Learn how to forecast your future at Cultivate'24

How do you know where your business is going?

How do you predict the future for your business?

How many units will you sell? What will your revenue be?

How will the local and regional economies affect your business results?

How will pricing or key customer situations impact your business?

These are just a few of myriad questions that growers must wrestle with each year as they estimate and plan how much capital and resources they will commit to growing future crops.

As uncertainty abounds in world and national economic and governance situations, the difficult process of growers estimating what to grow next year is more difficult.

Further, in recent years, the supply chain upheaval, COVID and some of the outlier winter events have also deeply impacted what were once fairly consistent demand curves with only modest changes over time for our industry’s products.

Good forecasts can help

A forecast, or more importantly a forecasting process as part of an overall system for managing, will help growers think through and plan for some of these impacts.

Businesses that follow a forecasting process and system for managing are better able to track and improve key operational variables, such as revenue, profitability, future investments and production plans based on its data and assumptions.

“A forecast is a view to let you ask what assumption was wrong, and how can you tweak that assumption, so you get a better forecast for now or the future," says Ken Lane, president at Hathaway & Lane Digital.

Forecasts as an Assessment tool

The process of building a forecast, the historical and other data, the key situations, future assumptions, and constraints all help bring visibility to any issues with data. Reviewing predicted results, data and assumptions from forecast values provides an opportunity for the ‘sniff test’. Do the values make sense, if not why? This iterative process of review, question, change will align the team, and solidify the buy in by your team.

A forecast allows you to see the key variables, assumptions, and calculated results for your business side by side. It is an effective way to diagnose the plan and its drivers and see areas where changes are needed.

Building forecasts can be hard

The combination of data-gathering, organization and manipulation coupled with the business situation and key assumptions that will drive results can be a challenging task requiring skill and knowledge. A lot must come together to get a good format for forecast iteration. And not everyone has the skills, data organization or time to get it all done.

What can growers do?

If you want to learn more about how to forecast and the key theories, techniques, data organization and some of the relevant Excel skills that go with it, attend the Cultivate'24 workshop “Forecasting: It’s a Strategy, Not a Tactic," from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, July 13.

The speakers are Ken Lane from Hathaway & Lane Digital and John Beauford from Advanced Grower Solutions.

Registration is fee is the Cultivate registration, plus $299 per person. Lunch will be provided.

To view and register for this and other workshops, visit AmericanHort.org/Cultivate-Workshops.

Those who can't attend Cultivate can sign up for the Cultivate On-Demand Education Pass, visit cultivateevent.org/on-demand.