Spot inflation early

Today’s business environment is challenging. Well, you knew that already. But rapidly increasing cost of raw materials can prove quite devastating – if you act too late.

Get the numbers right, efficiently, and stay focused on what matters. With facts and numbers, you build a story from past sales numbers, forecast them for the next quarter, capture the effects of inflation, and act.

With timely insights, you’re in a great position to capture the effects of inflation on cost and its erosion of margins early on.

The crunching of numbers

As a Product Manager, you compare monthly sales and costs between periods and the same period one year ago to capture seasonal effects. You do the same by accumulating quarterly numbers. You likely have sales in different categories with multiple SKUs, which enables you to drill down into the numbers. This framework can answer many questions and point you in the right direction.

Historical numbers form the first part of the analysis, and many companies stop there. However, use the historical numbers to predict also future sales and costs. You can use specialized software like Forecastbee, input from your team, or let Forecastbee integrate both.

If you have the tools that repeatably crunch accurate numbers, you get the job done when you need it done and not when time allows.

Then what?

Start small and build from there. For example, say that you collect the sales numbers for an upcoming sales presentation for management. You likely have a standard format established to present the numbers in, but the above way of organizing sales and cost in a framework gives you the power to answer the questions from management.

Even better, you present a solid case outlining the steps in the next quarter to offset the effects of inflation – backed by facts and numbers.