Thanks to Tsuyoshi Kawanishi, former CEO of Toshiba Semiconductors, for this one. In his book Chip Management he quotes these ten rules about forecasting.
1.
2 Sharp President Haruo Tsuji: "You cannot find out what the consumer wants only by doing market research. You need to pull the ideas out of your brain. Manufacturers of the future should not simply respond to market demands, they must create market demands.
3. Konosuke Matsushita said: "Don't try to fit your business to a forecast. Fit it to the needs of your customers."
4. Toshiba President Sugiichio Watari: "Money doesn't come falling into the headquarters of Toshiba. If you want money you need to go to the customers."
5. President Yoshio Tateishi of Omron: "Learn from your customers. If you learn from internal resources you will become self-satisfied. If you learn from your competitors you will fall far behind."
6. Professor Yoshiya Teramoto of
7. Tsuyoshi Kawanishi: "The way to predict the weather is to look at the sky. And, every once in a while, you can make your prediction by simply thinking."
8. President Haruo Tsuji of Sharp says: "Don't be a spider, be a honey bee."
9. Takeshi Kaneda, a management critic, says: "After elaborate research to find out what the consumer wants, Ford produced the Edsel. It was a complete failure. Ford mistook what the customer wanted for what they would really buy. They ignored their insight and relied on consensus. Japanese tend to emphasise harmony and consensus. But insight and decisiveness can be more important."
10. Someone says: "Figures do not lie. But liars often use figures."
Interesting (or not) that Ford repeated the Edsel mistake with the 1990 Escort. It was a car that attempted to please everyone, a sort of designed-by-committee bland mess, and ended up pleasing nobody.
You need flair, ideas, and the guts and faith to go with them.
Trouble is, Ian, today's CEOs aren't chosen for their ideas, flair, guts or faith - merely for their ability to spin a yarn to financial analysts
David - in addition to the 10 "best forecasting rules" you shared with your readers I believe the following quote from Yogi Berra captures all you need to know about forecasting: "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
Mike Cowan - developer of the Cowan LRA Model for forecasting global semiconductor sales.
Mike, how very true, but fortunately that doesn't stop people trying.
David - you are right! Included in the "people trying" you invoke is myself - fortunate or not - with my monthly global semi-sales forecast updates as gleamed from "running" the model I developed. Note - if any of your readers are interested they can send me an e-mail requesting the latest forecast numbers and I will dispatch a copy. Mike C.
Thanks Mike, that's very kind of you