The Planning Discipline Behind Amazon’s Growth
Are you planning your next phase of growth? Learn how a global company sets a three-year North Star and builds the plan before the budget, and how Irish businesses can use the same discipline to reach their 2027 goals.
- Wed 25 November 2026
- Live on Microsoft Teams
- 11:00am GMT · 45 minutes, with live Q&A
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2027 planning template after
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Why starting with the budget limits growth
Most growing companies plan next year by picking a target number (10% or 20% growth), handing out budget targets and hoping the team figures out how to deliver it. By spring, that budget is usually filed away and forgotten.
Global companies like Amazon plan the other way round. They anchor to a clear three-year destination, test every initiative before money is allocated, and only then let the budget decide which ideas get funded.
In this 45-minute session, Mike Barnes, who spent more than a decade in finance leadership at Amazon and Microsoft, explains why starting with the budget limits growth, breaks down how that planning discipline works in practice, and shows how SMEs can adopt it to align leadership, back the ideas with the best return and protect profit. He’ll also share the two simple measures he uses to tell early whether a plan is on track.
Live Q&A is included, and following the session every registrant receives free starter resources and planning templates to kick off their own process.
Leaders looking for clarity, alignment and momentum
- You want to understand why setting the budget before the plan holds growing businesses back
- You want the discipline and early-warning measures of a global enterprise without the corporate bloat
- You want your leadership team aligned around shared outcomes before the numbers are locked down
- You want practical tools and starter frameworks to guide your 2027 planning
Designed specifically for Irish founders, CEOs and senior leadership teams where agility and focus matter most.
Nine topics, 45 minutes
Why ‘grow 10%’ is a ceiling and not a goal
What changes when you start with ‘what would it take to double?’ instead of last year’s number plus a bit.
The three-year North Star
Why the direction stays steady while the detail moves, and how to set one broad enough to adjust each year without rewriting it.
Plan first, budget second
There’s no shortage of opportunity in your business, only a shortage of capacity and funding. The budget’s real job is to pick the best ideas and drop the rest.
One conversation across the whole leadership team
How to plan as a discussion and not a number handed down, so sales stops selling what operations can’t deliver.
Cutting weak ideas before they cost you anything
The informal draft stage where around half of the ideas were challenged before the real planning began, and how to run a version of it in an afternoon.
Two simple numbers that show early whether the plan is working
A ‘cost per’ measure for revenue and for customers, and how it catches problems in the first quarter.
Planning for the hiring lag
Why a new hire makes your numbers worse before they make them better, and how to avoid judging too early or too late.
Testing in stages
How to fail small and succeed big, backing an investment in steps and stopping quickly if it isn’t working.
People, process, then tools
Why the shiny new system is usually the last thing to fix.
Mike Barnes
CEO, Rhomu · CIMA qualified
Mike spent more than a decade inside the finance teams of Amazon and Microsoft
Mike spent more than a decade at Amazon and Microsoft before founding Rhomu in 2021. At Amazon he was finance lead for the international third party sales business during a period of rapid growth. At Microsoft he held roles including Divisional CFO, Head of Business Strategy, where he built the North Stars and KPIs for a worldwide finance organisation, and Enterprise Risk Director.
He founded Rhomu to bring that discipline to growing businesses without the corporate bloat, and he is launching the podcast The Stuff Between the Numbers.
- 01A sequence to run with your leadership team, from three-year vision to operational plan to budget
- 02Two simple measures you can put in place before the year ends
- 03Our 2027 planning template, sent after the session