The Link Between Predictable Operations and Accurate Forecasting
Forecasting is a central activity in business management. Leaders estimate future revenue, staffing needs, inventory, and cash flow based on expected performance. Plans for growth, hiring, and investment depend on these predictions. When forecasts are accurate, decisions are confident and stable. When forecasts are inaccurate, organizations experience stress and disruption. Many companies attempt to improve forecasting by refining financial models or analyzing market trends. While these methods are useful, they overlook a crucial influence: operational predictability. Operations determine whether forecasts can be trusted. Even with excellent data analysis, unreliable operations produce unreliable projections. If delivery timing varies, workloads fluctuate unpredictably, or processes lack consistency, future performance becomes difficult to estimate. Forecast accuracy is not only a mathematical challenge. It is an operational outcome. Understanding this relationship explains why imp...