SCENARIO PLANNING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

Entrepreneurs are risk takers and innovators but are not always strong supporters of strategic planning, especially in smaller businesses. However, small business entrpreneurs, like everyone else, have to face up to the uncertainty inherent in the future. One key element of strategic planning is to devise ways to handle that uncertainty and a useful technique for this is scenario building. It is often assumed that scenario building is an approach which only large, wealthy organizations can use because of the time, cost and expertise involved. This article describes a simplified approach to scenario building which can be employed with benefit by even the smallest firms.