Why you want to build a business forecasting dashboard

As an entrepreneur you know, it’s always exceedingly beneficial to have a crystal ball in business. To be able to see into the future and plan for possible strategic shifts – shifts that, based on learnings coupled with data, will be ultimately beneficial to your operations. And this prophetic insight is particularly vital when preparing your business for sale – it’s a deep-dive into your business as a whole, its current health, and, based on the data, where the adjustments are that need to be made to ensure all of your goals in your sell-side M&A process are met.

The good news is you don’t have to be some kind of mystical entrepreneurial soothsayer. It’s all in the data, and Destined can help you mine it, interpret it, and turn it into rich intuition that won’t only help you understand your business better, but ensure its health in the view of that impending acquisition. And that’ll usually mean a fast, profitable sell-side journey.

What is forecasting in business?

Forecasting in business uses established tools and data, to create analyses of current market conditions, and predictions on how the future will look for your business. The goal of forecasts is to eliminate potential failure or losses before they happen, through the story that sales, revenue and costs tells in the data. Past data is also analyzed, and then used to predict future changes and trends – even leading all the way up to the sale of your company. Simply, forecasting in business lets all stakeholders be proactive at every stage, and not simply reactive.

Sell-side M&A – How forecasting can help you prepare for a sale

A company forecast, simply put, is a highly effective way to give a business at any life stage, the ability to hold your team accountable for expected performance and to make informed decisions toward better, data-driven strategies, for improved overall operational and fiscal health. To break it down a little more, though, here are three ways forecasting in business can help you establish a better operational trajectory.

Goals and plans

Whether it’s business as usual, or the run-up to selling your company, a forecast provides valuable data and statistics that’ll help you decide on the amount of change, the growth projected, and the improvement needed to bring about success toward strategic goals. These established goals and plans based on past and predictable data, will help dictate the adjustments needed, to set your business on the path to specific destinations you envision for its journey. And that includes its eventual sale.

Anticipating market changes

Anticipating changes in the market, helps change operational outcomes in turn. This is the part that ensures a business always instils an active, not reactive, air in every aspect of those operations. If there are trends that could look to disrupt the overall health of the business, a company forecast will help to optimize and adjust resources and processes so that adaptability and agility is demonstrated.

Budgeting for the future

Budgeting is all-important – no matter where your business is in its journey. A company forecast will help keep all budgets on trend to ensure products, services and internal strategies are always on par with the most profitable and desirable outcome in mind. And should you be in the middle of an impending sale, these trends will help maintain the most desirable outlook when your potential acquirer does their due diligence.

So, company forecasting is about using past data, and predictive insight, to align your business with the most desirable strategies in all operations. And Destined can help you turn that data into your business’s success story – particularly when a sale is in your future.