Annual Planning
The yearly process of setting revenue targets, building capacity models, designing territories, finalizing comp plans, and allocating budgets across the revenue org. RevOps typically owns the modeling and cross-functional coordination.
Summary of Annual Planning and RevOps Role
What is Annual Planning?
Annual Planning is the yearly process (typically in Q4 for the next fiscal year) where a company sets revenue targets and aligns all supporting resources. This includes:
- Setting ARR and revenue targets
- Building sales capacity models
- Designing territories
- Finalizing compensation plans
- Allocating budgets across the revenue organization
Why Annual Planning Matters
Revenue planning is highly interconnected: a board-approved ARR target drives required pipeline, which drives headcount and territory design, which then informs marketing spend and other investments. If the top-line target or its underlying assumptions are wrong, every downstream decision (hiring, quotas, territories, budget) becomes misaligned and unreliable.