Every business tries to anticipate the future, and successful businesses take an active, aggressive role in shaping it. A well-designed and information-rich forecasting process is a prerequisite for this effort. However, companies struggle with reliable forecasting because they aren't focused on forecasting fundamentals.

This paper focuses on the three D's for successful forecasting: Decisions, Data, and Discipline. According to the authors, these are inherent in any successful process and should be specific to a company's strategies and goals.

With a heightened demand for better business foresight, the availability of more-evolved tools, and greater potential on the part of the CFO to implement cross-functional change, organizations have the opportunity to develop and leverage resources with their company to improve their forecasting results.