Are you missing the “A” in your FP&A (financial planning and analysis)? Maybe missing some of the “P” as well? Are you and your department getting a bit tired of the “FR” gig you seem to have landed? I just got back from chairing last week’s IE Group Financial Innovation
SAS/Foresight Webinar Series The next installment of the quarterly SAS/Foresight webinar series is next Thursday, September 19, at 1:00pm EDT. Demand and Supply Integration: Achieving S&OP's Strategic Promise Join Dr. Mark Moon, Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at the University of Tennessee, to discover the benefits of integrating demand
If you need an excuse to get out of the office and perhaps learn a thing or two this fall, here are three upcoming events: Foresight Practitioner Conference: S&OP and Collaborative Forecasting (Columbus, OH, September 25-26) From the campus of Ohio State University, Foresight's editor Len Tashman and S&OP column
If you are looking to find a job in business forecasting, or trying to fill one, there are many online resources available: Professional Organizations Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning - Very active searchable list of currently available jobs in forecasting and planning, from entry level to executive. Employers post
Q: Company always try to forecast 12 or 24m ahead. Whether we should track accuracy of 1m/3m/ 6m or x month forecast, does that depend on lead time? How to determine out of these 12/24 months, which month should we track accuracy? Correct, forecast performance is usually evaluated against the
"Big data" is a big deal for electric utilities. In a smart power grid, when you turn on the lights, you're generating data. When your neighbor plugs in his electric vehicle, he's generating data. When a heat wave causes retailers to crank up the air conditioning, they're generating data. All
Do we ever really get pricing right? Sometimes we do, and some of those times are actually on purpose, but it takes a lot of upstream activities to go right in order for pricing to be optimal as well. Too often pricing is that last variable at our disposal when
A good chunk of the SAS year revolves around SAS Global Forum. Pre-conference, everyone is busy polishing presentations and planning meetings. Post-conference is the best—attendees come back to Cary with heads full of customer ideas to implement and notebooks full of contacts to follow up on. One user's request found its
A few weeks ago I found myself in a room full of fellow transportation geeks (a term I use with great respect) at the annual American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials (AASHTO) Washington Briefing. One panel in particular really got the room buzzing with talk about the transportation
The one-number forecasting concept has been debated for years. Advocates argue that having different groups within the same organization working to different forecasts is insane. You can't have the supply chain building to X, the sales force selling to Y, and the financial folks counting on revenue of Z. This
There is a well recognized phenomenon that combining forecasts, derived from different methods using different sources of information, can improve forecast accuracy. This approach, sometimes called "ensemble forecasting," is available in SAS Forecast Server. Per Scott Armstrong's review of 57 studies on combining forecasts, "the combined forecast can be better
The Institute of Business Forecasting has named Larry Lapide, Research Affiliate at MIT, as recipient of its "Lifetime Achievement in Business Forecasting & Planning" award -- a much deserved honor! Larry has written a quarterly column for Journal of Business Forecasting for 15 years, and I've been a longtime follower.
What's the difference between data mining, forecasting and optimization? When should you use each technique, and how do they interact? Jeremy TerBush, Vice President of Global Analytics, Wyndham Exchange and Rentals explains that he uses all techniques together in an overall predictive process. "Data mining is first step in the system,"
This is a dramatic interpretation of an actual conversation I recently had with the CIO of one of North Carolina’s leading cities. We discussed his experience using data quality, data integration, business intelligence and analytics in the daily operation of the city. I may have taken some...well, a lot of
Michael Mandelbaum posed the question in the title of this post to a capacity crowd at last week's SAS Government Leadership Summit. Author of That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, Mandelbaum gave the opening keynote address. Mandelbaum posited
My Brush With Glory The 2012 Summer [quadrennial international sporting event that isn't the World Cup] in London is just around the corner, and it's sure to be an exciting time for all. I had the good fortune to be living in the great state of Utah during the 2002 Winter [quadrennial international sporting event that
First: A Report from the 67th Pine Tree Festival and Southeast Timber Expo Back in March The BFD investigated the topic of Google-ing yourself (aka egosurfing). I reported on finding a namesake in show business, a self-described "Magic Mike Gilliland" and his sidekick Lollipop the Clown. I attempted to disparage
Unfortunately, my clone attempt didn't work like Chris Hemedinger's did. With all my papers, presentations, and demo hall duties, I realized yesterday that I certainly missed a lot. Included is my to-do list for items to watch and catch up on this weekend. Not really sure how I missed the
A standing room only crowd gathered at the NRF BIG Show on Monday afternoon in New York to hear Winn-Dixie VP Chris Vukich share how this $7 billion regional grocer has achieved a successful pricing strategy that allows them to: See the impact of each price change. Create what-if scenarios. Model
What brings more than 20,000 retailers to NYC in mid-January? I can promise you, it’s not the balmy 15 degree temperatures -- it’s the 101st NRF BIG SHOW, where SAS is a platinum sponsor. This is my first year attending this event – and it’s a bit overwhelming, so here’s a
Local governments are not immune to the rising demand for more accountability in government run services and programs, and the expenditure of public funds. Elected officials and citizens alike want to know what these programs accomplish for the public investment made. To date, the response to these questions and demands has been
Managing expectations for forecast accuracy is very important, as often those expectations are extreme after management invests in a new system. Software vendors have also been known to make overly (choose one: optimistic? sanguine? idyllic?) accuracy claims as part of their sales pitch. Of course, there is no arbitrary level of accuracy
My Google Alert on "forecastability" paid off with a gem this weekend, in the blog post "Forecastability and Over Fitting" by Shaun Snapp on SCM Focus. I was not previously familiar with Shaun or this site, but found a lot to like -- in content and attitude. In his post, Shaun kindly
After enduring 18 months in a punishing economy, grocers have emerged in better shape than most retail segments according to the Fifth Annual Supermarket Benchmark Study from RIS News and IDC Retail Insights. Still, there are no expectations of returning to business as usual, and technology is a key linchpin
This week brought big news of one of the most cruel and heartless tyrants of the 21st century. This man is known for narcissistic behavior, surrounding himself with a cadre of beautiful women, sleeping in a different place every night, picking new favorites each week, and bringing tears and untold suffering
The highway system traversing the United States quietly hit a milestone last month with the 55th anniversary of the Federal Aid Highway Act. In 1956 President Eisenhower had a vision for our nation’s infrastructure; he knew that building an interstate highway system was vital, and expressed that “Together, the united
Tuesday's release of SAS 9.3 included the new SAS Forecast Server 4.1, which has several valuable enhancements: Combination (Ensemble) Models: A combination of forecasts using different forecasting techniques can outperform forecasts produced by using any single technique. Users can combine forecasts produced by many different models using several different combination
The SIFMA Financial Services Technology Leaders Forum and Expo came to Midtown New York City in mid-June to more fanfare than in the past few years with speakers including Jim Cramer, Art Cashin, Gillian Tett, senior executives from capital markets firms including NYSE Euronext and DTCC, and regulators from the
As organizations confront the limits of forecasting, they finally realize the folly in a blind pursuit of unachievable levels of forecast accuracy. The best accuracy we can ever hope to achieve is limited by the nature -- the forecastability -- of what we are trying to forecast. Anything better than
Have you ever wanted to look like George Clooney and get all the money, fame, and dates? I have long aspired to this. But in the great poker hand of life, I wasn't dealt an inside straight or even a nice pair. So I make do with what I've got.
