“Counting your chickens before they hatch” is an idiom that’s thrown around a lot in day to day conversation. Little do people realise its relevance to business strategy. In a nutshell, it means to ‘plan how you’re going to utilize the good results of something, before those results have actually occurred.’

A University study was done in July this year on the failure rate across multiple business industries and the attributed reasons leading to them failing. The number one cause of failure for 46% of those businesses surveyed, was found to be incompetence as a result of lack of planning. This figure certainly should be ringing some alarm bells.

In the graph below you will notice that 55% of service businesses were still operating after four years. Whilst this isn’t the highest statistic, it certainly sheds some light on how easy it is to steer your business down the wrong avenue if your susceptible to leaving your business ‘planning’ to the last minute.

Any uncertainty about your business should be backed up with data and statistics that help you to define and measure what it is you’re uncertain about. As a result, this enables you to make more accurate decisions; and managerial decision making can then utilise this statistical insight to steer your business in the right direction.

You should be making basic plans in advance all the time. Reviewing and refining them on a regular basis will ensure you are as prepared as possible for future success.

If you haven’t already you should be thinking about investing in business planning software. goRoster gives you access to all your past roster data and financial information in order to help you streamline those important business plans.