Flying Blind Into Earnings? Rolling Forecasts Provide CFOs With Contagious Confidence

Who doesn't love Q2 earnings? Enough data on this year's performance to have a feel for trajectory and enough time to course correct....if you have the right instruments to empower action. Yes, this means ditching Excel for a cloud-based system that integrates operational drivers and financial performance data to analyze both leading and lagging indicators. This also means the Sales/Deal, Accounting, FP&A, and Investor Relations teams all have access to (and agree upon....) the same data, updated as close to real-time as possible.

That "agree upon" bit relative to forecast data and methodology provokes a philosophical discussion about behavior and incentive. The traditional process of a 12 month forecast updated quarterly is one that promotes validation of targets rather than seeking truth in projections. Alternatively, a rolling forecast, in which the time horizon gets pushed out by the same number of weeks or months as the update, promotes and incentivizes