Nine planning files for KSA and Gulf consumer healthcare, built from the questions global reviewers asked of my own plans: seven templates for brand, launch, business-case, account, portfolio and BD work, plus two companion workbooks. Each with guidance in every box, a fully worked example on a fictional brand, a two-page how-to, and the Excel behind the numbers.
Grey guidance tells you what belongs there, blue tokens are find-and-replace, charts and tables are live, and the reviewer's questions sit in the speaker notes of every slide.
One brand, one distributor, one set of competitors across the whole kit. Every number reconciles from slide to slide and from the deck to the workbook, so you see what finished looks like.
Which inputs to collect, which sheet or slide to fill first, the mistakes reviewers find, and how to adapt the template to your own company's format.
Blue cells are yours, everything else computes. Every workbook opens with an About sheet and a sheet-flow map, and ships recalculated with zero formula errors.
Plans written the way a global reviewer reads them, by someone who was reviewed for ten years.
For ten years I wrote the plans a Gulf country sends up the line: the annual brand plan, the launch case, the category review, the account plan a pharmacy chain signs, the evaluation of a range someone wants to license us. Every one of them was read by people far from Riyadh, a global brand team, a regional category lead, a finance partner, and every one came back with the same kind of questions. Which accounts explain the gap. Where is the delta. Why does this lever get this money. What happens at minus twenty percent. Who owns the biggest barrier.
That is the connection most marketers in this region never get. They work at a distributor, a local company, an agency, or a country office where the template arrives without the reasoning behind it. They are asked to write like a global brand team without ever having sat in the room where a country plan meets one.
What I took from global marketers was not a template. It was a set of habits: the title is the message; every number carries its delta and its source; one price basis per slide; a barrier has an owner and a trigger; a launch is a case before it is a plan; an ambition is a bridge, not a wish. Those habits are what a reviewer checks, and they are what gets a plan signed the first time.
The kit is that room, written down. Nine files with the structure global teams expect, the questions they ask in the notes of every slide, the numbers reconciling from deck to workbook, and a worked example of each one on a fictional brand so you see finished before you start. Nothing in it is any company's document. The structure is the practice of the industry; the words, charts and numbers are original and built for this market: SFDA classes, price-controlled heroes, the chains, Ramadan and the winter peak, distributor stock in weeks.
Use it to write faster, or use it to write the way the other side reads.
A 32-slide brand plan for a KSA or Gulf consumer-healthcare brand — market, shopper, levers, forecast, A&P, asks — with the A&P budget tracker that runs the year.
A 26-slide business case with the NPV workbook behind it — price chain to NSP, five-year forecast with its narrative, returns, sensitivities, gates — for a launch, a line extension or a price move.
A 25-slide country pack for the monthly or quarterly category review: the KSA numbers, what moved and why, the forecast, the launches, the asks — built for the questions a regional reviewer asks.
A 30-slide key-account plan for a pharmacy chain — where we stand, the plan, calendar and money, the agreement — with the calendar workbook and the negotiation ladder in the notes.
A 28-slide launch plan with the readiness workbook (36 deliverables with deadlines and a verdict), the monthly sell-out budget, the listing plan, the price chain and an 8-slide sales fact file for the field.
A 29-slide portfolio plan across a country's brands — roles by rule, the A&P pool by measured return, field cycles, the launch pipeline, the bridge and the P&L by brand — with the workbook that allocates the pool.
A 27-slide evaluation of a licensing offer or a range for sale — fit, market, price chain per SKU, forecast, returns, due-diligence list, contract points, tracker, screen and verdict — with the workbook that scores it.
A workbook that keeps the competitor facts a plan needs — owner, class, lead SKU, price per 100 ml, index vs ours and vs the leader, share and its change, growth, rank — with the shelf check that builds the price ladder, the share view and a watch list with triggers.
A workbook that phases the year's targets by month, takes one row of actuals a month and prints the monthly review: month and year to date against plan, run-rate, full-year estimate, share, distribution, doors and stock cover against trajectory, the trend, three things to say, open actions.
Every example is set in one fictional world: Meridian Consumer Health, its distributor Northern Gulf Distribution Co., the scalp-care brand Clarisel and its competitors Scalvia, Sebravel, Scalpex and Trichoderm. Nahdi, Al-Dawaa and United are real Saudi pharmacy chains used as market fixtures with invented figures.
All seven items and both companion workbooks: one planning year of a brand, a launch, a business case, an account, a portfolio, a review and a deal, in one folder that shares one fictional world and one set of numbers. Every revision of every file for twelve months, by email.
The forty questions a head-office reviewer asks of a country brand plan, and the two-page how-to from item 01. Sent by email, followed by one short note a week for five weeks on how each item is used.
Send me the checklistThree working sessions: the inputs and the numbers, the draft, the review against the questions head office will ask. For a brand manager with a plan due in the next eight weeks.
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