Forecast Accuracy? That Was Easy... Not

While providing guidance to Wall Street has always been the domain and dance of the CFO, this year has been quite the challenge. The market volatility alone has been creating forecast accuracy havoc. Some companies have been implementing sophisticated AI-aided tools to improve forecast accuracy with unclear results. What makes things more interesting is the tone on earnings for '22 was dampened earlier by the Russian invasion, supply chain disruptions, and the COVID-19 Pandemic / Endemic barrage that remains prevalent. Most CFOs continue to be conservative in forecasting, albeit accuracy is challenging given the systemic shocks to customers, supply chains, and labor. We continue to focus on the macro-environmental impacts on forecast models while digging into the micro impacts. The trusted excel model is still quite handy... More to follow.