RodeoCPG’s Post

Does incorporating sales team input into your forecast feel like a game of telephone? Sales forecasting often fails not because of bad intent, but because of process design and technological limitations, which lead to a lack of a trust and a host of negative outcomes. Through a series of conversations as we build SnoBase, I've been looking at wholesale sales forecasting practices across a range of consumer brands. In a couple of cases, companies had abandoned forecasting with sales inputs entirely due to the unreliability of the information! But the big takeaway from $300k to $300mn is that sales projection communications degrade as they move through organizations. The process resembles the game of telephone, but with higher stakes and far less visibility (see diagram, and link to expanded piece in the comments). If you’re working on demand forecasting, S&OP integration, or building scalable systems, this may be a useful lens. And I'd love to chat with you next!