Why Businesses Need to Look Beyond Historical Data When Doing Forecasts
When it comes to growing and maintaining a healthy and successful business, leaders understand that it is vital to have a well-crafted prediction of their company’s financial future. This involves many factors, but one of the most important to focus on is the historical data that you may possess. The following list entails some of the most important things to keep in mind about not only the importance of historical data but how to use it properly as well.
The Value of Historical Data
Ask any successful business leader — what do they do before the end of their current quarter? More likely than not, they will reply by saying that they will be preparing their future forecast by utilizing their past data. This is because the value of historical business data is so important in determining your potential success. Historical data has been a commonly used tactic by business owners because of its almost exact prediction of your business variables. These would include an estimate on your factory overhead costs, client acquirement, and loss, etc. Historical data does have its limitations. One of the most obvious ones includes considering the current business position, such as additional locations or work-in-progress projects.
Source: http://blog.chartbeat.com/2017/09/12/the-historical-habit-when-and-how-to-use-your-historical-data/
Taking Current Events Into Account
Earlier the limitation of historical data was brought up. Although it provides plenty of good information, it does not consider any current events. Current environmental factors can have a significant impact on performance, so it’s wise to take those into account when forecasting for a business. On-going international business relationships such as finding new overseas factories to produce your product can greatly change the numbers on your business forecast. Implementing historical data into the equation when current events are drastically different or soon to change must be avoided or at least omitted from most of the forecast.
Source: https://www.visibleequity.com/blog/qualitative-and-environmental-qe-factors-in-cecl
The Value of Big Data
There’s a reason why businesses have, for many years, used historical data to predict their financial growth or loss, and that’s because it was a great predictor. However, we’ve now come to understand that although it does provide business leaders with good information about potential events, it is not the most accurate. Big data include information gathered from your current email subscribers, clients, and marketing team. Both new and experienced business leaders are catching up to this trend because it is a great predictor of a company’s future. It gathers both older and present information to be used for a more accurate approach to business.
Source: https://halobi.com/blog/descriptive-predictive-and-prescriptive-analytics-explained/
Historical data still has its place in business, but it must not be the only medium to look at if you’re hoping to develop a well-crafted forecast for your company. Simply adhere to the list of recommendations above to begin truly looking beyond the traditional historical data.
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