You have several plausible ways to grow and enough time to pursue only one well. Strategic planning begins with that choice. Before commissioning a new website or hiring another person, decide whose problem the business will solve, why customers would pay, and what delivery will require. This playbook follows a proposed recurring service from the initial decision to a funded test.
Choose the Direction
For a worked example, take a Los Angeles consulting firm whose owners want steadier revenue. Existing clients ask for occasional follow-up after projects close, but no one has tested whether they would pay for a defined monthly service. The owners first need to choose the customer and the recurring problem. A vague objective such as “grow recurring revenue” leaves too much unresolved to guide pricing or staffing. Write down the proposed offer and the evidence that would make it worth pursuing. Set aside unrelated expansion ideas for a later review.
Establish the Starting Measures
Choose measures that reveal whether the strategic choice is working. Record the current position before setting an improvement target. For the consulting firm, recurring revenue alone is incomplete: the owners also need to understand delivery effort, customer retention, and capacity committed to the new offer. Define the data owner and reporting period so the numbers remain comparable.
| Planning Item | Example Decision |
|---|---|
| Objective | Build a dependable recurring service for existing business customers. |
| Priority | Test one defined monthly package before adding another customer segment. |
| Measure | Track paid renewals, delivery hours, and unresolved scope requests. |
| Owner | Assign a business sponsor and an accountable delivery lead. |
| Review | Compare the pilot evidence with the agreed capacity and demand assumptions. |
Fund the Roadmap
CFI distinguishes business direction from the budgets and forecasts needed to fund it. Apply that distinction by showing both the intended move and its resource consequences. Sequence customer interviews, service design, pricing review, and a limited launch. Confirm who has time to do the work. Ask the financial owner to check the spending and cash assumptions before treating the roadmap as funded.
Review the Evidence
Agree what would justify another commitment of time or money. If customers buy the pilot but keep requesting work outside its scope, examine whether the package needs clearer boundaries or a different price. Record the change before expanding; otherwise the next group of customers will receive an offer the team has already found difficult to deliver.
McKinsey’s September 2026 analysis describes Adobe’s earlier transition to subscriptions, including the operating-model changes and near-term revenue tradeoffs it required. For the consulting firm, the relevant question is smaller but still consequential: can the chosen service be sold, delivered, and renewed in a repeatable way? Review that evidence at the agreed checkpoint and make the next funding decision explicit.