Business forecasting is becoming more and more important for companies. Underestimation can lead to penalizing cuts in staff, a reduction or even a halt in investments, etc… Overestimation can lead to results plunging into the red very quickly.
As a result, sales forces are increasingly solicited to redo forecasts without them necessarily being more accurate than the previous time: customers do not know anything about it. They themselves spend their time redoing the forecasts.
This activity does not bring any added value: a sales representative who harasses his customer to obtain information that is often unreliable does not prepare for the future and risks damaging his relationship.
This is a good time for companies to reflect and reconsider their forecasting tools: the right forecast is probably not the sum of customer forecasts but the one based on an objective analysis of available data.
The activity of sales staff would certainly be more valuable if it were more focused on exploring new growth opportunities.
