Forecasting built around the decisions your business needs to make
Lighthouse Forecasting develops and tests forecasting models for small and medium-sized businesses. We help you explore what your data can tell you about demand, inventory, cash requirements and capacity, and how useful those forecasts could be in practice.
You have decisions to make before the numbers are certain
How much stock should you order? Will next month’s workload need more people? What happens to cash if sales arrive later than expected?
Your records can help answer these questions. Turning them into a useful forecast takes time, specialist knowledge and a way to test whether the results deserve your confidence.
Lighthouse offers a focused route through that work, starting with one planning problem and the data you already have.
Where a forecast could help
Demand and inventory?
Explore expected demand over the weeks or months ahead, so purchasing decisions can take account of lead times, seasonal patterns and the cost of holding stock.
Cash requirements?
Connect expectations about trading activity with explicit assumptions about receipts, purchasing and payment timing to explore pressure on cash.
Capacity and workload?
Look ahead at likely orders, bookings or work volumes to inform staffing, production and service planning.
Start with the decision Test the forecast Plan the next step
Define what matters. Agree what needs forecasting, how far ahead, and what decision the result will inform.
Develop and compare. Build suitable models and compare them with straightforward methods and your current approach where it can be evaluated fairly.
Make the evidence usable. Explain performance, limitations and uncertainty, then decide together whether to stop, improve the model or move toward regular use.
Build on what already works
Spreadsheets and the knowledge of your team are valuable starting points. A forecasting project can build on both.
When updating the numbers becomes time-consuming, or it is difficult to tell which assumptions still hold, a more structured approach can help you test alternatives and make the process repeatable.
Bring us a planning question
You do not need to arrive with a model specification. Tell us what you are trying to decide, what makes it difficult and where the relevant information lives.