XL-Lead Consulting recently worked with a national company to develop and implement a forecasting process for its Corporate IT department.

The Corporate IT Department was looking to standardize and optimize its forecasting process to improve rigor and increase the accuracy of monthly forecasts to senior leadership. In addition, they wanted to make forecasting a more bottom-up (as opposed to top-down) activity by involving the managers responsible and providing them some ownership over the process.

“We were able to develop a shared tool for forecast input, train managers on the importance of forecasting, and show them how to gather data and precisely develop forecasts,” says senior consultant Sateen Sheth. “The process has been running smoothly for several months and has improved the ability of management to foresee and partake in more in-depth conversations with leadership about changes to plan.”

“We will continue to evolve the process to meet the organization’s needs,” continues Sheth. “In the future, we hope to integrate forecasting into the organization’s ERP system to allow for additional analysis and comparison.”