Strategic Business Forecasting A Structured Approach To Shaping The Future Of Your Business

“A helpful read not just for corporate strategists but for almost anyone looking ahead.” Los Angeles Times What's Your Next Big Move? At the turn of the century, Western Union passed on the chance to dominate the telephone industry. Later, General Electric concluded that a new invention called television was doomed to fail. And very recently, decision makers at the highest level were taken off-guard when the global economy dropped from under their feet--and took their companies with it. Today, only those business leaders with the power of long-term foresight will seize and hold true competitive advantage. But can managers really predict the future? Yes, to a greater extent than one might expect. Strategic Business Forecasting shows how to identify and quantify possible events that may affect your business. Applying creativity, personal experience, and the lessons of history, you can use such forecasting to develop plans that will help your organization compete. Drs. Simon Ramo and Ronald Sugar, two giants of the aerospace industry, share their Four-Measures Rating system to help you explore the world of possibilities--thoroughly and systematically. Under their tutelage, you will be equipped to: Create a comprehensive list of possible scenarios concerning your business Utilize a scoring system to rate each scenario's merit as a serious and useful prediction Develop an effective plan that strategically shapes the future of your organization The authors provide vivid illustrations of the Four-Measures system at work with real-world examples of both forecasting failures and successes. No one can predict perfectly, and the authors don't promise magic. With the approach described in Strategic Business Forecasting, however, you can ensure your organization is better poised to seize future opportunities, avoid pitfalls, and handle anything the increasingly volatile global economy throws your way.

“A helpful read not just for corporate strategists but for almost anyone looking ahead.” Los Angeles Times What's Your Next Big Move? At the turn of the century, Western Union passed on the chance to dominate the telephone industry. Later, General Electric concluded that a new invention called television was doomed to fail. And very recently, decision makers at the highest level were taken off-guard when the global economy dropped from under their feet--and took their companies with it. Today, only those business leaders with the power of long-term foresight will seize and hold true competitive advantage. But can managers really predict the future? Yes, to a greater extent than one might expect. Strategic Business Forecasting shows how to identify and quantify possible events that may affect your business. Applying creativity, personal experience, and the lessons of history, you can use such forecasting to develop plans that will help your organization compete. Drs. Simon Ramo and Ronald Sugar, two giants of the aerospace industry, share their Four-Measures Rating system to help you explore the world of possibilities--thoroughly and systematically. Under their tutelage, you will be equipped to: Create a comprehensive list of possible scenarios concerning your business Utilize a scoring system to rate each scenario's merit as a serious and useful prediction Develop an effective plan that strategically shapes the future of your organization The authors provide vivid illustrations of the Four-Measures system at work with real-world examples of both forecasting failures and successes. No one can predict perfectly, and the authors don't promise magic. With the approach described in Strategic Business Forecasting, however, you can ensure your organization is better poised to seize future opportunities, avoid pitfalls, and handle anything the increasingly volatile global economy throws your way.

The recent crisis in the financial markets has exposed serious flaws in management methods. The failure to anticipate and deal with the consequences of the unfolding collapse has starkly illustrated what many leaders and managers in business have known for years; in most organizations, the process of forecasting is badly broken. For that reason, forecasting business performance tops the list of concerns for CFO's across the globe. It is time to rethink the way businesses organize and run forecasting processes and how they use the insights that they provide to navigate through these turbulent times. This book synthesizes and structures findings from a range of disciplines and over 60 years of the authors combined practical experience. This is presented in the form of a set of simple strategies that any organization can use to master the process of forecasting. The key message of this book is that while no mortal can predict the future, you can take the steps to be ready for it. ’Good enough’ forecasts, wise preparation and the capability to take timely action, will help your organization to create its own future. Written in an engaging and thought provoking style, Future Ready leads the reader to answers to questions such as: What makes a good forecast? What period should a forecast cover? How frequently should it be updated? What information should it contain? What is the best way to produce a forecast? How can you avoid gaming and other forms of data manipulation? How should a forecast be used? How do you ensure that your forecast is reliable? How accurate does it need to be? How should you deal with risk and uncertainty What is the best way to organize a forecast process? Do you need multiple forecasts? What changes should be made to other performance management processes to facilitate good forecasting? Future Ready is an invaluable guide for practicing managers and a source of insight and inspiration to leaders looking for better ways of doing things and to students of the science and craft of management. Praise for Future Ready "Will make a difference to the way you think about forecasting going forward" —Howard Green, Group Controller Unilever PLC "Great analogies and stories are combined with rock solid theory in a language that even the most reading-averse manager will love from page one" —Bjarte Bogsnes, Vice President Performance Management Development at StatoilHydro "A timely addition to the growing research on management planning and performance measurement." —Dr. Charles T. Horngren, Edmund G. Littlefield Professor of Accounting Emeritus Stanford University and author of many standard texts including Cost Accounting: A Managerial Emphasis, Introduction to Management Accounting, and Financial Accounting "In the area of Forecasting, it is the best book in the market." —Fritz Roemer. Leader of Enterprise Performance Executive Advisory Program, the Hackett Group

A book on practical business forecasting belongs in the library of everyone interested in business. Forecasting is extremely important to finance and accounting executives, business economists and managers at all levels. Strategic Business Forecasting: The Complete Guide to Forecasting Real World Company Performance provides you with a working knowledge of the fundamentals of business forecasting that can be applied in the real world regardless of the size of the firm. The author explains the basic forecasting methodology and the practical applications. All aspects of business are discussed, making this a comprehensive and valuable reference. The author avoids theoretical and mathematical discussions to gets right into how, when , and why to use this book. Many practical examples, applications, illustrations, guidelines, measures, checklists, rules of thumb, tips, graphs, diagrams and tables aid your comprehension of the subject. The author displays and explains printouts obtained using many popular spreadsheet programs and software packages. The book goes far beyond just sales forecasting, encompassing a wide range of topics of major importance to practical business managers and finance professionals, including cash flow forecasting, cost prediction, earnings forecasts, bankruptcy prediction, foreign exchange forecasting, and interest rate forecasting. Written in an easy-to-read style, it is practical, current, and intriguing - a reference book to use throughout your business career.

An updated new edition of the comprehensive guide to better business forecasting Many companies still look at quantitative forecasting methods with suspicion, but a new awareness is emerging across many industries as more businesses and professionals recognize the value of integrating demand data (point-of-sale and syndicated scanner data) into the forecasting process. Demand-Driven Forecasting equips you with solutions that can sense, shape, and predict future demand using highly sophisticated methods and tools. From a review of the most basic forecasting methods to the most advanced and innovative techniques in use today, this guide explains demand-driven forecasting, offering a fundamental understanding of the quantitative methods used to sense, shape, and predict future demand within a structured process. Offering a complete overview of the latest business forecasting concepts and applications, this revised Second Edition of Demand-Driven Forecasting is the perfect guide for professionals who need to improve the accuracy of their sales forecasts. Completely updated to include the very latest concepts and methods in forecasting Includes real case studies and examples, actual data, and graphical displays and tables to illustrate how effective implementation works Ideal for CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, vice presidents of supply chain, vice presidents of demand forecasting and planning, directors of demand forecasting and planning, supply chain managers, demand planning managers, marketing analysts, forecasting analysts, financial managers, and any other professional who produces or contributes to forecasts Accurate forecasting is vital to success in today's challenging business climate. Demand-Driven Forecasting offers proven and effective insight on making sure your forecasts are right on the money.

A guide to forecasting and strategic planning for organizations

Based on four decades of experience and research, Navigating Strategic Decisions: The Power of Sound Analysis and Forecasting explains how to improve the decision-making process in your organization through the use of better long-term forecasts and decision support. Filled with time-tested methodologies and models, it provides you with the tools to establish the organization, processes, methods, and techniques required for analyzing and forecasting strategic decisions. Describing how to foster the conditions required for forecasts to materialize, this book will help you rank project valuations and select higher value creation projects. It also teaches you how to: Assess the commercial feasibility of large projects Apply sanity checks to forecasts and assess their resource implications Benchmark best-in-class strategic forecasting organizations, processes, and practices Identify project risks and manage project uncertainty Analyze forecasting models and scenarios to determine controllable levers Pinpoint factors needed to ensure that forecasted future states materialize as expected This book provides you with the benefit of the author’s decades of hands-on experience. In this book, John Triantis shares valuable insights on strategic planning, new product development, portfolio management, and business development groups. Describing how to provide world-class support to your corporate, market, and other planning functions, the book provides you with the tools to consistently make improved decisions that are based on hard data, balanced evaluations, well considered scenarios, and sound forecasts.

This second edition of Principles of Business Forecasting by Keith Ord, Robert Fildes, and newest author Nikolaos Kourentzes serves as both a textbook for students and as a reference book for experienced forecasters in a variety of fields. The authors' motivation for writing this book, is to give users the tools and insight to make the most effective forecasts drawing on the latest research ideas, without being overly technical. The book is unique in its design, providing an introduction to both standard and advanced forecasting methods, as well as a focus on general principles to guide and simplify forecasting practice for those with little or no professional experience. One of the book's key strengths is the emphasis on real data sets, which have been updated in this second edition. These data sets are taken from government and business sources and are used throughout in the chapter examples and exercises. Forecasting techniques are demonstrated using a variety of software platforms beyond just "R," and a companion website provides easy-to-use Excel(R) macros that users can access to conduct analyses. Another important innovation in the second edition is the tutorial support for using open-source R programs, making all the methods available for use both in courses and practice. After the introductory chapters, the focus shifts to using extrapolative methods (exponential smoothing and ARIMA), then to statistical model-building using multiple regression. The authors also cover more novel techniques including data mining and judgmental methods, which are gaining increasing attention in applications. The second edition also offers expanded material on data analytics, in particular neural nets together with software, and applications that include new research findings relevant and immediately applicable to operations, such as hierarchical modeling and temporal aggregation. Finally, the authors examine organizational issues of implementation and the development of a forecasting support system within an organization; relevant to every manager, or future manager, who must make plans or decisions based on forecasts. Please take a moment to review the companion website for additional content in the Appendices (Basic Statistical Concepts, overview of Forecasting Software, and Forecasting in R: Tutorial and Examples) the many data sets referenced in the chapters, macros such as the Exponential Smoothing and Trend Curve Marcos and Time Series Neural Network Analysis and student study materials.