How does a firm generate the reliable, customized economic forecasts it needs to successfully navigate through uncertainty? Dismayed by the inaccuracy of many forecasts, boards have charged their senior managers in strategic planning, finance, marketing and sales to provide more comprehensive and relevant quarterly – even monthly – forecasts and projections. Yet these managers, rarely trained in economics, struggle to understand which data sources they should use, which business indicators are truly “leading,” how to interpret the relevance of their findings for their particular business, and how to present this information in an understandable manner to their senior management and boards. In addition, how can companies introduce and maintain a company-wide structure that ensures the consistent application of appropriate processes and comparable results across the organization?

Audience: This Knowledge Series is aimed at executives in multiple functions who are interested in understanding the economic drivers of their business and applying available internal and external data to the preparation of clear and useful forecasts. These include operational managers and those in finance, planning, marketing and sales.

Series Host

Kathy Bostjancic Director for Macroeconomic Analysis The Conference Board Kathy Bostjancic is director for macroeconomic analysis at The Conference Board. A specialist in the U.S. economy and financial markets, she is a member of the team that produces the U.S. economic forecast and global outlook for The Conference Boa... Full Bio

Applying Economic Forecasting to Strategy Building (Part 1)

PART ONE: Creating Forecasts that Add Up AND Amount to Something

18 May, 2010 | ()

There are many ways of approaching the preparation of business forecasts. All companies base their strategies and plans on some form of expectation about the future economic and business environment. Forecasts can be based on elaborate econometric models or simple assumptions about year-to-year growth.  Different parts of the organization can work from different sets of data and different assumptions.  Initial forecasts can suffer rounds of nudging and revision as they work their way upward in the organization, creating forecasts that are internally consistent but no longer connected to viable assumptions.  This session will show types of macroeconomic and industry data that can be useful in business forecasting, how to use coincident and leading indicators for your sector, and data analysis practices and available software that can help develop better quality forecasts and plans.

Speakers

Jennelyn Tanchua Jennelyn Tanchua produces The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® for the United States and Mexico. As a member of the Global Indicator program, she conducts business cycle research and analysis. She also serves... Full Bio

Applying Economic Forecasting to Strategy Building (Part 2)

PART TWO: Applying the Indicator Methodology to Business Forecasting

20 May, 2010 | ()

This session gives specific and practical techniques for identifying relevant and reliable indicators for industries and determining if they are coincident or leading. The head of The Conference Board’s highly respected indicators programs gives insight on how to deal with data series that do not exhibit the typical boom-bust in the level of activity, but rather continue to increase on an upward secular trend. Many times these data series need to be viewed by distilling their growth cycles and identify slowdowns and acceleration in growth, similar to the overall Chinese GDP series as an example. How can your company use these methodologies to build a robust analytic framework that reliably supports strategic decision making throughout the company? How should companies analyze and evaluate their own internal data sets and how should they build consistent data sets over time?

Speakers

Ataman Ozyildirim Director, Business Cycle Growth and Growth Research The Conference Board Ataman Ozyildirim is an economist and director of business cycles and growth research at The Conference Board. He joined The Conference Board in 1999 as part of the Global Business Cycle Indicators Program that produces The Conference ... Full Bio

Applying Economic Forecasting to Strategy Building (Part 3)

PART THREE: Building a Company-Wide Forecasting Process: A Case Study

25 May, 2010 | ()

How does a company typically feel its way through this process to eventually build a reliable, company-wide platform for analyzing and using economic and business data for decision making? Learn how one company is building and maintaining a planning structure that constructs consistent data sets, monitors the accuracy and usefulness of forecasts over time, and communicates the results in clear language to the board and throughout the organization.