Sam, the Business Operations Analyst, was asked by the CFO to establish a better demand forecasting process which also serves as the base planning for the next year’s budget. He previously used Excel and a BI tool for the demand forecasting, but it was difficult to create an accurate forecast and have it continuously updated during the year. The result was a rather static one-time planning with an inefficient review process of the forecast figures in the sales regions. The Excel files sent out to the Sales People had to be collected after the review and assembled to an overall demand forecast which was then the input for the revenue budget process. The whole process was so slow that it was no option to repeat it over time and get an updated demand forecast.
With the App4Forecast he has now a tool that allowed him to establish a seamless and continuous forecasting process. The budget can be directly created whenever the forecast adjustments for the next year are finalised.