Tag: sales forecasting

  • Improve your forecasts – 6 things we can learn from weather forecasters

    Back in April, I posted an interview with a master forecaster: Franz the Frog. Interestingly enough, this post is one of the most popular entries on this blog. But all jokes and irony aside: Weather forecasters are indeed world champions in forecasting and there are some lessons that we as finance professionals can learn from…

  • The ultimate rolling forecast workshop

    Forecasting is a critical topic for many companies these days. No big surprise: the volatility and the speed in the world requires organizations to stay agile. About four years ago, my team and I started working with several customers and thought-leaders (David Axson, Steve Morlidge) to collect best practices for forecasting in these turbulent times.…

  • A discussion about forecast errors

    Forecasting continues to be a hot topic. My recent interviews with Steve Morlidge continues to be very popular. Also, ‘Franz the Frog’ sparked some interesting discussions behind the scenes. Given the strong interest in these topics, I reached out to a friend who has spent a lot of time and effort driving solid forecasting processes.…

  • Future Ready? A discussion with Steve Morlidge

    Steve Morlidge, Future Ready The IBM Finance Forum 2011 events have officially started in Europe. These events are designed for Finance professionals seeking to deliver stronger business insight to their organizations. Apart from being a great networking opportunity, we focus on sharing a lot of best-practice knowledge. Customers share their stories. And IBM also bring…

  • 3 ways to analyze and communicate Forecast Accuracy

    Analyzing Forecast Accuracy What’s the best kept secret in your company? Well, hopefully not your forecast accuracy numbers? Forecast accuracy should not be a calculation that happens behind closed doors. But the numbers should be communicated and analyzed to be really useful. Here are three ways you can communicate and analyze your numbers: The table…

  • 4 additional things to know about Forecast Accuracy

    How is your forecast accuracy measurement project going? I hope the last post convinced you to start measuring this. But there are still some open questions. Let’s take a look at some critical items that you should consider. TIME SPAN One of the things people often get confused about is the type of forecast accuracy…

  • Three things every controller should know about forecast accuracy

    Forecast Accuracy Forecast accuracy is one of those strange things: most people agree that it should be measured, yet hardly anybody does it. And the crazy thing is that it is not all that hard. If you utilize a planning tool like IBM Cognos TM1, Cognos Planning or any other package, the calculations are merely…

  • Poor forecast accuracy

    Over the last few weeks three separate clients have expressed their frustration with inaccurate forecasts delivered by certain members of the salesforce. Nothing new here. It happens all the time. However, what struck me about these three independent cases was the nature of the issues: The salesforce consistently forecast higher than actuals. This is not…

  • The case for forecast accuracy

    People always say that you get what you measure. And it is true. When I want to loose weight and I am serious about it, I do have to step on the scale frequently. The same thing is true for business. What gets measured gets done. FORECAST ACCURACY Forecasting has become a critical business process.…