Stop the Guesswork: Mastering Sales Forecasting in 2023!
Accurate revenue prediction stands as a cornerstone of effective business management, delivering the power to strategize with precision, allocate resources optimally, make well-informed decisions, master budgeting, and ultimately save both time and financial resources. Amid the ever-evolving landscape of business technology, Dynamics 365 Sales Forecasting emerges as a standout feature introduced during the 2020 Release Wave 1. In this enlightening two-part blog series, we embark on a comprehensive exploration of this dynamic feature. Part 1 will take us through the core principles of sales forecasting and the process of its configuration, while Part 2 will delve deeper into the realms of viewing and analyzing sales forecasting.
Why Utilize Sales Forecasting?
The question may arise: why resort to sales forecasting when Dynamics already offers opportunities replete with projected closing dates, statuses, and stages within the process flow? Sales Forecasting transcends these capabilities by providing a heightened level of accuracy in anticipating closures and what products or services you are poised to sell. It bestows upon organizations a holistic perspective, thereby enabling them to orchestrate production activities in alignment with future sales demands. It’s worth noting that Dynamics 365 Goals, a longstanding feature, often faced limited adoption due to constraints such as the creation of one goal at a time. Sales Forecasting adeptly addresses this limitation, ushering in the ability to create multiple goals simultaneously.
Who Benefits from Sales Forecasting?
Sales forecasting extends its benefits across a spectrum of stakeholders within any organization:
Salespeople:
Sales representatives wield the ability to track their performance against predefined targets. Through early identification of potential pipeline vulnerabilities, they can preemptively address issues and ensure that promising deals remain firmly within grasp. Sales reps can also tap into forecast insights, catering to specific timeframes, such as fiscal years, months, or quarters.
Sales Managers:
The impact ripples upward to sales managers who gain a comprehensive view of individual sales performances relative to quotas. Armed with this data, they can provide proactive coaching to their teams, thereby steering the course toward improved overall results. Informed decision-making becomes the hallmark of their leadership.
Sales Directors and Organization Leaders:
High-ranking executives are not immune to the advantages of sales forecasting. They harness forecast trends to anticipate departmental sales, reallocate resources as needed, fine-tune product strategies, and convey updated projections to investors. Their ability to steer the organization effectively is significantly enhanced.
Configuring a Sales Forecast
Before diving into sales forecasting, ensure you have either a system administrator or forecast manager role. Administrators determine who has visibility into the forecast, but they are the sole individuals authorized to make adjustments or changes. To configure a sales forecast for your organization within the Sales Hub, follow these 6 essential steps:
- Review Prerequisite Tasks: Familiarize yourself with the necessary tasks and requirements.
- Select a Template: Choose a template that suits your organization’s forecasting needs.
- Define General Properties and Scheduling: Specify general properties and set up a scheduling system for your forecast.
- Provide Viewing Permissions: Decide who in your organization can access and view the forecast.
- Choose Layout and Columns: Customize the layout and columns to align with your specific forecasting requirements.
- Activate and Upload Data: Activate the forecast and upload relevant data, including simple columns data.
Embracing Dynamics 365 Sales Forecasting in 2023 enables your organization to operate with precision, make data-driven decisions, and stay ahead in today’s dynamic business environment. Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll explore viewing and analyzing sales forecasts to further enhance your forecasting accuracy.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Sales Forecasting
This blog article was originally published in 2020 and updated in 2023. Although AI functionality has been added to sales forecasting over the past decade or so, AI’s impact on sales forecasting is expected to continue growing as businesses recognize its potential to enhance accuracy and drive better sales results. In 2023, sales forecasting benefits from a broader range of AI capabilities that were not accessible in 2020. Features such as AI-Generated Content, AI in Visual Data Analysis, and Personalization at Scale have continued to evolve. AI-driven personalization in marketing and sales may have reached new heights in 2023. AI models could be better at tailoring product recommendations, marketing content, and sales pitches to individual customers, improving conversion rates.
In addition, we have also seen AI in Supply Chain Forecasting, AI for Predictive Maintenance, and Explainable AI (XAI). Improvements in XAI have been a focus of AI research. By 2023, AI systems might provide more transparent explanations for their predictions and decision-making processes, which is particularly important in critical business applications like sales forecasting. In the years leading up to 2020, deep reinforcement learning was making strides in various applications, including robotics and gaming. By 2023, it may have found more practical use in optimizing sales strategies and dynamic pricing. In 2020, Advanced Natural Language Understanding (NLU) were already quite advanced, but by 2023, we can expect even more sophisticated AI models for understanding and generating human language. This could enable more accurate sentiment analysis, chatbots with better conversational abilities, and improved text-based data analytics.
While AI for Predictive Maintenance may not directly related to sales forecasting, predictive maintenance using AI may have a substantial impact on manufacturing and logistics, indirectly affecting sales by ensuring product availability.
We can expect even more sophisticated AI models for understanding and generating human language. This could enable more accurate sentiment analysis, chatbots with better conversational abilities, and improved text-based data analytics.
In summary, AI empowers organizations to make more informed decisions, allocate resources efficiently, and adapt to changing market conditions. It enhances sales forecasting by leveraging data and automation, ultimately leading to improved sales performance and better customer experiences. AI continues to play a growing role in sales forecasting, with ongoing advancements in machine learning, deep learning, and big data analytics. This technology is becoming more sophisticated, allowing businesses to make even more accurate predictions and optimize their sales strategies.
Learn more
As we embark on this journey into the dynamic realm of sales forecasting, Dynamics 365 Sales Forecasting proves itself as a transformative tool poised to elevate your organization’s strategic planning, resource allocation, and decision-making processes.
In Eliminate the Guesswork with Sales Forecasting: Part 2, we dive deeper into the art of viewing and analyzing sales forecasts—a critical component in achieving forecasting excellence. As with many features in Dynamics 365, there are both standard and premium versions of Sales Forecasting. to learn more about the premium version of Sales Forecasting, visit our Top 10 Dynamics 365 Sales Insights Features blog.
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