Better forecasting can, of course, help address many business problems. We want to believe that more accurate forecasts are always possible. “If only,” management bemoans, “if only we had bigger computers, more sophisticated software, more skilled forecast analysts – or if the analysts we have just worked harder!” Unfortunately, there

Just as we all eagerly awaited announcement of the $1 million prize winner of the Pillsbury Bake-Off(R), every forecasting software vendor has endured the "bake-off" hosted by organizations in the market for new forecasting software. Software selection teams utilize a bake-off to help evaluate competing vendors. Vendors are given a

The F2010 Business Forecasting Conference wrapped up on June 8. Chaired by Tim Rey of Dow Chemical and Jerry Oglesby of SAS, this was another strong event, bringing together 248 forecasters from business, government, and academics, representing 27 states and 11 countries. It was also an opportunity for all to

I am pleased to announce publication of The Business Forecasting Deal: Exposing Myths, Eliminating Bad Practices, Providing Practical Solutions, available now in a convenient carry-everywhere size (approx 6” x 9” x 1”), or for download to your Kindle. Table of contents, sample sections (including the Prologue, Forewords by Tom Wallace

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

My friend Tom Reilly of Automatic Forecasting Systems posted this comment on the INFORMS discussion group on LinkedIn: Some use all of the data and some withhold data to find the best forecasting model? Withholding is arbitrary as changing the withhold from x to y means a completely different model

The Spring 2010 issue of Foresight is now available. Here is Editor Len Tashman’s preview: What’s the connection between hindsight and foresight? That is the question Paul Goodwin asks in his Hot New Research column leading off this issue. The problem is that hindsight bias – the tendency to believe

Although you probably didn’t notice, I stepped away from this blog for the last two months to think about something more important: The current state of business forecasting. I’d come to realize there is a lot of animosity in the world of forecasting. We have advocates of statistics, and advocates

In case you missed the business news last week, SAS (the company that pays me to write this blog, and the leader in business analytics) was named #1 on the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For 2010 list. Having been a user (and huge fan) of SAS software since

Today my colleague Alison Bolen, Editor of sascom magazine, sent me this link to an interesting piece on NPR: "Can Economic Forecasting Predict The Future?" In a somewhat lighthearted take on the inability of our economists to predict the future -- or even precisely report the past for that matter

Although I would like to flatter myself and believe that my readers rely solely on The BFD for all their business forecasting news and information, I realize this is not the case. While other sources may not be as honest, useful, or delightfully entertaining to young and old alike, they

Constance Korol oversees the Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning group on LinkedIn. (No, she isn’t the meaner one I will be referring to, but she can swing a nasty rolling pin if you get out of line.) This week Constance posted a Wall Street Journal article “Follow the Tweets,”

I’m going to put “An Operational Definition of ‘Demand’ – Part 3” on hold for a moment, to announce a new favorite article on forecasting, “Living in a world of low levels of predictability,” by Spyros Makridakis and Nassim Taleb (International Journal of Forecasting 25 (2009) 840-844. IJF is a

In the last post I argued that we don’t have a sure way to measure true (i.e. “unconstrained”) demand. While demand is commonly defined as “what the customer wants, and when they want it,” it is actually a nebulous concept. For a manufacturer, what a customer orders is not the

Sorry about not getting a post out last week, but I spent a good part of it cowering under my desk in fear. The SAS Security office issued a warning that there were wild coyotes roaming the campus, and I was having post-traumatic flashbacks to a painful encounter I once

Last week I was a guest of Gaurav Verma on the SAS Applying Business Analytics Web Series, and presented “What Management Must Know About Forecasting.” One of the most important things you can bring to management’s attention is the benefit of making your demand forecastable. In forecasting we tend to

There are some things about forecasting that you may only discover by being a forecaster. Simply managing a forecasting process, or being a downstream consumer of the forecast, isn't always enough. If you have something to say to your management about forecasting, but would rather avoid the confrontation, maybe we