How economic forecasts and scenarios can strengthen financial planning
It’s already mid-December 2017. Your organisation has already started (or maybe even finalised) your plans for 2018. You have targets and budgets and tactics lined up to take you confidently into the year ahead. But, did you remember that 2018 is an election year in Barbados? Did you factor that in to your organisation’s financial plans?
Election years are typically characterised by increased government spending (which is often accompanied by increased consumer spending) and greater economic confidence. All of the campaigning and promise-making usually puts everyone in an optimistic frame of mind. Given the state of fiscal affairs in Barbados and the generally depressed economic confidence levels, however, maybe 2018 will buck this trend and it will be more or less business as usual. Or maybe the pessimists amongst us will win the day and 2018 will be the worst year, from an economic standpoint, that Barbados has ever experienced. Has your organisation considered the impact of any of these scenarios?
It has been my experience that the economic forecasts included in corporate financial planning exercises are only baseline forecasts. What do I mean by ‘baseline’? Baseline forecasts typically assume that the future will continue more or less in the same fashion as the recent past. In the case of Barbados, therefore, the next 3 to 5 years – i.e. the usual planning period for corporate budgets – will be characterised by:
- low levels of inflation
- a fixed 2:1 exchange rate with the U.S. Dollar
- economic growth rates around 1%
- unemployment around 10%
- debt levels over 100%, and,
- fiscal deficits over 5% of GDP.
But what if one or more of these assumptions no longer holds?
What if the deficit worsens? What if the exchange rate is adjusted? What if the economy slips back into a recession? What if the country is forced into a programme with the International Monetary Fund? What if 2018 is not business as usual and it’s not a typical election year? What impact will these scenarios have on your organisational plans?
And did you consider how economic policy may change depending on which party is elected?
Each party has different ideas on how the country should be run and where emphasis should be placed. Therefore, depending on which government wins the elections, your plans may no longer be relevant.
Including economic forecasts and scenarios into corporate financial budgeting exercises can help you plan for various plausible futures. Not only will you feel better prepared, whichever outcome, but you will also have a better understanding of the likelihood of each scenario, which would allow you to adjust your resources accordingly. Antilles Economics offers a comprehensive range of economic advisory services – for example, workshops, customised forecasts/scenarios and internal stakeholder briefings – that can provide forecasts and scenarios. And, there are various government agencies that publish their expectations about the future, as well as IMF reports and advisories from the international rating agencies. Once you’re confident that you can translate that information into meaningful intelligence for your organisation, they are reliable and trusted sources of economic data.
I’m looking forward to 2018. I think it will be a very interesting year from an economic standpoint. But what may be interesting for us economists, may be devastating for profit-making enterprises. Make sure you’re prepared.
