Have you ever wondered how some businesses seem to respond to the market so effectively?

Some companies know what's going to happen beforehand, and some even appear to have the market react to their actions instead of the other way around. In most cases, it's not blind luck; it's part of a strategic business system. Some businesses have built themselves a crystal ball that reads the signals from their business and the industry, informing them of what to do next.

Why should this kind of strategy be limited to big businesses? Here at Via, we believe every company can be — and should be — strategic, not just to survive, but to thrive in any market condition. A critical piece of the puzzle that strategic businesses possess is foresight, the ability to forecast and project future conditions and plan accordingly in response. The alternative is to run a reactive business that is always a few steps behind the market, and hoping that the knee-jerk reaction happens to be the right move.

Decades of research have shown that companies with foresight — companies that plan — enjoy marked benefits over businesses that don't. Here are a few reasons why:

1. Foresight mitigates risk: businesses that leverage data to inform decision-making have a much more informed approach to risk. A 2016 study found that firms using predictive analytics for supply chain risk evaluation reduced disruptions by 25% and improved inventory management efficiency by 20%.
2. Foresight reduces waste: businesses that collect and interpret signals effectively know where to reduce inventory, increase efficiency and automate processes. Research conducted in 2024 noted that advanced forecasting models improved accuracy by 15% in retail and operational efficiency by 18% in manufacturing.
3. Foresight increases value: Multiple studies in 2022 and 2024 reported that SMEs implementing customer behaviour prediction models achieved 15-25% increases in Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) and 20-30% improvements in conversion rates.

So, if foresight is so crucial, why don't more businesses invest in it?

Some of the common reasons include:

1. Not knowing what signals to collect: It's essential to understand what actually matters in a specific business. Each industry has its own set of unique metrics that directly impact the bottom line. Knowing what to measure is the starting point that many business leaders have yet to identify.
2. The tools needed are unclear or intimidating: If knowing what to measure is the first problem, the second is learning how to measure it accurately. The market is full of tools, but which one is the right one? Many business leaders find themselves wandering through the internet like a fishing store, not knowing which rod is designed to catch their specific fish.
3. The costs appear too high: Technology costs money. Business leaders struggle to see the correlation between strategic planning and profit when they haven't yet begun or feel they lack the funds to invest in expensive analytics software.
4. The quality of the signal is uncertain: How can we be sure that what we're receiving on our end is the signal our customers, our market and our revenue engine is sending?

The best thing that a business can do is start collecting signals and identifying patterns.

It's better to measure three things consistently than to measure nothing at all. Here are some examples of baseline metrics that may function as a good starting place:

Cost Per Acquisition: How much does it cost to win new business? Knowing this will help you correlate marketing expenses with wins from your sales team, while also understanding the cost of continuing to play your business game.

Historical Sales Data: When does your business sell the most, and the least? What is in the highest demand? Be prepared with cash reserves, new products, the right amount of inventory and the right marketing campaign for each season.

Conversion Rates: How many people turn into paying customers? Knowing this will help you see where your processes need improvement and what is working well to win new business.

Lifetime Customer Value: What is the dollar value of a new customer relationship? Knowing this can help you maintain and increase the value of your existing client pool, while also orienting value around your most valuable connections.

Campaign ROI: How much revenue did your last marketing campaign actually bring in? How does it compare with the one before it? Why? Understanding this will help you invest in the proper channels next time.

The good news is that technology to help measure business outcomes like these is more accessible than ever; our team at Via are proficient in identifying tools to help any business measure what matters most. We are specialists in identifying signals related to the bottom line and optimising systems to capture and interpret information while filtering and attuning your systems to capture the best quality data. The best part is that we can help you feel confident to operate your business through education and detailed onboarding for every tool we recommend.

Once you've identified what to measure, the next question becomes: how do you efficiently process all this data? Another major force at work in 2025 is the explosion of AI into our business context. Many find themselves weighing whether to utilise it or not, and whether AI can be trusted with tasks crucial to business success. At Via, we view AI as an enabler, not the ultimate decision-maker. Technology is at its best when it empowers humans to do great things. Recent research has shown that leveraging AI in the data interpretation process has led to increased accuracy and substantial efficiency gains, resulting in higher revenue. The critical thing to remember is that AI is not a replacement for intuition, but instead raises signals and identifies patterns to aid in decision-making.

We've created a free resource to help you get started utilising AI to build foresight for your business. This quick and easy tool will help you identify the signals you need to make better predictive decisions and outline steps to leverage AI tools to bring your various data sources together into a single, time-efficient experience.

To get your business foresight where it should be, access our AI Dashboard Resource or get in touch.