We are sometime faced to the challenge to present an extensive and well detailed business plan on a condensed way. Having spend many years working for Japanese conglomerates some of us have been impressed by the Japanese skill of putting an incredibly high amount of information in a mere A4 (with a bit of luck A3) one pager format. And at first sight it may look like this:
It may be more confusing than an excel dashboard coming out of your ERP system, but there is some very positive learning to take out of this format:
- You will have to basically first really grasp all background information to be able to extract the core. This will "force" you to be very well prepared and know your background files inside-out.
- Then, you are forced to focus to the "real core" of the information because there is simply not enough space to put all what you want. (And no one can read characters size below 5)
- The trick: bringing a specific structure and a narrative sequence to this mass of information is the key to build your "story". Let's have a look at this (very) simplified template example:
This is where business cultures bridge. Call it Jigyo keikaku or Business Plan, it does not matter. The idea is to use a format your audience is accustomed to while being in position to bring your own story across.
At CXOs & Co. we know that bridging (business) cultural gap is of utmost importance to conduct successful professional relationships. That's a reason why we are glad to support overseas companies planning to develop their operations in Europe or the other way round.