Crowd predictions at Henkel drive increases in accuracy and positive EBIT effects

The opportunity

Henkel invited a subset of its 50,000 employees from the supply chain, sales, and head office departments to participate in crowd predictions to forecast sales figures on the company’s intranet. Participants could individually select one or multiple product lines and were asked to make a forecast for the following eight weeks.

The outcome

• 22% increase in the accuracy of their S&OP process.
• A 16% increase in sales forecast accuracy.
• An 8-digit positive EBIT effect annually in North America alone.
• Henkel introduced crowd predictions to its core markets Germany, France, Spain, and Italy.
  

Source

• Crowdsourcing sales forecasts: How Henkel leverages the collective wisdom of its employees. Harvard Business School (2015). https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-digit/submission/crowdsourcing-sales-forecasts-how-henkel-leverages-the-collective-wisdom-of-its-employees/