As the volume of data that organizations produce grows exponentially, more companies are looking for ways to apply predictive and prescriptive analytics to help them uncover insights that would otherwise be locked within vast amounts of transactional and internal data.
Corporate forecasting is shifting its emphasis from relying primarily on past data to influence future plans toward applying advanced analytics to help improve business and financial performance by understanding their data, customers, markets and organization more completely.
To achieve these goals, a growing number of companies are working to enhance their forecasting by combining a variety of predictive and prescriptive analytics tools that can provide deeper insights into emerging business trends, identify root causes of factors that influence organizational performance, respond to market competition, and help companies identify and manage risk more effectively.
To better understand how companies are deploying analytics tools, the Financial Executive Research Foundation (FERF) has released a study, sponsored by IBM, “Forecasting as a Competitive Advantage: Optimizing Business Planning With Advanced Analytics.”
Analytics Benefits
By generating stronger insights from a greater volume and variety of data, analytics tools can help organizations replace gut instinct with data-driven strategies. For example, developing insights into how markets are likely to evolve can provide a competitive advantage by improving a company’s ability to enhance its product offerings and to target customers more effectively.
More effective forecasting and a deeper understanding of how markets are likely to evolve can provide competitive advantage by improving a company’s agility and its ability to enhance products, target customers more effectively, or gain other operational insights.
Beyond finance, opportunities arise to analyze human resources (HR), operations, and other areas quickly to answer questions, reduce risk or enhance organizational performance.