Benchmarks in general, at that aggregate level, don’t really do much to get beyond the PROBABLY. We have found though that latching on to an idea similar to “forecastability” is helpful in defining how a company can target their improvement efforts. It is something Dr Larry Lapide at MIT calls the “Forecast Environment.” Segementing your product characteristics along multiple dimensions like volume, time horizons, variability, etc. can help you better determine where your forecasting challenges are versus where you are really good at obtaining accurate forecasts. We don’t really stop there though…because while product characteristics go a long way to defining a company’s forecast environment, other factors like demand planning practices or technology are influencers to forecast accuracy performance. In our newest membership group we are working with over 30 divisions of major CPG companies to perform a segmented benchmarking approach to define performance along both those product dimensions and process drivers which can help company’s set realistic objectives and define performance gaps which will enable process improvement. Check this out to find out more:

http://www.chainalytics.com/what-we-do/supply-chain-intelligence/sales-operations-variability-consortium/

I think you may find it interesting.

Patrick Boyle