By Roger Paulson, Practice Director, Sales Operations

Let's be honest: Forecasting sales accurately is a huge challenge for the majority of companies. In fact, only 20% of sales professionals report that they regard their sales forecasts as highly accurate.

The Great Recession hasn't made things any easier. One-third of sales professionals report that they can reliably forecast revenues for only two weeks or less in these fluid economic times.

But is anybody calling for an end to forecasting? Hardly. In fact, one could argue that the importance of accurate forecasting — and the pressure on sales professionals to provide it — is greater than ever.

With that in mind, we focused on this critical challenge at a recent Sales Operations Peer Group meeting. As always at UWEBC meetings, the combination of expert presentations and member-to-member collaboration supplied a rich mix of leading practices, practical lessons and actionable insights.

Eric Maurer, Principal of The Alexander Group, provided the expert presentation. And expert it was. Eric shared a comprehensive look at sales forecasting, from an informative comparison of different corporate approaches to an analytical look at the impact of forecasts on sales results to a very practical set of DOs and DON'Ts.

For the member case studies, American Family Insurance and CUNA Mutual Group, two very important Wisconsin companies, shared lessons learned and informative perspectives. Much discussion and member-to-member collaboration ensued.

UWEBC members can access all of the meeting's presentations in both rich-media Mediasite and PDF formats. If you weren't able to attend this meeting — and even if you were — we encourage you to view this material. It will help you get some control of a critical business process, even in these hard-to-control times.

Roger is UWEBC Practice Director of the Customer Service, Sales Operations and Supply Chain Management focus areas. He holds an MBA in management from the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, a Supply Chain Leadership Certificate from UW-Madison School of Business Executive Education and a Certified Marketing Executive (CME) accreditation conferred by Sales and Marketing Executives International. You can reach him at 608-261-1611 or arpaulson@wisc.edu.