Traditional Forecasting is a Low-Value Burden

Most organizations view sales forecasting as a necessary evil. Operations analysts work long hours to cobble together spreadsheets that present a jumble of best-guess predictions. All too often, however, the information in these spreadsheets is high quantity, but low quality. Sales managers simply can’t sift through all the data to determine how they can help reps to forecast and then close the right deals. It’s no wonder that sales forecasting can be a burdensome chore, and why less than half of forecasted deals are actually closed.

Cloud9’s Continuous, Automatic Approach to Forecasting

Cloud9 transforms sales forecasting from a burdensome process to a reliable, accurate system that drives revenues and profits.

First, Cloud9 provides a single place where sales reps can enter their forecasts, sales managers can add their judgments and overrides, and sales operations can manage the process without spending inordinate amounts of time doing it. Cloud9 allows submittal and rollup of forecasts as often as desired – from continuous to specific schedules.This eliminates the overhead, errors, and inconsistencies created by spreadsheet forecasting. With Cloud9, a reliable forecast is never more than a click away.

Next, as sales reps update their deals, that information is automatically incorporated in forecast comparisons, giving reps, managers and executives a continuous real-time view of how they are progressing against the forecast.Additionally, Cloud9’s analytic capabilities are built into the forecasting system, so deal risk, historical rep forecast accuracy and other factors are all included in the forecast information.

Using this unique approach, Cloud9 transforms burdensome, best-guess forecasts into an accurate, automatic solution that you can depend on to monitor the direction and likely outcome of your month, quarter or year.