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Blog
Why is Version Control Such a Massive Headache for Forecasters?
Rick Johnston, Ph.D., Senior Principal, Software Solutions Lead
Elliot Quan, Associate Consultant
Jun 15, 2022
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  • Why is Version Control Such a Massive Headache for Forecasters

We’ve all dealt with the frustration of version control. Someone creates a document, then emails it to three other people who all make edits to the original, making it impossible to track changes or agree on a final draft. Google Docs solved that problem by giving authors a collaborative environment where everyone can edit the same document and see what others have changed in real-time.

It’s a brilliantly simple solution that eliminates version control issues and speeds up the editing process.

But there’s no such solution for teams updating pharma forecasts, who are still stuck emailing spreadsheets and data back and forth. It may sound to some like a small inconvenience at first, but when you total up over months and years, it’s quite a lot of valuable time and energy taken away from teams. At IQVIA, we decided there should be a better way. We’ve been focused on building technical solutions that synchronize user updates and give commercial teams the flexibility to rapidly combine global and local data, delivering more reliable forecasts that update instantly.

What happens when you don’t synchronize forecast updates?

Streamlining the forecast workflow is a common challenge that many companies and forecasting teams struggle with. Forecasters need to capture data from dozens of sources across the organization. Global and local teams have ownership of different parts of the forecast – global may be waiting on forecast submissions from local teams, who may in turn need guidance from global to get started. Any changes to one key input or assumption may trigger a chain reaction of events like manual hand-offs and email updates.

If these challenges are not dealt with, two major symptoms emerge:

  1. Forecast shuffle. A single forecast model is updated by each individual, who then sends it to the next person for their additions. This provides version control but adds time to the process, and sometimes confusion over which inputs are final, which can raise questions over who has ownership of different parts of the forecast. In many organizations, these delays can cause teams to pare down the data they review as a way to expedite the process and avoid re-circulating any updates back around.
  2. Forecast anarchy. Alternatively, multiple people may update data in their own copy of the model, creating multiple versions being worked on in parallel. For example, global has their own version of the forecast, but countries don’t agree with it or prefer a different structure, so they keep their own version as well. This brings chaos to the forecasting process, making it difficult to determine which data is the most complete and up to date, and where changes may have been lost and bias introduced.

In both scenarios, the lack of transparency and collaboration limits the value of the forecast. It delays time to insights, and creates the risk that stakeholders are making decisions based on different versions of the data, which ultimately reduces the end users’ confidence in the forecast.

Forecast at your Fingertips

IQVIA is using web-based technology through platforms like Forecast Horizon to eliminate these collaboration issues. Our tools provide users with a single shared environment where all forecast inputs are automatically updated on the web, and multiple users can work in the same environment simultaneously. The forecast can be jointly owned, and companies can determine whether they want it to be accessible by all groups, or primarily managed by one group with input from others.

This collaborative design delivers faster and more responsive forecasts that require less work to build and maintain, and eliminates the need to chase down the latest data from each team. Because the data automatically updates, both forecasters and stakeholders can view the latest  version of the model at any time, which provides transparency to the forecast and eliminates the time spent waiting for data to be passed from person to person.

On the web, easy-to-use dashboards allow users to generate customizable reports for stakeholders and summarize the forecast through graphs or charts, rather than endless pages of a spreadsheet. By automating away the more tedious and boring parts of the forecast process, users can spend more time in the analysis stage and deliver better results. Global forecasters can easily roll up individual country forecasts and view up to date outputs with a few clicks.

These innovations result in more sophisticated modeling with less effort and allow forecasters to make real-time changes to the model without starting from scratch.

Real-time, not Offline

Collaborative forecasting doesn’t just make the data collection process easier. It transforms the forecast model into an adaptive tool that can inform key commercial decisions and help stakeholders understand the impact of market changes in real time.

Now if any person has a forecast question, they can review the latest model and get results instantly. They can also generate multiple scenarios based on different ‘what-if’ cases, by customizing the forecast for a specific region, product line, or projection all with the click of a button.

This is a new approach to forecasting for the life sciences industry. Companies that adopt these tools can gain a better, faster and more reliable glimpse into the future marketplace, so they can make the best decisions for the business.

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