Develop Planning Assumptions and Forecasts

Entrepreneurship in Childcare Services 4 (2+2)

Lesson 10 : Planning

Develop Planning Assumptions and Forecasts

Forecasting the number of children needing child development services is often of concern to enterprenuer. The public schools generally carry out a school census each year to enable them to forecast needs for classrooms and teachers for each age. People who are planning to establish other types of child development centers as an enterprise might have access to the public school data or they may wish to take their own census to survey the needs. They may develop and carry out a needs survey or needs assessment.

Forecasting should be done as carefully as possible. Entrepreneurs generally find that forecasts are more optimistic than the immediate resulting enrollments. Consequently, they must be prepared to be under enrolled for perhaps a year. It takes time for the reputation of a center to become known and for parents to shift to patronizing it.

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Last modified: Friday, 3 February 2012, 8:33 AM