Are you confident of the accuracy of your business forecasts?

To ignore the effects of uncertainty in a forecast means to potentially expose your organization to unnecessary risk and potential failure. Yet that is exactly what professionals do when they use Microsoft® Excel® without additional analytical support. In traditional forecasting, you rely on linear analysis or best-guess values even when you know that inputs such as demand and sales are uncertain and uncontrollable.

Whether you're forecasting sales, market demand, commodity prices, or stock performance, you need to account for the known uncertainty in your models. Your knowledge and your toolset will make the difference between whether your work succeeds or fails. No matter what risks you face, Crystal Ball software can help you find the specific solution for your needs.

Crystal Ball is a Microsoft® Excel®-based suite of analytical tools that includes Monte Carlo simulation, optimization, and forecasting. With little effort, you can apply these advanced analytical techniques to your new or existing spreadsheets to create more accurate cost and financial predictions and better informed business decisions.

Crystal Ball software is for anyone who uses spreadsheets and needs to forecast uncertain results. Financial analysts, marketers, product managers, and engineers all rely on Crystal Ball to improve the quality of their decision making processes (see our list of uses and examples below). Common applications include long-range planning, revenue forecasting, future performance predictions, and demand forecasting.

Key forecasting features include sensitivity analysis, correlation, and historical data fitting. The sensitivity analysis helps you to understand which of the uncertain input variables are most critical and drive the uncertainty of your cost model. Correlation lets you link uncertain inputs and account for their positive or negative dependencies. If historical data does exist, the data fitting feature will compare the data to the distribution algorithms and calculate the best possible fit and parameters for your data.

With Crystal Ball, you can:

• Replace min/max estimates with more accurate range of all possible outcomes
• Eliminate multiple manual “what if” forecasts,
• Reduce the time required to produce forecasts,
• Mitigate your cost and schedule risks,
• Gain immediate insight to the inputs that drive the uncertainty in your forecasts,
• Make knowledgeable decisions on where to focus resources, and
• Provide decision-makers with factual data that shows the risk associated with each choice.

CB Predictor for Time-Series Forecasting and Regression

Do you have historical series data? If so, regression and time-series forecasting are analytical methods that can help to create an accurate forecast. CB Predictor, the time-series forecasting tool, helps you to analyze historical data that exhibits some form of trend and/or seasonality over time (e.g. machine failure, market demand). Using your historical data, you can extend past trends into the future using one of eight forecasting methods or multiple linear forecasting. The most advanced Excel users can apply the macros and functions of the Crystal Ball and CB Predictor Developer Kits to create automated processes and run simulations at the push of a button!

LEARN MORE ABOUT CRYSTAL BALL FOR FORECASTING APPLICATIONS

This page offers links to a growing number of resources, including recorded Web seminars, articles, white papers, case studies, and example models. Additionally, you can view a list of common uses and examples reported directly from customers using Crystal Ball. You can also download a free trial version of Crystal Ball to see how it can help improve your business forecasts and decisions!

RECORDED WEB SEMINARS

I'll Be Back: DVD Sales Forecasting Describes a methodology used to gauge how many DVDs to create for newly released movies, along with the challenge of determining how reliable past behavior is at predicting future behavior. Presented by Michael Lieberman, President of Multivariate Solutions Recorded April 24, 2007	View recording Download files
Financial Risk Analysis: “Know/No Surprises” With the help of a series of simple Excel spreadsheet models, you will learn how to apply simulation and optimization to answer questions such as: what will my revenues be in the next period, how should I set our financial goals, what should be my earnings guidance, and more. Presented by Jim Franklin, CEO of Decisioneering Inc Recorded January 18, 2007	View recording Download files
Simulation and Water Supply Forecasting Demonstrates how to use Monte Carlo simulation and regression methods to develop better water supply forecasting models in the American West. He will present and comment on a variety of case studies of canal companies in Colorado. Presented by John McKenzie, founder of Innovastat Corporation Recorded March 20, 2007	View recording Download files
Forecasting Oil & Gas Production for Short-Term Planning Learn why and how probabilistic analysis is used to forecast oil and gas production in Chevron's GOM Deepwater Producing Operations Group and the key benefits of the methodology. Presented by Michelle LaPoint, Business Planning Engineer for Chevron's GOM Deepwater Producing Operations Group Recorded February 14, 2007	View recording Download files

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WHITE PAPERS & ARTICLES

Business Intelligence Building Blocks: A Strong Business Case Gets Results By John L. Doran, EnFORM Consulting, L.P.	Download
How to Combine Forecasts and Risk Analysis to Bring Together Disparate Business Units By Paul Twenter, Farmland Industries	Download
What is World Class Forecasting? By Dr. Mark A. Moon, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Tennessee, Knoxville	Download

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CASE STUDIES

New Technology Acquisition For Hasbro, Predicting the next Hot Toy is Not Child's Play	Download
New Venture Planning / Cash Flow Models Crystal Ball Boosts ExperCorp's New Venture Planning for Recreation Markets	Download
Value-at-Risk Analysis Farmland Determines Risk Exposure in Commodities Markets	Download

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EXAMPLE MODELS

Call Center Volume From: Created by Ray Covert, rpcovert@yahoo.com Detail: This spreadsheet model calculates the predicted over capacity and under capacity of a call center. The model is applicable to any problem approximating a queuing theory service problem such as bank teller lines, web site bandwidth, and help desk capacity. By calculating the percentiles during days of the week and time blocks during the day, the model shows where the number of calls exceeds the capacity of the staff to service the calls or where the call center is overstaffed.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple-moderate
Network Simulation From: Mark Cronshaw, Management Science Applications group, AT&T Labs-Broadband, Westminster, CO, cronshaw@cronshawconsulting.com Detail: AT&T Broadband is a company providing video, high speed Internet and telephony services. Network capacity planning is an important issue as we introduce new services. Demand for new services is highly variable. Crystal Ball can be used to model the impact of variable demand on a network.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple
Magazine Checkout Sales Detail: This model shows the power of the Batch Fit tool in Crystal Ball 2000. This model contains historical, non-time-series data for past sales of four magazines and Crystal Ball can fit that data with distributions to predict future sales.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple
Quarterly Sales Projections Detail: Simple model that determines the ending sales for twelve business quarters given uncertain company growth.	Download For: Crystal Ball Level: Simple
Shampoo Sales Detail: A very simple forecasting problem. Forecast the sales of a shampoo based on unit sales for nine months.	Download For: CB Predictor Level: Simple
Monica's Bakery Detail: This model can be used to explore most of the features of CB Predictor and Crystal Ball (for the forecasted values). You can forecast future sales of different breads to schedule ingredient deliveries, estimate future cash flow so that Monica knows when to plan major capital expenditures, and predict labor costs so that she can pay an optimal wage as well as decide when it becomes economically feasible to buy equipment to save on labor costs.	Download For: Crystal Ball & CB Predictor Level: Simple-moderate
Pro Forma Net Income Statement Detail: In the past, ABC company used a rolling six-month average to estimate future sales. It did not have a handle on any other uncertainties in its Net Income model. This model shows how they used CB Predictor to forecast sales and then Crystal Ball to determine the certainty of reaching a specific earnings per share goal.	Download For: CB Predictor & Crystal Ball Level: Simple

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COMMON USES & EXAMPLES

The following examples were provided by our customers and represent only some of the potential forecasting type applications for Crystal Ball and CB Predictor.

• Analyze profit potential of expanding business segments
• Business case modeling for new product programs
• Compare what-if scenarios/sensitivity analysis
• Demand, sales and pricing forecasts
• Determine confidence Intervals to bound forecast for planning purposes
• Develop financial forecasts
• Evaluate strategic opportunities
• Forecast new business
• Forecast the level of subscribers for a new telecom service
• Forecasting demand requirements from non-domestic manufacturers
• Forecasting resource and cost issues
• Forecasting sales incentive payments
• Inventory management and control
• Long-range industry analysis
• Market share estimation
• Metal prices forecasting
• Model value of business development opportunities and create optimal deal structures
• Oil field development
• Optimizing utilization of resources
• Revenue forecasting and license scenario analysis
• Sales Forecasting, strategic analysis, operations management.
• Stock performance projections
  
  

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