Created 16/10/2011 09:22:03 AM

Making clear understandings with what we learn about forecasting and forecast profession is very important, especially when we are going to build up a reliable professional foundation for our future career.

Sherden (1998) believes that making instant millions on Wall Street would be a piece of cake if you knew whether the economy was going to expand or contract at a particular time or which technologies were going to become commercial successes. This is why the predicting business is a multibillion-dollar industry providing employment to hundreds of thousands of people.

Many industries employ a large number of “strategists” who project where the overall market is headed and analysts who predict which stocks to buy and sell. Thousands of investment analysts work for investment research firms, whose days are spent cranking out newsletters and research reports.

Forecasting professionals are working at top levels of managerial planning. Even, much of the consultants’ work is prediction oriented. The typical consulting assignment involves advising clients on how future trends will affect their business—usually not a pretty picture—and then proposing new courses of action to ward off these coming adversities.

Given that there is a number of common duties and tasks among the strategists and forecasting consultants: Does a strategist doing the same functions that a forecaster usually performs at a company? Or should he/she become also a forecaster to accomplish forecasting missions? How can we distinguish forecasting consultancy and strategic management at managerial level?

Reference:

Sherden, W. A. (1998). The fortune sellers: The big business of buying and selling predictions. New York: John Wiley, chapter 1.