Lots of Why
Another busy week passed, and I’m still dizzy from all the work over the last few days.
Month-ends, just like Adrian wrote about, are the busiest time in every course of businesses. The busy times depends greatly on how well the month end closes go. This month (March) close is a little crazier than the last two, being the quarter-end month.
First, we did some state-of-the-art calculation based on assumptions developed by us and verified by country managers, and lots of ‘Why’s.
Why is it more expensive in March as compared to January and February?
... because we have five weeks in March compared to four in Jan and Feb.
Why should this make any difference when it’s a fixed cost?
... because it is not our fixed cost but the fixed cost of our service provider.
Why then does this charge from our service provider vary over the months?
How the hell should I know? How about we’d just analyze their business as well to find that out!
It was only when we either ran out of time or all the ‘Why’ before we confirmed and committed our forecast to the Greater Team. This team will then consolidate all forecasted quarter figures and then pull together with other Greater Teams to announce to the public “This is what our quarter profit is going to look” in mid March.
So that was the story of my busy March.
Now with the month close, we are rated on our forecast accuracy. After scrambling for the March result, we discovered that we are all off in our projections by businesses, but exact on the dot overall.
So that was not enough. The Greater Team came back with lots of Why’s. Director asked the Manager. The Manager asked the Executives. The Executives will then shoot at each other for someone to take the blame. I actually heard this very question asked to a country manager…
Why is the forecast for March (that we did and verified by you) so different from actual result?
I’d be damned if any of the managers can give us a good enough reason.
April 08 2006 08:17 am | rants
April 10th, 2006 at 7:45 am
Just tell your manager that “this is the best assumptions and forecast that we can come up with. The actual result is of course different than our forecast due to market volatile, unknowns, and the global economic, which no one has yet to forecast it to the dot. If someone can forecast to the dot, please give me the next 4D number and I’ll be out here now!”
Oh by the way, if your actual result is much better than your forecast (like sales), then those managers should not bitch about it and they are the one with the resources to call up the sales exec to find out what happened that pushed the sales over the top!
Damn… managers. Duno what the heck they manage.