The LHCb experiment is designed to perform high-precision measurements of CP violation and search for New Physics using the enormous flux of beauty and charmed hadrons produced at the LHC. The operation and the results obtained from the data collected in 2010 and 2011 demonstrate that the detector is robust and functioning very well. However, the limit of 1 fb$^{-1}$ of data per year cannot be overcome without improving the detector. We therefore plan for an upgraded spectrometer by 2018 with a 40 MHz readout and a much more flexible software-based triggering system that will increase the data rate as well as the efficiency specially in the hadronic channels. Here we present the LHCb detector upgrade plans, based on the recently submitted Letter of Intent, with a particular focus on prospects for QCD-related physics analyses.