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IBF Strikes Gold in San Francisco

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By Topics | Advanced Analytics

Was it the economy? the timing? the location? or the brilliant and good looking Forum panel? That will be for history (or you) to decide. What we do know is that is that the Institute of Business Forecasting’s Best Practices Conference in San Francisco, April 28-30, drew a large and lively audience, with particularly good representation from bay area companies.

Lora Cecere of Altimeter Group, fresh in from Milan, was there making the rounds. Maria Simos of e-forecasting.com covered the event and posted daily details on the IBF blog.

I particularly enjoyed presentations from two long-time forecasting brethren, Jonathon Karelse of Yokohama Tire (Canada), and Kalyan Sengupta of Chevron. Kalyan spoke of forecasting in the context of risk assessment and mitigation – a context too often ignored in traditional business forecasting. Jonathon warned against blind pursuit of the perfect forecast, arguing that the cost of inaccuracy must be weighed against the cost of forecasting improvement. (Jonathon also summarized his material on the IBF Blog.)

After a year or so in hiding, are the conference crowds coming back?

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About Author

Mike Gilliland

Product Marketing Manager

Michael Gilliland is a longtime business forecasting practitioner and formerly a Product Marketing Manager for SAS Forecasting. He is on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Forecasters, and is Associate Editor of their practitioner journal Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting. Mike is author of The Business Forecasting Deal (Wiley, 2010) and former editor of the free e-book Forecasting with SAS: Special Collection (SAS Press, 2020). He is principal editor of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions (Wiley, 2015) and Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Wiley, 2021). In 2017 Mike received the Institute of Business Forecasting's Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021 his paper "FVA: A Reality Check on Forecasting Practices" was inducted into the Foresight Hall of Fame. Mike initiated The Business Forecasting Deal blog in 2009 to help expose the seamy underbelly of forecasting practice, and to provide practical solutions to its most vexing problems.

2 Comments

  1. Constance Korol, Senior Marketing Manager IBF on

    Mike it was a pleasure having you once again host a successful Pre-Conference Forum. As you can imagine, we were very excited to have such an excellent turnout for our 29th Best Practices event. We continue to see the momentum and are looking forward to seeing more and more Demand Planners, Supply Chain folks and forecasters at upcoming events.
    Constance Korol

  2. Kristine Vick, Marketer at SAS on

    Mike - so glad it was a good event for SAS & IBF. We are continuously looking to find the best live & online venues to marry up the seekers of information with those that provide it. From you feedback, along with Meredith's, it sure seems that this was a solid event. I enjoyed following Maria Simos, Constance Korol and others comments on Twitter also, felt like we were there too! Glad it was a success for everyone!

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