How to Identify & Communicate Downturns In Your Business

This article is a revision of one written almost twenty years ago in the JBF, “Forecasting Heroes Catch Turning Points” published in the Summer 2001 issue. While the ideas are largely the same, it is particularly relevant for today’s forecasters and planners. The U.S. has experienced a long-running period of economic growth and pundits are speculating about an economic downturn. After all, “what-goes-up, must come down” and “what goes down must come up” and we are at a point in the economic cycle where things are likely to go down. For too long, business forecasters and planners have had a relatively easy job forecasting continual growth. A potential downturn is much harder to forecast. This first column of a two-part series deals with potential ways to forecast turning points and get organizational support for them. A second column will deal with selling and surviving in an organization and living through a ‘bad news’ ...