Data
Advanced
18 min
Forecasting honestly — ranges, assumptions and the forecast you can defend
The problem
You have eighteen months of sales. You ask for a twelve-month forecast. You get twelve neat monthly figures totalling ₹7.4 crore.
The workflow
1Check data sufficiency
2Choose the method
3Identify drivers
4Build three scenarios
5State assumptions
6Produce the range
7List invalidators
★Review monthly
What you need
Data: 22 months of monthly revenue, apparel wholesale. Business: B2B wholesale to 190 retail accounts.
The tool
Excel, or the assistant's code mode
The prompt
Subscribers. The full prompt is part of the SMEMinds AI Playbook. See plans.
What comes back
1. DATA ASSESSMENT — 22 months gives you one complete festive cycle and part of a second.
Verify before you use it
Human review required. Check every line below before this leaves your screen.
- Check the account arithmetic yourself: 190 − 2 + 9 = 197. Simple, and worth confirming because everything scales from it.
- The downside scenario assumes a competitor. That is a hypothesis, not a finding — confirm whether the two accounts actually went to a competitor before treating it as the downside case.
- The ±14% range is honest. If someone asks you to narrow it without new information, the answer is no.
- Item 7 should go into the board pack verbatim. It is the part that protects you.