vision and values, and build a cohesive and motivated team.
• Delegate and empower: Assign tasks and responsibilities based on individual strengths, fostering ownership and accountability within your team.
• Break down your plan into action steps: Divide your strategies into manageable tasks with clear deadlines.
• Implement best practices: Utilize proven strategies and methodologies aligned with your industry and goals.
• Monitor progress and adapt: Regularly track progress against your goals, identify areas needing improvement, and adapt your strategies as needed.
• Communicate openly and transparently: Keep your team informed of progress, challenges, and decisions.
• Encourage feedback and input: Create an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas and concerns.
• Build trust and collaboration: Foster a collaborative culture that encourages teamwork and shared ownership of success.
• Track key performance indicators (KPIs): Identify specific metrics aligned with your goals and regularly track their progress.
• Analyze data and draw insights: Utilize data to identify trends, understand performance drivers, and make data-driven decisions.
• Continuously improve: Leverage data insights to identify areas for improvement and adapt your strategies to optimize performance.

By following these steps after crafting your internal business plan, leveraging a well-designed business plan template can further assist in effectively translating your vision into action, propelling your entrepreneurial journey towards success.

Hire our award-winning business plan writers now!

In summary, creating an internal business plan is about providing your team with a roadmap to success. By simplifying each section and focusing on clear communication, you’ll not only set your team on the right path but also promote unity and collaboration within your organization. Your internal business plan is your tool for achieving your mission and turning your vision into reality.

Quick Links

• Investor Business Plans
• M&A Business Plan
• Private Placement
• Feasibility Study
• Hire a Business Plan Writer
• Business Valuation Calculator
• Business Plan Examples
• Real Estate Business Plan
• Business Plan Template
• Business Plan Pricing Guide
• Business Plan Makeover
• SBA Loans, Bank Funding & Business Credit
• Finding & Qualifying for Business Grants
• Leadership for the New Manager
• Content Marketing for Beginners
• All About Crowdfunding
• EB-5 Regional Centers, A Step-By-Step Guide
• Logo Designer
• Landing Page
• PPC Advertising

• Business Entity
• Business Licensing
• Virtual Assistant
• Business Phone
• Business Address
• E-1 Visa Business Plan
• EB1-A Visa Business Plan
• EB1-C Visa Business Plan
• EB2-NIW Business Plan
• H1B Visa Business Plan
• O1 Visa Business Plan
• Business Brokers
• Merger & Acquisition Advisors
• Franchisors

Proud Sponsor of

• 1-800-496-1056

• (613) 800-0227

• +44 (1549) 409190

• +61 (2) 72510077

Join us on social

How to Create an Internal Business Plan for a New Company Initiative

It is important to put together a complete, comprehensive internal business plan for a few reasons.

Business plans for start-up companies have become mainstays in the business world. But more and more company initiatives and projects have begun to require business plans as a way of validating prudent investments and company spend as maturing businesses look for innovation within to drive future revenue growth. A time may come in a business or a division when you have a new idea or product you believe will equal big revenue for the company, but how do you convey your message to the larger organization? As the world turns towards innovation and technology to drive growth in this mature economy, creating an internal business plan is becoming more and more commonplace, if not a necessity.

If you have a good working relationship with your executive team, business ideas should not be popping up out of the blue. Instead, you should have a platform for discussion in either staff meetings or one-on-one sessions with the executives. However, it is important to put together a complete, comprehensive internal business plan for a few reasons:

• It shows that you have your stuff together and can be organized and methodical about your plan.
• You will need to evangelize your new plan quickly and succinctly throughout the organization, and a detailed business plan is the most effective way to disseminate information.

Here are a few suggestions for inclusion in your business to improve the probability of gaining approval:

Executive Summary

The Executive Summary may be the most important part of the internal business plan as it cements the audience’s first impression of the project. This may be the only page many executives have time to read and discuss, so make sure it tells the story in a summarized manner. Style, visualization, and financial accuracy are all important aspect of this page.

Questions to ask and answer include:

• What is the idea?
• Where did it come from?
• How much to you believe its worth?
• What is the duration of investment?
• What is the financial impact?
• What is the mechanism we need to enact and unlock this new revenue stream?
• How does this project tie into and/or complement the overall strategy for the business and any other growth initiatives? (It is important to see how this product or service will become an integral part of the organization for years to come and not a one-off fad or an ill-conceived idea.)

It is very important to lay out your marketing strategy, as this will be the main focus point for management in understanding how realistic it will be to achieve your results. First, you need to identify your target market, whether it be a specific demographic or fanbase or creating a new segment. You will need to be very specific about your methods of attracting your target customers and the message you are going to represent to the overall market. If you are tapping into a new market, how will you get your message out there? If you are stealing share or competing against another rival, what will be your differentiation to gain share?

Without the right combination of message and means of delivering the message, even truly superior new products may have trouble gaining traction in the marketplace. If you can show that you already have customers lined up ready to purchase your products or services, this makes your case more convincing.

Management Team

Executives want to support new projects and new ideas, but they need to be confident in the people you put in charge. If you, as the author of the internal business plan, will not be directly operating the new product or service, but someone else on your team will be the main contact, you want to make sure they are a good fit for the project.

The team structure has to go beyond just your normal, everyday team configuration. It must show how each team member’s background and accomplishments contribute essential elements needed to succeed with this new venture. The project may involve more than one department, so you will want to show that you put time and effort into determining the team and define the responsibilities of each member. Make sure that you have a diverse group of people that have the availability to dedicate time to the project with a good mix of senior and junior employees.

Financial Projections

As the executive team decides whether they are going to approve of the investment in this new product or service, they have to consider whether they are going to get a sufficient return on their investment. Not only do they have to consider ROI, but in many companies where resources are limited and staffing up can be a political nightmare, business units also have to consider opportunity costs or tradeoffs related to moving individuals and not having them concentrate on already productive and proven products and services.

The financial projections provide clues about how well thought out the new products and services are as well as their financial viability. The executive team will look for whether the team has presented a reasonable forecast for revenue and profit growth that is both aggressive, but realistic for the business unit. When they see projections that seem unattainable, the project immediately loses credibility. Executive teams also want to see whether the management team backed up the projections with sound assumptions based on hard data obtained from industry sources – or were the projections simply guesswork. Financial projections in a business plan do not need to be voluminous or excessively complex. However, they do need to be clear and reasonable while being exciting from a ROI standpoint.

Getting Support for Your Internal Business Plan

While you may include additional information in your business plan, it is important to keep it short and succinct. It is also important that you dedicate the correct resources to develop, publish, and present this business plan. Our team at 8020 Consulting has experience putting together business plans for project and initiatives. You can contact us to learn more .

If you’d like to learn more about internal momentum toward business goals, we invite you to download our operational review program guide . It offers insights into how to organize meetings and set roles to encourage organizational traction:

About the Author

Lester has over 15 years of professional finance experience in strategic planning, forecasting and budgeting, financial analysis, and business evaluation. Prior to joining 8020 Consulting, Lester was the Director of Business Planning and Analysis at Warner Bros. and had previously worked as a Senior Manager of Retail Analysis and Manager of Finance for The Walt Disney Company. Additionally, Lester has held positions at Thomson Reuters and Public Financial Management. In his career, Lester also operated as the Chief Financial Officer for a consumer goods start-up company, where he oversaw the Accounting, Finance, Operations and HR functions. Lester’s expertise centers around FP&A, budgeting and forecasting, financial modeling, cause of change analysis, consolidation, industry analysis, and project management. Lester holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Stanford University, and an MBA in Corporate Strategy and Finance from The University of Michigan, Ross School of Business.

Join our mailing list.

Join our mailing list for exclusive content. No spam, just great insight.

Please share your location to continue.

Check our help guide for more info.

How to Write the Management Team Section of a Business Plan + Examples

Written by Dave Lavinsky

Over the last 20+ years, we’ve written business plans for over 4,000 companies and hundreds of thousands of others have used the best business plan template and our other business planning materials.

From this vast experience, we’ve gained valuable insights on how to write a business plan effectively , specifically in the management section.

What is a Management Team Business Plan?

A management team business plan is a section in a comprehensive business plan that introduces and highlights the key members of the company’s management team. This part provides essential details about the individuals responsible for leading and running the business, including their backgrounds, skills, and experience.

It’s crucial for potential investors and stakeholders to evaluate the management team’s competence and qualifications, as a strong team can instill confidence in the company’s ability to succeed.

Why is the Management Team Section of a Business Plan Important?

Your management team plan has 3 goals:

• To prove to you that you have the right team to execute on the opportunity you have defined, and if not, to identify who you must hire to round out your current team
• To convince lenders and investors (e.g., angel investors, venture capitalists) to fund your company (if needed)
• To document how your Board (if applicable) can best help your team succeed

What to Include in Your Management Team Section

There are two key elements to include in your management team business plan as follows:

Management Team Members

For each key member of your team, document their name, title, and background.

Their backgrounds are most important in telling you and investors they are qualified to execute. Describe what positions each member has held in the past and what they accomplished in those positions. For example, if your VP of Sales was formerly the VP of Sales for another company in which they grew sales from zero to $10 million, that would be an important and compelling accomplishment to document.

Importantly, try to relate your team members’ past job experience with what you need them to accomplish at your company. For example, if a former high school principal was on your team, you could state that their vast experience working with both teenagers and their parents will help them succeed in their current position (particularly if the current position required them to work with both customer segments).

This is true for a management team for a small business, a medium-sized or large business.

Management Team Gaps

In this section, detail if your management team currently has any gaps or missing individuals. Not having a complete team at the time you develop your business plan. But, you must show your plan to complete your team.

As such, describe what positions are missing and who will fill the positions. For example, if you know you need to hire a VP of Marketing, state this. Further, state the job description of this person. For example, you might say that this hire will have 10 years of experience managing a marketing team, establishing new accounts, working with social media marketing, have startup experience, etc.

To give you a “checklist” of the employees you might want to include in your Management Team Members and/or Gaps sections, below are the most common management titles at a growing startup (note that many are specific to tech startups):

• Founder, CEO, and/or President
• Chief Operating Officer
• Chief Financial Officer
• VP of Sales
• VP of Marketing
• VP of Web Development and/or Engineering
• UX Designer/Manager
• Product Manager
• Digital Marketing Manager
• Business Development Manager
• Account Management/Customer Service Manager
• Sales Managers/Sales Staff
• Board Members

If you have a Board of Directors or Board of Advisors, you would include the bios of the members of your board in this section.

A Board of Directors is a paid group of individuals who help guide your company. Typically startups do not have such a board until they raise VC funding.

If your company is not at this stage, consider forming a Board of Advisors. Such a board is ideal particularly if your team is missing expertise and/or experience in certain areas. An advisory board includes 2 to 8 individuals who act as mentors to your business. Usually, you meet with them monthly or quarterly and they help answer questions and provide strategic guidance. You typically do not pay advisory board members with cash, but offering them options in your company is a best practice as it allows you to attract better board members and better motivate them.

Management Team Business Plan Example

Below are examples of how to include your management section in your business plan.

Key Team Members

Jim Smith, Founder & CEO

Jim has 15 years of experience in online software development, having co-founded two previous successful online businesses. His first company specialized in developing workflow automation software for government agencies and was sold to a public company in 2003. Jim’s second company developed a mobile app for parents to manage their children’s activities, which was sold to a large public company in 2014. Jim has a B.S. in computer science from MIT and an M.B.A from the University of Chicago

Bill Jones, COO

Bill has 20 years of sales and business development experience from working with several startups that he helped grow into large businesses. He has a B.S. in mechanical engineering from M.I.T., where he also played Division I lacrosse for four years.

We currently have no gaps in our management team, but we plan to expand our team by hiring a Vice President of Marketing to be responsible for all digital marketing efforts.

Vance Williamson, Founder & CEO

Prior to founding GoDoIt, Vance was the CIO of a major corporation with more than 100 retail locations. He oversaw all IT initiatives including software development, sales technology, mobile apps for customers and employees, security systems, customer databases/CRM platforms, etc. He has a  B.S in computer science and an MBA in operations management from UCLA.

We currently have two gaps in our Management Team: 

A VP of Sales with 10 years of experience managing sales teams, overseeing sales processes, working with manufacturers, establishing new accounts, working with digital marketing/advertising agencies to build brand awareness, etc. 

In addition, we need to hire a VP of Marketing with experience creating online marketing campaigns that attract new customers to our site.

How to Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

Click here to finish your business plan today.

OR, Let Us Develop Your Plan For You

Since 1999, Growthink has developed business plans for thousands of companies who have gone on to achieve tremendous success.

Click here to see how Growthink’s professional business plan consulting services can create your business plan for you.  

Other Resources for Writing Your Business Plan

• How to Write an Executive Summary
• How to Expertly Write the Company Description in Your Business Plan
• How to Write the Market Analysis Section of a Business Plan
• The Customer Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
• Completing the Competitive Analysis Section of Your Business Plan
• Financial Assumptions and Your Business Plan
• How to Create Financial Projections for Your Business Plan
• Everything You Need to Know about the Business Plan Appendix
• Business Plan Conclusion: Summary & Recap

Other Helpful Business Plan Articles & Templates

• Human Resources
• Procurement

Writing an internal business plan

Beyond external, there are many internal reasons to write a business plan to support business success.

Related posts

• Business plan writing tips & advice for the avid entrepreneur
• How to write a business plan
• Business banking: Best banks and accounts for UK businesses

While all of the reasons for writing a business plan are usually described as external, such as landing investors or recruiting quality talent – there are plenty of reasons to make an internal business plan as well. Generally, such a plan is there to act as a roadmap for the company’s success; something to remind everyone of the joint vision they are working towards.

Business plan writing tips & advice for the avid entrepreneur

Why is a business plan important and who is it for, can a business plan improve your organisational performance, why make an internal business plan.

Generally, many large businesses utilise internal business plans to make sure that the overall company vision is not compromised and easily communicated to everyone. That sort of strategic direction is not easy to achieve solely by meetings and memos, especially if sprawling corporate structures are involved. Plus, the information laid out in such ways is always prone to change; which is why business plans are there to provide a more long-term, future-oriented set of values and motives.

Apart from that, as you will see in detail below; internal business plans are less focused on the financial aspect of running a business, at least when everything is functioning correctly in that regard. Instead, such plans are more often used to establish a set of metrics that the staff can use to see how hard they are working. Additionally, they are there to enable better performance management by upper management; ensuring that everyone realised what they need to do for their job performance not to suffer, and precisely what is expected of them in the workplace.

Overall, internal business plans allow for a higher degree of control and coordination among different levels of management and employees. Not only is communication vastly improved by the elimination of superfluous dilemmas; but the staff is also better able to voice their pleasure or concerns about where the company is going in the commercial and cultural sense. Such a plan is as much suited for staff empowerment as it is for better management .

Mission statement

If vision is about imagining and looking forward; your mission is very much about the present, and doing. In other words – you want to focus your mission statement on the practical, everyday actions that company employees can undertake to itch closer to the future forecast of the vision statement. So, make sure to lay out what kind of behaviours and actions must be done for your business to get where you want it to go.

For customer-oriented companies, the mission statement can also contain a succinct description of what the most average target consumer is for the company; something all employees will keep in mind. And then, tackle the public image of your company; what it is currently, what you want it to become, and what everyone needs to do to attain that image. That will bring a unique definition to your business in the eyes of the public, and give everyone a sense of clarity about what kind of collective they’re in.

If you want to bring even more clarity to your business, the only thing you can do is provide more specific desired outcomes for the future of your business. With that in mind, make sure to use your internal business plan to lay out a clear set of objectives for everyone who has access to it. Once you manage that, you will have a perfect guiding light to keep everyone involved headed in the proper direction.

Unlike the broader mission statement, your objectives should be less long-term and much more detail-oriented and specific. For example, you may want to choose a realistic revenue target and a reasonable date for hitting it. Then, think of what all of your employees need to do to manage this. And give them a set of objectives all of them are capable of understanding and working towards. Naturally, these must be in perfect alignment with your mission and vision, for the business plan to give a meaningful structure to your company culture .

Strategies are more general activities that your management must employ to reach the desired objectives. You want to make sure these are spelt out clearly, but they can be pretty broad in terms of scope. Remember – these will act as a bridge between your objectives and the practical actions that must be taken.

If you’re looking for examples, think in terms of detailed quarterly or monthly reviews, and better measurements of certain metrics to reach specific objectives. For example, most of your employees may need to work on revamping the quality control process at all production stages.

Action plans

Action plans are a part of the internal business plan; usually there to tie in a particular activity from a strategy with your set of objectives. Let’s clear this up a bit. Actions could mean the creation of a new product or a more modern marketing plan. It could also be the process of developing or investing in new systems. That is something you want to plan out annually and with strict deadlines.

Sustainability

Before you round out your internal business plan, there’s one crucial question you need to ask yourself. Namely, is your company capable of doing everything that this plan sets out to do? After all, with so many different management plans that are a part of this overall plan, it may all seem a bit overly ambitious. And while it sometimes just seems a bit confusing until everyone gets more comfortable with it; in many situations, an internal business plan may be too lofty to be realistic.

There’s no shame in making amendments to your internal business plan after it’s been circulated the company. After all, some things may prove to be not feasible after a couple of months. Or, an idea which seemed great to you, in the beginning, is now looking pretty outdated.

On the other hand, you don’t want to throw things out of the plan whenever they prove difficult to do; that’s also a recipe for disaster. Finding that middle ground between following an intricate, but realistic plan, and changing one that’s just not viable – that is something only a truly great manager is capable of.

Related topics

Related posts.

While there is no universal format for business plans; there are specific rules that anyone writing a business plan should...

To put it in the simplest possible terms - a business plan is a document, which details the purpose and...

Business plans are usually developed at the very start of a business to provide a clear road map or raise...

Copyright © 2013 – 2024 Entrepreneur Handbook Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered offices at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, UK.

• Human resources
• Start a business

Information

• Advertise with us
• Privacy policy
• Terms of use

Copyright © 2013 - 2024 Entrepreneur Handbook Ltd. All rights reserved. Registered offices at 20-22 Wenlock Road, London, N1 7GU, United Kingdom.

Department Business Plan Template

What is a Department Business Plan?

A department business plan outlines the focus areas, objectives, and projects of a team or department within a company. It is used to develop a roadmap to success and ensure that the team is working towards the same goals. It can also be used to track progress and measure the results of the team’s efforts.

What's included in this Department Business Plan template?

• 3 focus areas
• 6 objectives

Each focus area has its own objectives, projects, and KPIs to ensure that the strategy is comprehensive and effective.

Who is the Department Business Plan template for?

This department business plan template is for department heads and business leaders in all industries. It provides a framework to help create a plan for their department or team as well as a way to track their progress and results.

1. Define clear examples of your focus areas

Focus areas are the main topics that your team or department needs to address. Examples of focus areas could include improving internal communication, streamlining onboarding processes, or improving customer experience. These focus areas should be specific and measurable.

2. Think about the objectives that could fall under that focus area

Objectives are the goals that you want to achieve for each focus area. It is important to set measurable objectives for each focus area that you can track and measure. This will help you to determine if you are making progress towards the goals. Examples of some objectives for the focus area of Improve Internal Communication could be: Increase Team Collaboration, and Improve Team Communication.

3. Set measurable targets (KPIs) to tackle the objective

Setting measurable targets, or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), are important for each objective to help track progress. KPIs should have an initial value, a target value, and a unit. Examples of KPIs could include increasing team collaboration usage from 20% to 80%, or decreasing onboarding process time from 30 days to 15 days.

4. Implement related projects to achieve the KPIs

Projects, or actions, are the steps that need to be taken in order to achieve the KPIs. These could include increasing team meetings, automating onboarding processes, or increasing customer surveys. It is important to ensure that the projects are related to the objectives and KPIs.

5. Utilize Cascade Strategy Execution Platform to see faster results from your strategy

Cascade Strategy Execution platform helps teams or departments develop, track, and measure their business plans. Cascade makes it easy to collaborate, communicate, and execute on your strategy and see faster results from your efforts.

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

Brought to you by

Create a professional business plan

Using ai and step-by-step instructions.

Secure funding

Validate ideas

Build a strategy

• 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

Kickstart your business plan writing with one of our free business plan templates or recommended tools.

Free business plan template

Download a free SBA-approved business plan template built for small businesses and startups.

Download Template

One-page plan template

Download a free one-page plan template to write a useful business plan in as little as 30-minutes.

Sample business plan library

Explore over 500 real-world business plan examples from a wide variety of industries.

View Sample Plans

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

Related Articles

3 Min. Read

What to Include in Your Business Plan Appendix

1 Min. Read

How to Calculate Return on Investment (ROI)

7 Min. Read

How to Write a Bakery Business Plan + Sample

5 Min. Read

How To Write a Business Plan for a Life Coaching Business + Free Example

The Bplans Newsletter

The Bplans Weekly

Subscribe now for weekly advice and free downloadable resources to help start and grow your business.

We care about your privacy. See our privacy policy .

The quickest way to turn a business idea into a business plan

Fill-in-the-blanks and automatic financials make it easy.

No thanks, I prefer writing 40-page documents.

Discover the world’s #1 plan building software

• Market Research and Opportunity Analysis Report (MROAR)
• Project Profile (PP)
• Business Feasibility Study Report (BFSR)
• Business Modelling (BM)
• Business Plans (BP)
• Detailed Project Report
• Visa Business Plan
• Franchise Business Plan
• Non Profit Business Plan
• Sales & Marketing

Departmental Business Plan

• Investment Pitch
• Automotive & Transport
• Financial Technology
• Health Technology
• Food Technology
• Agricultural Technology
• Energy & Clean Technology
• Consumer Goods & Services
• Real Estate
• Educational Technology
• Entertainment
• Hospitality
• Fashion & Retail
• Registration
• Search for:

A departmental business plan is a systematically positioned and strategically planned layout for each department in the organization. It is planned in accordance with the business plan usually under the guidance of the entrepreneurs of the organization so that it will meet organizations requirements and achieve its goals. Budgets and priorities of each department must fit in with those of the organization. Therefore, writing a departmental business plan requires good understanding of the business and its potential market, supply chain and operations. It is necessary to prepare department plans to be more specific than the overall business plan and objectives you set are realistic and achievable for each department.The business plan must match with the mission and the priorities of the organization and its customers. Using analytical methods is key to develop good organizational strategies. This document should list out all your department’s key attributes and include it to achieve it overall organizational strategic plan. It will help you identify and include all the new projects or products that will benefit the company to increase its revenue and decrease operational costs. Our departmental plans offer,

• Detailed responsibilities, goals and initiatives of the department
• Analysis of the historical data of product, services, revenue management
• Forecasts of demand, sales and finance
• Align individual plans with the business strategies

Developing a departmental business plan typically requires qualitative and quantitative information about how the department can improve the profitability of the organization. Managers of the department and higher management of the organization should agree with the departmental plans as the success depends upon their feedback. It is important for each department to feel that they are at the helm in the plan.

Location (required)

Global-SIBE Consult

What is an Internal Business Plan, and Why is it Important?

One good reason to have a business plan is that it helps with your internal business planning . Your overall business plan may help with other aspects of your business, like pitching your ideas to investors, but the section dedicated to your internal operations becomes your business management tool. A sacred tool to help run your business efficiently.

An internal business plan is an extension of your overall business plan. It is usually an annual plan that is further divided into quarterly plans to help existing businesses with their operations and goals. Since it is a process, we at Global-SIBE Consult prefer to call it “internal business planning”. It is a strategic process that you must undertake to set goals, allocate resources, and develop action plans to achieve your business goals. 

And in this process, you will have to pay careful consideration to a comprehensive analysis of your business’s past and current performance, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and find strategies to capitalize on opportunities and mitigate risks. 

Internal business planning plays a critical role in helping your business achieve success and ensure long-term sustainability. In this article, we discuss all you need to know about internal business plans and the process.

Scope of Internal Business Planning

Internal business planning consists of all the activities and processes involved in setting business goals, conducting analyses, developing strategies, allocating resources, and monitoring progress. When you put all of these plans together, the document is called an internal business plan . It becomes a document that helps keep your team aligned with your business goals and directs them on the actions to take to achieve those goals. 

Internal business planning is an iterative and dynamic process that aligns your business’s day-to-day activities with its strategic objectives, promotes efficient resource allocation, and facilitates decision-making in all aspects of your business.

We advise businesses to do this at the end of every quarter to aid in the smooth operation of the business.

Comprehensive Business Analysis: What to Do Before Writing An Internal Business Plan

Since you can’t just plan without knowing how your business performed in previous years or quarters, it is advisable to first perform a comprehensive analysis of your business. Knowing how you performed in the past years will help you better understand whether your business is making progress or lacking in a particular department.

Variance Analysis

Conducting a variance analysis helps you identify deviations from planned targets and enables you to understand the reasons behind the variances. Did you follow your plan exactly, or did you veer off course? What was the course of that? 

By analyzing discrepancies between actual and expected performance, you can identify areas for improvement and make informed decisions about your internal business plan.

Comparative Analysis 

Comparing your past performance with your current performance can provide valuable insights. It helps to have a benchmark for your analysis so you will be able to tell if you are making progress, and that is why you can’t just plan without making these analyses first.

For example, let’s say your business made a $65,000 profit out of $100,000 in revenue in the just-ended quarter. $65,000, as a standalone, doesn’t tell much. It may seem like a good figure, but what if your profit for the previous quarter was $40,000 out of $50,000 in revenue?

That would mean your expenses doubled but you couldn’t double your profits, and that should tell you to check or cut back on your expenses or find better strategies to make more profits if you’re spending that much.

Comparative analysis helps identify areas where your business lags or excels, giving you a chance to improve and draw up a better plan.

Key Components of an Internal Business Plan

After making your analysis, you can proceed to plan for your next quarter or annual year. Let’s see what your internal business plan should contain.

Your Business Goals and Objectives 

Clear and measurable goals are essential for effective internal business planning. You will need to define the short-term and long-term goals of your business while setting clear objectives to achieve them. Ask yourself whether the actions in your plan align with your business vision and mission. 

For instance, if you seek to become a global brand in the long term, then your objectives must align with this long-term. And every action you take should lead your business a step closer to this goal.

SWOT Analysis 

A SWOT analysis evaluates your business’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In a competitive business landscape, you would want to do everything to set your business apart from the competition, and that is why a SWOT analysis can be helpful. With a SWOT analysis, you can develop better strategies and action plans. 

It helps identify internal capabilities, areas for improvement, potential market opportunities, and external risks. 

Strategies and Action Plans

Based on the insights gained from the SWOT analysis, you can develop strategies to leverage your strengths, address your weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities, and mitigate threats. Action plans outline specific steps and initiatives to implement the strategies effectively.

If you know the areas you are strong at, you will probably channel more resources there to help increase your revenue. And if you know the areas where you are weak, you will find better strategies to help you improve and perform better.

Budgeting/ Forecasting

What are your expected expenses? How much revenue do you expect to generate over the course of the plan, and where will it come from? This will be a detailed breakdown of your expenses and where every dollar will come from.

With proper budgeting, your business can stay cost-efficient since you will be keeping all your expenses in check.

Resource Allocation 

Internal business planning involves the allocation of your business’s resources, such as finances, human capital, and technology, to implement strategies and achieve defined goals.  Internal business planning involves the allocation of your business’s resources, such as finances, human capital, and technology, to implement strategies and achieve defined goals. 

Consider your business’s capabilities and constraints, and allocate resources according to prioritized initiatives. 

Functional Plans

After putting together your overall internal business plan, each department has to use it as a reference for their functional plan. Functional plans are detailed breakdowns of every department’s role in achieving the set targets in the overall plan.

Functional plans are broken down into actions that will be taken every week by each department. It becomes more like a calendar of actions toward the target. For instance, if your overall internal business plan targets to increase production by a certain unit, the functional plan of the production team will have to state how they intend to scale. Can they do it themselves or do they need to bring new workers on board? How many? And when do they need to be hired? If they will need to hire, then this will also need to feature in the functional plan of the HR. They will need to state it clearly and put actions in place to hire the number of workers needed.

Monitoring and Evaluating Progress

Regular monitoring and evaluation are vital to assessing progress toward the defined goals. Are you meeting your set milestones? Key performance indicators (KPIs) and milestones are established to track performance and ensure that your business stays on track. Monitoring and evaluation will enable timely adjustments to strategies and action plans.

The Importance of Internal Business Planning

What does this process offer your business? Let’s find out.

Enhanced Decision-Making Process 

Internal business planning provides a structured framework for making informed decisions. The process ensures your decisions are supported by data and analysis, involve important stakeholders, and are in line with your company’s strategic objectives. Effective decision-making leads to better outcomes and a successful business.

Aligning Your Business Activities with Strategic Goals

Internal business planning ensures that all activities and initiatives within the business are aligned with its strategic goals. It provides a roadmap that guides employees and departments in their day-to-day operations. Your team understands your vision better and works in synergy toward achieving it.

Effective Resource Allocation

You need to allocate your resources wisely, especially if they are limited. And Internal business planning helps identify resource requirements and allocate them to the most critical initiatives. This promotes efficiency and prevents resource waste.

Improved Operational Efficiency

Through internal business planning, you can streamline your operational processes, identify bottlenecks, and implement improvements. This leads to increased efficiency, reduced costs, and improved overall performance.

Easily Adapting to Changes 

Internal business planning equips your team with the agility to adapt to dynamic market conditions and evolving customer needs. You can anticipate potential challenges, identify emerging trends, and adjust your strategies accordingly, ensuring you stay relevant in the market.

Benefits of Internal Business Planning

Good internal business planning can help your business in many ways. Here are a few of the benefits of indulging your business in the possess.

Improved Financial Performance

Effective internal business planning helps you manage your cash flow. When you are doing a lot with money in your business, it needs proper management. Are clients paying on time? Are there too many expenses? When there is a problem that is constipating cash flow, you can easily identify it, fix it, and improve your financial performance.

Set Priorities

Internal business planning helps you identify and prioritize key initiatives. By setting clear priorities, your business can allocate resources and efforts accordingly, ensuring that the most critical objectives are addressed first.

Strategic Alignment

Internal business planning ensures that your business’s day-to-day activities and initiatives are aligned with its overall strategy. This alignment fosters a cohesive and coordinated approach and promotes collaboration across departments and teams.

Increased Accountability and Transparency

Through an internal business plan, your business establishes clear responsibilities, metrics, and timelines. This enhances accountability, as individuals and teams are aware of their roles and performance expectations. Additionally, internal business planning promotes transparency by providing visibility into the business goals, progress, and decision-making processes.

Better Communication and Collaboration 

Internal business planning facilitates effective communication and collaboration across all levels of the organization. It promotes the sharing of information, alignment of efforts, and coordination of activities, fostering a culture of teamwork and synergy.

Best Practices for Internal Business Planning

What are some best practices to consider when planning for your next quarter or year?

Involve Key Stakeholders in the Planning Process

Should you sit in isolation and plan alone? Absolutely not. John from sales probably has a fantastic idea on how you can increase sales this quarter. So why not involve key stakeholders to help you plan?

Set Realistic and Measurable Goals

Goals should be challenging yet attainable, with clear metrics to track progress. Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals provides clarity and focus.

Regularly Review and Update the Plan 

Internal business planning is not a one-time event. It’s a process that needs to be done at least every quarter. It is an iterative process that is regularly reviewed and updated to reflect changing internal and external conditions that affect your business.

Utilize Technology and Data-Driven Insights

Leveraging technology tools and data analytics enhances the effectiveness of internal business planning. Advanced analytics and data-driven insights will provide you with valuable information and allow you to monitor progress.

Ensure Alignment Between Different Departments or Teams

Your team works together to achieve a common goal, irrespective of the department. Ensure effective communication channels and foster a culture of collaboration, making sure they work together to achieve common goals. 

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Quick Links

• Global-Sibe Consult
• 19 Mercury Street, Dome Pillar 2, Accra
• +233263119815
• [email protected]

Check your email for your download link

Welcome! Get a Gift Just for Visiting!

• The Grossman Group Difference
• Internal Communications
• Leadership Communication
• Change Management
• Organizational Culture Change
• Resource Center
• Heart First Giveaway
• Case Studies

Internal Communications Plan: 7-Step Strategy and Template

We hear all the time that internal communication functions are stretched thin.

“There are too many priorities. Everything’s important. We have so many messages to get out to employees. So many vehicles but we’re not sure which work and which don’t. We don’t have the time to get it all done or enough people or enough budget…”

Sound familiar?

Having a strategic internal communications plan in place for your function is a critical step to getting your time organized, prioritizing, planning, resourcing, and operating at its optimum.

This may sound basic, but all too often we find that internal communications functions don’t have clear plans in place.

And having a clear plan in place is critical to:

• Focus internal communications where the business needs them the most
• Empower internal communication leaders and teams to be more proactive consultants to the business with a focus on delivering value and impact
• Get internal communications teams out of the reactive fire-fighting that causes strain and fatigue
• Advocate for employees and their information needs  
• Calibrate a range of business and communication messages and needs so they are connected, relevant, and digestible for your audiences
• Leverage existing and new channels to reach employees where they are
• Measure and demonstrate progress against business and organizational outcomes that matter

What is a Strategic Internal Communications Plan?

A strategic internal communication plan is a tool for leaders to help drive employee behaviors and actions that create desired business outcomes. It should directly support an organization’s key business outcomes. An internal communication plan should be updated every year to support the business strategy, rather than on an ad hoc basis or as an afterthought. When a plan is truly strategic, it is also given the same priority and resources as an external plan that works effectively together to achieve business outcomes for an organization.

Internal Communication Planning Best Practices

A strong internal communication plan is never just a list of tactics. Instead, the tactics should be part of the overall plan and reflect what you’re going to do to achieve your measurable business objectives.

There are many ways to achieve a smart internal communications strategy. Our best advice is to pick a format that works for you and always have a plan in place.

Adjustments are fine and expected, but the fundamental goals and vision for communication need to be woven into the plan and used for guidance to make smart decisions around priorities and areas of focus.

As you dive into your internal communications planning, consider these key components of any strong internal communications strategy:

• A clear explanation of the current business environment and any challenges your business faces
• What you want to accomplish (your business goals and communication goals)
• Who you need to talk with (your audience)
• What you want to say (your core messages)
• How you will communicate (your internal communication strategies, tactics, and channels )
• When you will communicate (your calendar), and
• How you will measure your progress

What a Smart Internal Communication Strategy Achieves

When done well, strategic communication plans can help you achieve strong results for your business. Based on the scores of organizations we've helped to develop and implement strategic plans, we’ve seen significant results:

• Turn a strategy into action and embed new behaviors into an organization, such as reducing safety incidents and engaging employees in diversity and inclusion initiatives
• Help employees with a change
• Address important industry issues
• Inform employees on sensitive topics
• Align and activate organizations around a new strategy
• Improving culture to elevate the employee experience and performance goals

Any time you have a lot to say and do, think about having a communication plan to orchestrate how best to engage teams and drive the narrative with your audiences and outcomes in mind.

How to Create an Internal Communication Plan in 7 Steps

Your communications plan doesn’t need to be long – a few pages is fine or even a one-pager works. Use these seven steps as a framework when you develop your plan.

Step 1: Summarize the Situation

Provide a situation overview and what’s prompting the need for communications. Map the current situation, consider business needs, and talk to key stakeholders to help with this process.

For example, is there a shift in organizational priorities because of the marketplace or industry? Low employee engagement scores? New products or services? Are you starting a new employee initiative and you need to keep them informed and engaged in the process?

This section includes research and analysis, and addresses the variables at play and what’s currently being done to address the issue.

This is also the section that describes the business and communication context and why a communication plan is necessary.

Step 2: Determine Your Desired Outcome

We spend a good amount of time talking with the leaders we work with about “desired outcomes” – the first step in planning any kind of communication. When we ask, “What’s the outcome you seek?” we often hear people say, “We want to produce an email message, or we’re thinking about a newsletter or video.” This isn’t what we mean by outcomes because those are just tactics. They alone cannot solve the business challenge outlined in Step 1 .

To get to the real outcome, instead start by answering this question: What do you want to achieve for the business? Once you answer that, you can decide what communication strategies and tactics are best suited to achieve that business outcome.

Here’s the two-step process we suggest to identify your critical outcomes:

• Business and Organizational Outcomes (the business need) – When you define the business need, don’t start with what you need to do, but why you need to do it. Indicate – as best you can – a direct connection between the organization’s objectives or bottom line. Be sure to list specific and measurable desired organizational outcomes in this section. Think: What will be different in the business when we’ve achieved our plans?  
• Communication Outcomes / Objectives – Think about the business outcome you want to achieve through communication and what role communications can play to help achieve the business need. For example, is it to increase engagement , so you can benefit from things that come from higher engagement – like less absenteeism or better safety outcomes or higher quality performance? Is it to increase order fill or to create a behavior change among employees?

Use SMART Objectives

• S pecific – What are we going to do for whom?
• M easurable – Is it quantifiable and can we measure it?
• A ttainable / A chievable – Can we get it done within the time frame and with the resources we have?
• R elevant – Will this objective have an effect on the desired goal or strategy?
• T ime-bound – When will this be accomplished?

Follow this SMART Template to Guide You

To develop SMART objectives, use the SMART Objectives Template and two-page guide by clicking the image below. It covers what SMART objectives are, provides an example, and concludes with the template you see here:

You don’t need to limit yourself to one desired outcome but you should try to cap it at three.

Note: All too often communication plans only focus on communication goals. Remember to take your plan to the next level by linking the communication goals to specific business or organizational goals.

Step 3: Define Your Audience

To help you think through how best to communicate with different groups of employees, it’s important to define who they are. Who are the most relevant groups you need to influence and drive to action?

List different audience groups (sometimes referred to as job families) and their mindsets (where they’re coming from on the topic that you’re communicating), and consider what you want them to know, feel, and do as a result of your communication with them. That will help you focus, find the common ground for your messages, as well as adapt your messages for different audience segments based on their unique information needs.

Audience job families or segments may be a specific business unit, senior executives, geographies, functional roles (such as frontline employees, sales teams, and customer-facing teams), shareholders, employee affiliate groups, or people leaders. Job families also vary by industry – so in healthcare, there are segments such as physicians, nurses, volunteers, environmental services, and the like. Other organizations may have call center or customer service employees or plant/site employees.

Consider using a template like this to outline relevant audience segments and what you want them each to know, feel, and do as a result of your communications. It’s a great way to stay focused on the key audiences and outcomes you want to achieve and to identify what your key messages should be for each.

Note: Don’t confuse the audience(s) with stakeholders. Stakeholders are the people and organizations that have an influence on the desired outcome. Audiences are the receivers of messages.

Step 4: Develop Your Messages

Based on your audiences, next outline the most important messages (or points) you need to communicate to your audiences. Keep it to about three messages (that’s usually all that people can retain!). Then consider supporting points to reinforce those key messages. These are the facts, data, anecdotes, and stories that support and bring your points to life.

5 Ws and an H

Want to ensure you don’t forget a critical detail in your messaging? Think 5 Ws and an H to cover all the key points on your audiences’ minds and the all-important context, so you can make it relevant for them.

• Why – Why is it the right decision? Why now? Why is it important?
• What – What’s the decision? What does it mean for us? What should I know? What’s in it for me?
• Where – Where is this decision coming from? Where/what locations will it affect? Where can I get more information?
• When – When is this happening?
• How – How was the decision made? How will it be implemented? How will communications flow internally and externally? How does it impact me?
• Who – Who made the decision? Who’s in charge? Who does it impact?

In communicating your message, the order is important. Adult learners want to know the “why” first and then the “what.” The rest can follow logically.

Here are some additional tips to make your messages stick:

• Keep them simple: People remember things based on simple ideas
• Be unexpected: When you take people by surprise they tend to remember it later – such as a compelling stat or story framed in a stand-out way
• Communicate clearly: Human actions and sensory information, images, and proverbs help people understand an idea
• Be credible: Use facts, figures, and examples, and believable sources
• Inspire and create an emotional connection: People remember things that tap into their emotions – whether it’s something funny that makes them laugh or causes them to reflect
• Tell stories: Narrative can influence feelings and sometimes behavior

No matter how you develop your messages, use a template to keep yourself organized, consistent, and concise. For example, we use our award-winning messagemap methodology to get all the most important messages organized and prioritized on one page. The messagemap is used to develop all the communication tactics (in Step 5) so that messages are consistent and strategic.

Step 5: Decide What Your Strategy Is and What Channels and Tactics You’ll Use

How you deliver your messages is as important as what you say. During this step, you can identify your internal communications strategies – in other words, how you’ll approach communicating your key messages with your audiences. This is the step where you outline specifically which channels and tactics are most effective at reaching each audience, so they understand and connect with the key messages.

Very often communicators are asked to jump right into producing materials and delivering tactics first. This shortcuts the strategic steps to the planning process and risks the tactics not being as effective – so you won’t save any time in the long run. You’ll likely just have more cleanup to do later.

Note: It helps to strategize potential tactics and channels as a communications team. Organize a working session with plenty of post-it notes, flip charts, and pens/markers to generate ideas and stick them on the wall. Vote on the top 6-8 tactics for each objective, repeat, and consolidate. Hold on to this and use it for communication planning during the year for other programs and priorities, too.

The channels you choose will depend on what you want to achieve from your communications and the audience you need to reach. The right channels for raising awareness would probably be the wrong ones for gaining ownership and commitment. Similarly, the needs of desk-based employees will be very different to sales teams or factory workers who aren’t on computers during the day.

A well-coordinated use of multiple voices and channels will be needed for maximum impact. 

It’s also important to draw on any employee communication data and insights that already exist in your organization. Look to engagement and communication effectiveness surveys, channel audits and feedback, and employee listening sessions to help you make data-driven decision making around which channels and tactics to use.

Keep in mind these communication best practices:

• Face-to-face (or voice-to-voice) communication is best for making a personal connection and overcoming resistance to change. If you’ve got a sensitive or complex message, this is usually your best bet.
• Meetings are best for communicating more complicated ideas or when you want input from team members.
• Paper (such as handouts at a meeting or a flier on a bulletin board) is best when details are important, or dates need to be referenced.
• Electronic (such as email or an intranet page) works well for those who have frequent access to computers; consider also visual display boards for break rooms, elevators, lobbies, and central meeting locations.
• Video is best to use when you want to appeal to visual and audio senses and to tell a story. More and more companies are using short, grassroots-type videos to get messages across. Consider captions for multiple languages and/or open work environments where noise is a concern.
• Internal social media can help to build a culture of collaboration and rapport among dispersed team members.
• Think about frequency. For example, huddles with your team could happen daily, while town hall meetings might be best quarterly.

Actionable Communication Strategies Make Your Tactics More Impactful

The tactics are how you plan to make the internal communication strategies happen. Make each tactic relate back to at least one strategy (if not multiple). Include key deliverables and how you will monitor execution.

Then plot key activities into a calendar, so you can see how the communications will unfold throughout the year.

In this section, also add in any considerations that might negatively or positively impact the success of the implementation to inform your tactics and timing. For example, employees have noted in engagement surveys that they prefer small-group meetings to receive information from their managers.

Step 6: Populate Your Communications Calendar

It’s helpful to have a full view of the communications channels and tactics you are using to implement your plan (and timing to go along with it). This becomes your project tracker, so you can look at the year ahead and note which communications will be happening and when. That will help ensure you have a consistent cadence of communications that is timed around – and in support of – key business and organizational milestones. The key is enough communications to keep what’s important on people’s radars, but not too much that it becomes noise and people tune out.

Use a template like this to map your action plan (adding as many rows as you need):

Step 7: Measure Your Progress

List how you will measure success. This should connect directly back to your outcomes or SMART Objectives (see Step 2). It’s how you’ll know if your internal communication strategies are working or not and informs future planning.

For example, will it be through improved survey scores? Feedback forms from specific communications events? Increased share value or product sales? Increases in employee sign-ups? Better retention rates?

You can use a combination of measurement techniques, but the main thing is to make sure you measure .

Remember – what gets measured, gets done.

Bonus: 8 Internal Communication Best Practices for Remote Employees

One of the most important things we’ve learned from so many people working remotely is the importance of communicating predictably. As you develop your communication plan, keep these tips in mind for better communication, particularly when a good portion of your workforce is remote:

• Be planful and strategic about keeping in touch with your team, especially during times of change when they may be worried and/or need more connection and encouragement.
• Set regular meeting times and encourage dialogue during meetings. Be sure team members understand that out of sight doesn’t mean out of mind.
• Explain the best ways that employees can reach you if they need to. This helps them know their input and questions are welcome and gives them a sense of when to expect feedback.
• Respond quickly. An afternoon can seem like an eternity to someone who is waiting for your input. Even a quick email or text is helpful to acknowledge receipt of a message and say when you can respond.
• Share what you know, what you don’t know, and what you’re figuring out. Especially during times of change , employees need to hear from you more often, even when you don’t have everything figured out. Resist the temptation to wait for more answers, more clarification, and more details. Instead, recognize that you probably know a lot more than you think.
• Appreciate frequently. The little things mean a lot to employees who have few interactions with their manager or colleagues. Show appreciation for good work and recognize employees who deliver what you need. “Thank you” and “I appreciate you” go a long way (and don’t cost a thing).
• Schedule more personal touchpoints. Especially when there are fewer in-person touchpoints, you need to plan for more regular personal communication with employees.
• Make sure supervisors know their role to lead through communication and set them up for success. Reinforce the role of the supervisor and their communication expectations. Set them up for success with training and tools , so they have the right communication cadence in place and can deliver messages with confidence and impact.

Final Thoughts

An internal communications plan is necessary for many reasons and the necessity has only grown with the changing workplace dynamics and employee demands. Some of the benefits include:

• Provides a clear roadmap for consistently communicating with employees, so they feel informed about goals for your organization, or a specific initiative, so they can take action and help achieve those goals;
• Defines what internal communications strategies are important to focus on, how and when they’ll be implemented, and how they’ll be measured to demonstrate value and impact to the business;
• Keeps the internal communications team focused and guides their efforts, so they’re spending their time on the right things that are most important to the business in a most efficient and effective way; 
• Enables important conversations and engagement with business leaders and partners about internal communication strategies that can best deliver on key business needs and opportunities; and
• Helps communications team plan and deliver value. Communication teams are stretched thin and planning helps you focus team efforts on what the business needs (and values) most and secure the time, talent, and resources needed to get the job done.

Think of a great internal communications plan as your roadmap for how to take your communications forward, so you can move employees to action, drive value for your organization, and demonstrate strategic impact.

Are you ready to create your own Communication Plan? Download this free Communication Plan Template, which aligns with the content in this post, to guide you.

Comments on this post

Other posts you might be interested in, how to measure the impact of internal communication, measuring internal communications: metrics, kpis and examples, how to structure an internal communications team the right way, subscribe to the leadercommunicator blog.

Get new blog posts delivered directly to your inbox.

How to Start a Successful Internal Audit Department

Cynthia Watson

September 1, 2020

Where would you start if you were tapped to set up a brand new internal audit function, make a change from an outsourced department, or restructure an existing one to deliver more value to the business? Cynthia Watson shares key steps and best practices to help you establish a successful internal audit department from the ground up. 

Strong Internal Audit Department Can Help Business Leaders Make Better Decisions

With so much global uncertainty these days, change seems to be the only true constant. Having a strong internal audit department can help business leaders make better decisions for future growth and success. Auditors are not fortune tellers, but we understand risks and how they may impact the organization — and once an organization understands this, we can help them prepare to effectively respond to changes.

About five years ago, after building an in-house team for a Fortune 100 company’s division that was outsourced, I was approached to build out the internal audit department at one of it’s spin-offs. I’ve learned a lot as a result of that experience, and have collected some of my key steps and best practices to launching a successful internal audit function.

How to Set Up an Internal Audit Department: 3 Scenarios 

The design of your internal audit department can depend on several factors, but the first one to consider is what drove the change. Is this a new organization that has plans to go public in the near future? Was there a desire of change from the Audit Committee or the organization’s leadership to bring an outsourced team in-house? Or is the change driven by a need to increase or alter the current team’s skillset?

Scenario 1 — Setting up a brand new department

In this scenario, all internal audit policies, procedures, reporting, and risk assessments must be created. This usually happens when a company has decided that at some point in the near-term that they will attempt to make an initial public offering on the stock market and will need to comply with the related regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act reporting for the US. This is not always the case, so a new audit leader should reach out to the C-Suite, and potentially to the external audit firm, to understand the group’s needs and expectations.  

Scenario 2 — Switching from an outsourced team to in-house department

Under this scenario, typically there will have been a change in leadership, but some history of the activities performed by the outsource team will exist than can be leveraged to support the creation of the in-house team. Working with the outsource team will be critical during the transition period. 

Scenario 3 — Taking over an existing department

The current company leadership may not be happy with an internal audit team’s performance and decide to make a change. As the world changes, so do the needs from internal audit. Many audit shops have been slow or resistant to changing their operations to properly support their organizations. Internal audit must do more with less, be agile and flexible , and embrace data analytics and new skills to become a ‘trusted advisor’ that the organization needs. Shifting from telling leaders what happened in the past to assisting in the preparation for what is over the horizon will increase internal audit’s value and profile.

Each one of these scenarios presents its own unique challenges that audit leaders will need to be prepared for. How much time do you have to prepare for regulatory requirements? Are the existing records usable, and do they provide enough information to support the new environment? Will the existing team or organizational leaders be open to trying something new or will they resist change? Any one of these or numerous other issues may be present in any of the scenarios. Audit leaders need to think about how they will address and minimize the risk to the department’s success.

3 Keys to Starting a Successful Internal Audit Department

The first thing most people ask is, “What or where is the audit plan?” Audit plans are not produced out of thin air. There is work and due diligence required in order to understand the control environment, strategy, and what really matters to your organization. These are key steps to take first — though not necessarily sequentially — that will help you build the understanding, relationships, and resources needed to establish a successful internal audit department and plan.  

1. Develop Relationships and Establish Expectations

One of the first things to do is to meet with leadership. Set up time to meet key stakeholders like the Audit Committee chair, the CEO, and the CFO to establish their expectations, and ensure those are aligned with each other. Identify the leaders responsible for each key business area and talk to each leader about their strategies and initiatives for the next 6 to 12 months. These early meetings are a prime opportunity to educate the business about what internal audit does , and how the department can support them in achieving their goals and objectives. Based on their previous experience, there may be some with inaccurate assumptions about auditors or internal audit — that we are corporate police or snitches, or that we are there to highlight trouble spots and point fingers. With the right approach, you can do a lot to build trust by explaining how internal audit can be a resource to help solve problems and offer support rather than beelining to the boss or the external auditor. 

One strategy that I found particularly effective in my first year of building my team and presence was to not perform “audits.” I know this sounds counterintuitive, but when you are in an immature environment where it is known that processes and procedures are still under development, doing a traditional audit does not provide the support that management needs to be successful — and will likely make them defensive and reluctant to allow internal audit in. 

These were new departments with new people using new tools, so I instructed my team to provide management with information to help with their departmental development by performing “Baseline Assessments.” Management was reassured that we wouldn’t be issuing a traditional audit report with an overall ‘weak’ or ‘unsatisfactory’ rating, but would instead help to describe the department, provide background information on the process under review, identify potential exposure points, and rank those to help the business leader prioritize and plan going forward. 

These assessments gave the department time to get things in order and expose potential resource needs to strengthen the environment in the next 12 to 18 months. Internal audit would return later to evaluate the implementation of the changes in a form closer to a traditional audit. The business leaders felt comfortable with this approach, and it helped to establish mutual respect and demonstrate from the beginning that audit isn’t here to bust them, but to work together to make their department and the organization better. 

2. Understand the Business Strategy and Associated Risks

Setting up an internal audit department is a process that requires careful planning and prioritization. Depending on which of the 3 scenarios your company fits, you’ll want to locate and review previous audit reports, working papers, or any related documentation of previous work performed. The source can be the current audit team (if existing), business leaders, or external auditors. This gives you some basis to start to create a draft risk assessment. If you are in a situation where these things don’t exist, you will need to use other means to determine what you can and should do. As an audit leader, you have to understand where you are — which means understanding where the company is in their maturity and what is important to their future success. 

Invest time early on to learn about the business, its history, and its strategy and objectives — as well as existing and potential risks. The first 90 days are a perfect opportunity to gather the data and information to enable you to talk intelligently about the business and prove that you deserve a seat at the table. If you don’t understand the organization, it will be impossible for you to take on a trusted advisor role to help the business make informed decisions and know where to take calculated risks.

It is also critical to develop, assess, and prioritize risks before making recommendations. I created a 10-point criteria and five-point ratings system to help identify which risks are material to lines of business vs. the organization as a whole, and to identify low-risk or non-critical activities that waste time and resources. All risk assessments were shared with business leaders to kick off conversations and make decisions.

3. Evaluate, Train, and Allocate Your Resources

The effectiveness of your internal audit team depends on its resourcing. You’ll need to determine what resources you have and what you’ll need to deliver value to your organization. You’ll also want to evaluate technology resources available , and look into implementing audit management technology to centralize documentation, facilitate collaboration amongst team members and with stakeholders, and get real-time visibility into status. All audit shops are required to figure out how to do more with less, and technology is the only way you can do that — especially in these post-pandemic times. More boots on the ground is not an option for most.

You’ll also want to leverage what you’ve learned about the business to get the right mix of skill sets and experience to audit all areas of the business effectively. You may start with an audit team of one — yourself — and identify immediate needs: perhaps a SOX and an IT subject matter specialist to enable internal audit to cover all bases from a leadership perspective and create department strategy as we build out the larger team.

As the world becomes more and more involved in IT technologies, I firmly believe that internal auditors need to be cross-trained to understand general business processes and basic controls across different areas of the organization, including IT. For example, if a product was developed in the last ten years, it probably connects to the internet — does the organization have the security protocols in place to protect the data? Internal audit can add value by learning about the organization’s cybersecurity and data security measures , and thinking about the types of data and where it’s collected, stored, and in what form. Through hiring, cross-training, and leveraging online tools, we built a team that was conversant enough in data and InfoSec to provide effective assurance for our specific organization.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to setting up an internal audit department. You must meet your organization where it is. Each organization will have different needs, risk appetites, and a different maturity level — and you must create or change the department to support the organization while still establishing a high standard. Don’t be afraid to be open to new ideas — change is here to stay, and being innovative helps audit teams provide value and be more effective. Understanding stakeholder expectations, fully comprehending the business strategy and associated risks, and evaluating your resources to determine if you have what’s needed to deliver value to your organization are essential steps in setting up a successful internal audit team.

Cynthia Watson is a versatile internal audit leader with over 16 years experience working with Fortune 500 companies and leaders in technology, manufacturing, publishing, and pharmaceuticals. The KPMG alumni is currently the Secretary and the Volunteer & Student Ambassador Coordinator for the North Jersey Chapter of the IIA.

Related Articles

Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Department

• Great for beginners
• Ready-to-use, fully customizable Subcategory
• Get started in seconds

Running an internal audit department is no easy task. It requires meticulous planning, strategic thinking, and efficient execution. That's why ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Departments is a game-changer!

With this template, your internal audit team can:

• Clearly define audit objectives, scope, and timelines
• Develop a comprehensive audit methodology to ensure thoroughness and accuracy
• Identify and prioritize key risks and control areas to focus on
• Establish robust communication channels with stakeholders
• Streamline documentation and reporting processes

Don't waste time reinventing the wheel. ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Departments has got you covered. Say goodbye to guesswork and hello to effective and efficient audits!

Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Department Benefits

A business plan template for the internal audit department offers numerous benefits to help streamline processes and achieve organizational goals. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Provides a clear roadmap for the department, outlining its objectives, strategies, and action plans
• Ensures alignment with organizational goals and objectives
• Helps in identifying and prioritizing audit areas based on risk assessment
• Enables efficient resource allocation and budget planning
• Enhances accountability and transparency within the department
• Enables better coordination and communication among audit team members
• Facilitates tracking and monitoring of audit progress and outcomes
• Supports continuous improvement by evaluating and refining audit methodologies
• Enhances stakeholder confidence through effective risk management and compliance assurance.

Main Elements of Internal Audit Department Business Plan Template

With ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Department, you can streamline your auditing processes and stay on top of your goals. Here are the main elements included in this template:

• Custom Statuses: Keep track of the progress of your audit tasks with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do.
• Custom Fields: Use custom fields like Reference, Approved, and Section to add important information to your audit tasks and easily organize and filter them.
• Custom Views: Access different perspectives of your business plan with views like Topics, Status, Timeline, Business Plan, and Getting Started Guide, allowing you to visualize your plan, track progress, and stay organized.
• Task Dependencies: Link audit tasks and create dependencies to ensure a smooth workflow and efficient completion of your business plan.
• Collaborative Features: Utilize features like comments and task assignments to encourage collaboration and keep your team aligned throughout the business planning process.

How To Use Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Department

If you're looking to create a business plan for your Internal Audit Department, using ClickUp's Business Plan Template can make the process straightforward and efficient. Follow these six steps to get started:

1. Define your objectives

Start by clearly defining the objectives of your Internal Audit Department. What are your goals and how do you plan to achieve them? Consider factors like risk assessment, compliance audits, and process improvement. Use a Doc in ClickUp to outline and document your objectives.

2. Identify key stakeholders

Identify the key stakeholders who will be involved in the internal audit process. This may include department heads, executives, and other relevant team members. Determine their roles and responsibilities and how they contribute to the overall success of the department. Use custom fields in ClickUp to keep track of stakeholders and their involvement.

3. Assess the current state

Conduct a thorough assessment of the current state of your Internal Audit Department. Evaluate existing processes, resources, and systems. Identify any areas of improvement or potential risks. This step will help you prioritize your goals and identify areas for growth. Use tasks in ClickUp to track and manage your assessment process.

4. Develop an action plan

Based on your assessment, develop a comprehensive action plan that outlines the steps you'll take to achieve your objectives. Break down each goal into smaller tasks, assign responsibilities, and set deadlines. Use the Gantt chart view in ClickUp to visualize your action plan and ensure smooth execution.

5. Implement and monitor

Start implementing your action plan and monitor progress regularly. Use ClickUp's Automations to streamline repetitive tasks and ensure accountability. Regularly review and update your plan as needed, making adjustments based on new information or changing priorities. Use the Calendar view in ClickUp to stay on top of deadlines and milestones.

6. Review and improve

Regularly review the effectiveness of your business plan and identify areas for improvement. Collect feedback from stakeholders and use it to refine your processes. Continuously seek ways to enhance efficiency and effectiveness within your Internal Audit Department. Use Dashboards in ClickUp to track key metrics and measure performance.

By following these steps and utilizing ClickUp's Business Plan Template, you'll be well-equipped to create a comprehensive and actionable business plan for your Internal Audit Department.

Get Started with ClickUp’s Business Plan Template for Internal Audit Department

The Internal Audit Department can use the Business Plan Template in ClickUp to streamline their audit processes and improve efficiency.

First, hit “Add Template” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create a comprehensive business plan for your Internal Audit Department:

• Use the Topics View to outline the key areas of focus for your audits
• The Status View will help you track the progress of each audit, with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do
• Utilize the Timeline View to set deadlines and milestones for each audit phase
• The Business Plan View provides a holistic overview of your department's goals, strategies, and action plans
• Create a Getting Started Guide View to provide step-by-step instructions for new team members
• Use custom fields like Reference, Approved, and Section to add additional information and categorize your audits
• Update statuses as you complete each audit phase to keep stakeholders informed of progress
• Monitor and analyze your business plan to ensure alignment with department goals and objectives.
• Business Plan Template for Graphic Designer
• Business Plan Template for Crafters
• Business Plan Template for Government Agencies
• Business Plan Template for Machine Operators
• Business Plan Template for Shipping Companies

Template details

Free forever with 100mb storage.

Free training & 24-hours support

Serious about security & privacy

Highest levels of uptime the last 12 months

• Product Roadmap
• Affiliate & Referrals
• On-Demand Demo
• Integrations
• Consultants
• Gantt Chart
• Native Time Tracking
• Automations
• Kanban Board
• vs Airtable
• vs Basecamp
• vs MS Project
• vs Smartsheet
• Software Team Hub
• PM Software Guide

• Departments

The Austin Police Department Shares New Five-Year Strategic Plan

Management plan 2024 – Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

Share this page

An official website of the United States government

Business Appraiser 12-Month Roster (Direct Hire)

Department of the treasury.

Positions under this announcement are being filled using a Direct Hire Authority (DHA) . Click on "Learn more about this agency" button below to view Eligibilities being considered and other IMPORTANT information. WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE ABOUT OTHER IRS CAREERS? Visit us on the web at www.jobs.irs.gov .

• Accepting applications

Open & closing dates

02/07/2024 to 11/07/2024

$103,409 - $167,336 per year

Pay scale & grade

31 vacancies in the following locations:

• Anchorage, AK
• Birmingham, AL
• Huntsville, AL
• Show more locations (249)
• Montgomery, AL
• Fayetteville, AR
• Little Rock, AR
• Glendale, AZ
• Phoenix, AZ
• Bakersfield, CA
• Camarillo, CA
• Carpinteria, CA
• El Monte, CA
• Fairfield, CA
• Glendale, CA
• Laguna Niguel, CA
• Long Beach, CA
• Los Angeles, CA
• Oakland, CA
• Palm Springs, CA
• Sacramento, CA
• San Bernardino, CA
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• San Jose, CA
• San Marcos, CA
• San Mateo, CA
• San Rafael, CA
• Santa Ana, CA
• Santa Clarita, CA
• Santa Maria, CA
• Santa Rosa, CA
• Stockton, CA
• Colorado Springs, CO
• Fort Collins, CO
• Grand Junction, CO
• Westminster, CO
• Hartford, CT
• New Haven, CT
• Norwalk, CT
• Washington DC, DC
• Daytona Beach, FL
• Fort Myers, FL
• Jacksonville, FL
• Lakeland, FL
• Melbourne, FL
• Orlando, FL
• Panama City, FL
• Pensacola, FL
• Plantation, FL
• Port Saint Lucie, FL
• Saint Petersburg, FL
• Sarasota, FL
• Tallahassee, FL
• West Palm Beach, FL
• Atlanta, GA
• Chamblee, GA
• Decatur, GA
• Savannah, GA
• Honolulu, HI
• Cedar Rapids, IA
• Des Moines, IA
• West Des Moines, IA
• Chicago, IL
• Downers Grove, IL
• Fairview Heights, IL
• Matteson, IL
• Orland Park, IL
• Schiller Park, IL
• Springfield, IL
• Fort Wayne, IN
• Indianapolis, IN
• Merrillville, IN
• Overland Park, KS
• Wichita, KS
• Covington, KY
• Florence, KY
• Lexington, KY
• Louisville, KY
• Baton Rouge, LA
• New Orleans, LA
• Shreveport, LA
• Andover, MA
• Brockton, MA
• Southborough, MA
• Springfield, MA
• Worcester, MA
• Annapolis, MD
• Baltimore, MD
• Rockville, MD
• South Portland, ME
• Ann Arbor, MI
• Detroit, MI
• Farmington Hills, MI
• Grand Rapids, MI
• Pontiac, MI
• Bloomington, MN
• Saint Paul, MN
• Chesterfield, MO
• Kansas City, MO
• Lees Summit, MO
• Saint Louis, MO
• Springfield, MO
• Clarksdale, MS
• Gulfport, MS
• Jackson, MS
• Billings, MT
• Missoula, MT
• Charlotte, NC
• Fayetteville, NC
• Greensboro, NC
• Greenville, NC
• Raleigh, NC
• Wilmington, NC
• Manchester, NH
• Portsmouth, NH
• Cherry Hill, NJ
• Freehold, NJ
• Mays Landing, NJ
• Paramus, NJ
• Parsippany, NJ
• Paterson, NJ
• Springfield, NJ
• Trenton, NJ
• Albuquerque, NM
• Las Vegas, NV
• Bethpage, NY
• Brooklyn, NY
• Buffalo, NY
• Cheektowaga, NY
• Hauppauge, NY
• Holtsville, NY
• New Windsor, NY
• New York, NY
• Rochester, NY
• Syracuse, NY
• White Plains, NY
• Cincinnati, OH
• Columbus, OH
• Independence, OH
• Oklahoma City, OK
• Portland, OR
• Bethlehem, PA
• Horsham, PA
• King Of Prussia, PA
• Monroeville, PA
• Philadelphia, PA
• Pittsburgh, PA
• Scranton, PA
• Guaynabo, PR
• San Juan, PR
• Providence, RI
• Warwick, RI
• Columbia, SC
• Greenville, SC
• North Charleston, SC
• Rapid City, SD
• Sioux Falls, SD
• Chattanooga, TN
• Franklin, TN
• Knoxville, TN
• Memphis, TN
• Nashville, TN
• Corpus Christi, TX
• El Paso, TX
• Farmers Branch, TX
• Fort Worth, TX
• Harlingen, TX
• Houston, TX
• McAllen, TX
• Midland, TX
• San Antonio, TX
• Salt Lake City, UT
• Fredericksburg, VA
• Hampton, VA
• Norfolk, VA
• Richmond, VA
• Roanoke, VA
• Burlington, VT
• Seattle, WA
• Spokane, WA
• Vancouver, WA
• Madison, WI
• Milwaukee, WI
• Waukesha, WI
• Beckley, WV
• Cheyenne, WY

Telework eligible

Yes—as determined by the agency policy.

Travel Required

25% or less - You may be expected to travel for this position.

Relocation expenses reimbursed

Appointment type, work schedule.

Competitive

Promotion potential

Job family (series).

1160 Financial Analysis

Supervisory status

Security clearance.

Not Required

Position sensitivity and risk

Moderate Risk (MR)

Trust determination process

Suitability/Fitness

Announcement number

24-12295987A-LBD-1160-13

Control number

This job is open to, career transition (ctap, ictap, rpl).

Federal employees who meet the definition of a "surplus" or "displaced" employee.

U.S. Citizens, Nationals or those who owe allegiance to the U.S.

Clarification from the agency

Open to U.S. Citizens/Nationals

• Performs unique, often controversial and precedent setting appraisals of businesses and business interests where the appraisal will have significant tax impact, affect large segments of taxpayers, and with potential to effect legislative change. Provides expertise to government attorneys on cases with litigation potential. Serves as expert witness in U.S. Tax Court or U.S. District Court.
• Performs appraisals and reviews appraisals prepared by recognized experts and authorities in the industry. Conducts conferences with taxpayers, representatives and experts to explain findings which are often vigorously contested. Prepares appraisal reports which represent the Service's position and documents conclusions with accurate facts and arguments for unagreed issues. Develops and utilizes sophisticated financial, analytical, and appraisal techniques appropriate to the particular type of business interest. Applies research, resourcefulness, and judgment in developing facts, valuation techniques, and tax law applicable to each assignment. Determinations often set precedent for future determinations throughout the industry.
• Makes determinations of the fair market value of very large and complex corporate, partnership, fiduciary, and individual proprietorship business interests, and other types of financial and investment instruments. Makes determinations of the value of tangible and intangible assets acquired or sold in corporate buyouts, mergers, reorganizations, etc. Allocates the purchase price of large and complex business entities to the various assets acquired in accordance with relevant economic and valuation principles and tax law.
• Makes determinations of reasonable compensation requirements for business executives using sophisticated analysis of industry data, surveys, and judgment. Reviews overall compensations packages including salary, stock options, retirement benefits, and other forms of remuneration. Makes determinations of marketability and minority discounts for property interests such as stock in closely held corporations, unregistered stocks and securities, limited and general partnership interests, and partial interest in business enterprises and real estate.

Requirements

Conditions of employment.

• Telework Eligible Positions : Telework eligible positions do not guarantee telework. Employees must meet and sustain IRS telework eligibility requirements (e.g., reporting at least twice a pay period to your assigned Post of Duty (POD) ) and supervisor's approval to participate in the IRS Telework Program. Employees must also be within a 200-mile radius of their official assigned post-of-duty (POD) while in a telework status. As a reminder - If you are selected for a position, you are responsible for reporting to your designated POD (location) on the negotiated start date or as directed by management.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen or National and provide proof of U.S. Citizenship. (Birth certificate showing birth in the U.S; Unexpired U.S. Passport; Certificate of Citizenship or Naturalization; or Report of Birth Abroad of a U.S. Citizen (Form FS-240))
• Undergo a review of prior performance/conduct and an income tax verification. Refer to "Get Your Tax Record" at http://www.irs.gov/ ( https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript ) to check the status of your account, balance owed, payment history, make a payment, or review answers to tax questions. If you are not in compliance, you will be determined unsuitable for employment with IRS.
• Must successfully complete a background investigation, including a FBI criminal history record check (fingerprint check).
• Complete a Declaration for Federal Employment to determine your suitability for Federal employment, at the time requested by the agency.
• Go through a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) process that requires two forms of identification from the Form I-9 . Federal law requires verification of the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires in the U.S. These documents must be unexpired original or certified copies .
• The Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act prohibits the Department of Treasury and its bureaus from requesting an applicant's criminal history record before that individual receives a conditional offer of employment. In accordance with 5 U.S. Code § 9202(c) and 5 C.F.R § 920.201 certain positions are exempt from the provisions of the Fair Chance to Compete Act. Applicants who believe they have been subjected to a violation of the Fair Chance to Compete for Jobs Act, may submit a written complaint to the Department of Treasury by email at, [email protected]. To learn more, please visit our page at: Treasury.gov/fairchanceact.

Qualifications

For positions with an education requirement, or if you are qualifying for this position by substituting education or training for experience, submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent. An official transcript will be required if you are selected. A college or university degree generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For a list of schools which meet these criteria, please refer to Department of Education Accreditation page . FOREIGN EDUCATION: Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet the requirements. You must show proof the education credentials have been deemed to be at least equivalent to that gained in conventional U.S. education program. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence when applying. Click here for Foreign Education Credentialing instructions.

Additional information

• A 1-year probationary period is required.
• Have your salary sent to a financial institution of your choice by Direct Deposit/Electronic Funds Transfer.
• If you are a male applicant born after December 31, 1959, certify that you have registered with the Selective Service System or are exempt from having to do so.
• We may select from this announcement or any other source to fill one or more vacancies. Additional jobs may be filled.
• The salary range indicated in this announcement reflects the minimum locality pay up to maximum locality pay for all duty locations listed. The range will be adjusted for selected duty location. General Schedule locality pay tables may be found under Salaries & Wages .
• This is a bargaining unit position.
• Tour of Duty: Day Shift - Start and stop times between 6:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
• Alternative work schedule, staggered work hours or telework may be available.
• Relocation expenses - No
• If this position is designated as hard to fill and you were referred by an IRS employee, the employee may be eligible to receive a bonus for referring you under The Employee Referral Bonus Program (ERBP) , recruiting strategy.

A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new window Learn more about federal benefits .

Review our benefits

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

How You Will Be Evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

This position will be filled through the Direct Hire Authority. Under this authority, competitive rating, ranking, and veterans' preference procedures do not apply. Your application will be considered based on education, training, and quality of your experience. For more information on Direct-Hire Authority visit: OPM Direct Hire Fact Sheet . Your application must include your resume, responses to the online questions, and required supporting documents. Please be sure that your resume includes detailed information to support your qualifications for this position; failure to provide sufficient evidence in your resume may result in a "not qualified" determination. Referral: Applicants who meet the basic qualification requirements may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. Candidates may be required to participate in a selection interview (telephonic and/or in person at the discretion of the Selecting Official in accordance with hiring practices). We will not reimburse costs related to the interview such as travel to and from the interview site. If you are a displaced Federal employee (eligible for the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) , you must be found "well qualified" for the position. Well qualified is defined as: experience that exceeds the minimum qualifications of the position, demonstrated by meeting all the competencies for this position.

As a new or existing federal employee, you and your family may have access to a range of benefits. Your benefits depend on the type of position you have - whether you're a permanent, part-time, temporary or an intermittent employee. You may be eligible for the following benefits, however, check with your agency to make sure you're eligible under their policies.

The following documents are required and must be provided with your application. All application materials, including transcripts, must be in English.

• Resume - Your resume MUST contain dates of employment (i.e., month/year to month/year or present). To ensure you receive full credit for relevant experience, include the hours worked per week. We recommend that your resume not exceed 5 pages. If including Federal service experience, you MUST provide the pay plan, series, and grade, i.e., GS-0301-09. If the pay plan, series, and grade are not provided, it may result in an ineligible determination. Your resume must NOT include photographs, classified or government sensitive information, social security number (SSN), encrypted/digitally signed documents, or other inappropriate material or content. If your resume contains prohibited information as listed above, your application will be determined ineligible, and you will not receive consideration for this position. ( Cover letters are optional.) Please view Resume Tips. It is also recommended that your resume not include personal information such as age, gender, religion, race, disability, etc.
• Online Application - Questionnaire
• Education - See Education Section above
• Registration/License (If Applicable) - active, current registration/license
• Veterans' Preference (if applicable) - You MUST submit a copy of your DD-214 (Member 4 copy), or other official documentation from a branch of the Armed Forces or the Department of Veterans Affairs showing dates of service and type of discharge. If you are serving under active duty, provide certification from the Armed Forces that you will be discharged or released within 120 days from the date of certification. The certification must indicate your dates of service, rank and that you will be separated under honorable conditions. 10-point preference eligible - Submit an Application for 10-point Veteran Preference, SF-15 , along with the required documentation listed on the back of the SF-15. Veterans Affairs/Armed Forces certification must include the percentage of the service-connected disability or disabilities (including the "combined" percentage if you have more than one disability). Refer to FedsHireVets for additional information on veterans' preference.
• Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) (If Applicable) - IRS CTAP eligibles can apply for jobs within and outside the commuting area. Treasury CTAP eligibles can apply for jobs within the commuting area. Find required documentation at: Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP).
• Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP) (If Applicable) - If you are a displaced or surplus Federal employee, click CTAP/ICTAP for eligibility and a detailed list of required documents.
• High School Diploma (or equivalent) - If you are 16 or 17 years of age, you MUST submit documentation of graduation from high school (or equivalent); OR completion of a formal vocational training program; OR statement from school authorities agreeing with your decision to pursue employment rather than continuing your education.
• To begin the application process, click the "Apply Online" button.
• You will be re-directed to USA STAFFING to complete your application process; answer the online questions and submit all required documents. (To submit supporting documents, import documents from USAJOBS to the appropriate document types. If the document you need was not imported from USAJOBS, you may upload it directly into this application. To protect your privacy, we suggest you first remove your SSN).
• To complete , you must click the "Submit Application" button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on 11/07/2024.

Agency contact information

Irs austin external.

[email protected]

Treasury believes in a working environment that supports inclusion; please view our reasonable accommodation policies and procedures at https://www.jobs.irs.gov/midcareer/reasonable-accommodation.html . We will provide reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; please contact us if you require this for any part of the application and hiring process. Once your application package and online questionnaire is received you will receive an acknowledgement email. You are responsible for checking status updates and notifications in USAJOBS. Hard copy notifications will not be sent to you. You may check the status of your application for this position at any time by logging onto the USAJOBS "My Account" tab and clicking on "Application Status." For a more detailed update of your application status, you may click on "more information." Please notify us if your contact information changes after the closing date of the announcement. If your email mailbox is full or blocked (SPAM) you may not receive important communication that could affect your consideration for this position.

The Federal hiring process is set up to be fair and transparent. Please read the following guidance.

• Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Policy
• Criminal history inquiries
• Reasonable accommodation policy
• Financial suitability
• Selective Service
• New employee probationary period
• Signature and false statements
• Privacy Act
• Social security number request

Required Documents

How to apply, fair & transparent.

This job originated on www.usajobs.gov . For the full announcement and to apply, visit www.usajobs.gov/job/775221000 . Only resumes submitted according to the instructions on the job announcement listed at www.usajobs.gov will be considered.

Please wait while map is being generated.

Learn more about

Internal Revenue Service

WHY IS THE IRS A GREAT PLACE TO WORK? As an IRS employee, you will feel proud knowing you helped make America stronger while working at one of the world's biggest financial institutions. You will be part of an organization that collects over $2 trillion in revenue and processes over 200 million tax returns annually. We are proud of how we apply the tax law with integrity and fairness to all. The IRS hires talented and dedicated individuals from many backgrounds, including accounting, business, finance, law enforcement and information technology. You will be challenged & supported on a daily basis. Whether you are just starting out or looking for a new opportunity, consider an IRS career. The U.S. Department of the Treasury has a distinguished history dating back to the founding of our nation. As the steward of U.S. economic and financial systems, Treasury is a major and influential leader in today's global economy. We have over 100,000 employees across the country and around the world. Come Join the Department of the Treasury and Invest in Tomorrow.

Your session is about to expire!

Your USAJOBS session will expire due to inactivity in eight minutes. Any unsaved data will be lost if you allow the session to expire. Click the button below to continue your session.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Apple’s New iPad Ad Leaves Its Creative Audience Feeling … Flat

An ad meant to show how the updated device can do many things has become a metaphor for a community’s fears of the technology industry.

By Tripp Mickle

Tripp Mickle has been writing about Apple since 2016.

The trumpet is the first thing to be squished. Then the industrial compressor flattens a row of paint cans, buckles a piano and levels what appears to be a marble bust. In a final act of destruction, it pops the eyes out of a ball-shaped yellow emoji.

When the compressor rises, it reveals Apple’s latest commodity: the updated iPad Pro.

Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, posted the advertisement, called “Crush,” on Tuesday after the company held an event to announce new tablets. “Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created,” Mr. Cook wrote, adding, “Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create.”

Meet the new iPad Pro: the thinnest product we’ve ever created, the most advanced display we’ve ever produced, with the incredible power of the M4 chip. Just imagine all the things it’ll be used to create. pic.twitter.com/6PeGXNoKgG — Tim Cook (@tim_cook) May 7, 2024

For decades, Apple has been the toast of the creative class. It has won over designers, musicians and film editors with promises that its products would help them “Think Different.”

But some creators took a different message from the one-minute iPad ad. Rather than seeing a device that could help them create, as Mr. Cook suggested, they saw a metaphor for how Big Tech has cashed in on their work by crushing or co-opting the artistic tools that humanity has used for centuries.

The image was especially unnerving at a time when artists fear that generative artificial intelligence, which can write poetry and create movies, might take away their jobs.

“It’s unusual in its cruelty,” said Justin Ouellette, a software designer in Portland, Ore., who does animation work and is a longtime Apple product user. “A lot of people see this as a betrayal of its commitment to human creative expression and a tone deafness to the pressures those artists feel at this time.”

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment.

It was the latest in a series of recent promotional slip-ups by a company that is widely considered to be a marketing juggernaut. Its marketing of the Apple Vision Pro , released in January, struggled to help that device break through with many customers. Last year, Apple was criticized for making an awkward sketch that cast Octavia Spencer as Mother Earth , lording over a corporate meeting about the company’s effort to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Apple has been regarded as an advertising visionary since the 1980s. Its “ 1984” Super Bowl commercial to introduce the Macintosh computer is among the most famous commercials ever made. The ad, which was developed by the Chiat/Day agency, showed an actor throwing a sledgehammer through a screen projecting the face of a “Big Brother” figure that was meant to be a metaphor for IBM.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 after 12 years away, he sought to reclaim its marketing magic. Together he and Lee Clow, the advertising creative behind the “1984” spot, developed the “Think Different” campaign. It paved the way to the famous “Get a Mac” spots, featuring a Mac and PC , and the original iPhone ad , which showed people in classic films and television shows picking up a phone and saying, “Hello.”

Apple’s marketing pitched its products as easy to use. It billed PCs and Android phones as devices for business executives working on spreadsheets, while Macs and iPhones were tools for film editors, photographers and writers.

But Apple’s advertising has been uneven over the last dozen years or so. It yanked a 2012 campaign that showcased its Apple Store “geniuses” on planes. Critics dismissed a subsequent spot, “Designed by Apple in California,” as “ lame .”

In the wake of those hiccups, Mr. Cook shifted oversight of advertising from Phil Schiller, the company’s longtime head of marketing, to Tor Myhren, a former president and chief creative officer at Grey, the ad agency that created the E-Trade baby.

Under Mr. Myhren, who joined in 2016, Apple has developed some of its ads with its own creative team and others in collaboration with an outside agency, Media Arts Lab. It has been recognized at the Cannes Lions Awards, the leading event for the ad industry, for a spot on AirPods called “Bounce,” which showed a man bounding off the sidewalk as he listened to music. Last year, Apple was named Creative Brand of the Year because of its “R.I.P. Leon” ad, in which a man sent an iPhone message saying a lizard in his care had died, then deleted it when the lizard suddenly rolled over off its back.

Mr. Myhren and Media Arts Lab didn’t respond to requests for comment about who was behind the “Crush” spot.

Michael J. Miraflor, the chief brand officer at Hannah Grey, a venture capital firm, said on X that Apple’s ad had effectively offended and turned off its core customer base, achieving the opposite of what it had done with its “1984” commercial.

“It’s not even that it’s boring or banal,” Mr. Miraflor wrote . “It makes me feel … bad? Bummed out?”

Tripp Mickle reports on Apple and Silicon Valley for The Times and is based in San Francisco. His focus on Apple includes product launches, manufacturing issues and political challenges. He also writes about trends across the tech industry, including layoffs, generative A.I. and robot taxis. More about Tripp Mickle

Biden's new student-loan forgiveness plan has already received over 24,000 comments. There are 2 weeks left to give the administration input.

• There are two weeks left for the public to comment on Biden's new student-debt relief plan.
• Once the public comment period ends, the administration will move toward final implementation.
• Still, legal challenges and the election pose threats to the debt cancellation.

The American people have just two weeks left to give President Joe Biden's administration input on its new student-loan forgiveness plan .

On April 17, the Education Department published its draft rules for a broader version of debt relief to the Federal Register. First unveiled in early April, the new plan is expected to benefit over 30 million borrowers through a range of provisions, including canceling unpaid interest for borrowers and providing debt relief to those who have made at least 20 years of payments.

This new plan is intended to replace Biden's first attempt at relief that the Supreme Court struck down last summer. In contrast to the first plan, this one requires the administration to undergo a process known as negotiated rulemaking, which entails a series of negotiations with stakeholders and an opportunity for the public to comment on the plans before final implementation.

Related stories

The plan is now in the public comment period, and there are two weeks left for anyone who wishes to provide input on the administration's proposals. So far, according to the Federal Register , the plan has received 24,532 comments as of Friday morning.

The comments are available to be viewed publicly, and some of them were supportive of Biden's plan. One stated:

"The more student loan debt that can be forgiven the better. My mom's loans were forgiven last month, and it has changed her life. The period of time when my loans were paused allowed me to buy a home. My loans are currently in repayment, and if that burden could be lifted it would be life-changing for me."

Meanwhile, others were more critical:

"No if you borrow money you need to pay it back. why should people who are hard working pay for a lazy person school. student loans needs to be payed back by the borrower not by people who are working for a living."

Once the public comment period ends on May 17, the Education Department can choose to adjust its proposals based on the feedback it received or move ahead toward final implementation. In the coming months, the department also plans to unveil a separate proposal to get relief to borrowers experiencing financial hardship, which will also have a public comment period.

The department has said it plans to move as quickly as possible with the relief this fall, but not only does the presidential election bring uncertainty to the fate of the relief — it's highly likely legal challenges will once again attempt to block it from carrying out.

For example, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote on X that he would see Biden in court after the release of new details for the debt relief, and he already filed a lawsuit to block the SAVE income-driven repayment plan , arguing it was an overreach of the administration's authority.

Watch: Why student loans aren't canceled, and what Biden's going to do about it

• Main content