From Excel User to Forecasting Pro – with futureEXPERT

Tobias Fuchs is a data & reporting specialist at a supplier for the food packaging industry with around 250 employees. He trained as an industrial clerk and later became a data analyst. He’s been with the company for 12 years and takes care of typical BI tasks and questions for the mid-sized business.

Figure 1: Tobias Fuchs, Data & Reporting Specialist.

Tina: Hi Tobias, great to have you with us today! I’m Tina from the future team. We’re really excited that you’re so happy with futureEXPERT. If it’s okay with you, let’s jump right in.

Tobias: Hi Tina, absolutely. I’m glad to share my experiences with you and your community.

Tina: Tobias, you’re known as the “silent hero” at your company – the one who basically runs the BI department single-handedly. Can you tell us briefly what prompted you to even look into forecasting software?

Tobias: Yes, our situation was pretty tense. You see, we’re a mid-sized supplier in the food packaging industry, where production planning is absolutely critical. I didn’t used to be involved in planning directly — our five-person planning team had it under control. But then one colleague went on long-term sick leave and another is about to retire. Due to budget constraints and the current economic situation, the position won’t be refilled anytime soon. So we needed a solution to maintain or even improve planning quality. That’s when the pressure landed on me to find a tool that could help us enhance planning accuracy without consuming all my time. That was the clear directive from our last board meeting.

Tina: That’s a classic challenge. So you started searching. How did you come across futureEXPERT? You’re not a typical data scientist, right?

Tobias: That’s right. I’m more of a hands-on generalist who creates value with Excel, SQL, and some low-code tools for visualization. So my first approach was to try a forecast in Excel. Anyone who’s attempted this probably understands why I quickly abandoned that route. Too error-prone, still too manual — there were many reasons against it. So I kept searching and discovered futureEXPERT. At first, I hesitated. When I saw the recommended Python client, I thought: “Uh-oh, Python? I’d have to dive into that first.” I had briefly worked with R a few years ago, but Python was new territory. After lots of searching and testing, no other tool convinced me. So I bit the bullet and googled how to set up a Python environment. In the end, that only took a few minutes — and I was up and running.

Tina: That’s great that you stuck with it! Many people are discouraged by that first step. How were your first steps with futureEXPERT?

Tobias: Surprisingly easy, I have to say! Thanks to your intuitive video tutorials on the future website, I got my first results really quickly. It was super fast! Since then, I’ve been using futureEXPERT once a month — and it’s already been four months.

Tina: That’s wonderful to hear, Tobias! A smooth start, even if the backend is complex, is very important to us. Can you give us a concrete example of how futureEXPERT has helped in your daily work?

Tobias: Absolutely. Take our monthly production planning for about 500 products. It used to be a huge challenge and took an incredible amount of time for our team. Everyone had their own Excel sheets and estimates — we had to consolidate everything and go back and forth. There was a lot of discussion, and in the end, it often came down to gut feeling. And then surprises would come up because the forecasts just weren’t reliable enough.

Tina: And now? What’s changed?

Tobias: Now it’s completely different. Once a month, I upload our current data into the Python client, run the script, and futureEXPERT gives me a very precise, data-driven forecast within minutes. I no longer have to rely solely on manual estimates, and the results speak for themselves! It saves us a huge amount of time, and the forecast accuracy has improved. futureEXPERT even shows me a comparison of different forecasting methods. In the end, we now have far less overproduction or shortages — and in our industry, especially with the current cost pressure, that’s a real competitive advantage. It’s truly the cost-effective and reliable solution we were looking for.

Tina: That sounds like a real success story! Tobias, do you see futureEXPERT as a tool that also strengthens your role and maybe even opens up new opportunities for you?

Tobias: Definitely! Thanks to futureEXPERT, I’m not just the BI go-to person in our company anymore — I’m also the one with a handle on the planning numbers. Our product portfolio is very diverse, from fast movers to slow movers, sometimes with seasonal patterns. With futureEXPERT, we can handle all of this out-of-the-box without extra effort. Thanks to the accurate forecasts, we now understand seasonal fluctuations and market cycles much better. futureEXPERT revealed patterns in our data that we hadn’t noticed before. Thanks to the fallback mechanisms, we always get a valid result — even for newly introduced products. We can also identify phase-out products early on. And since we plan in whole units per product, it’s super helpful that futureEXPERT supports that in its forecasts. That greatly reduces our manual work when preparing results for planning.

Tina: So your planning team is drinking coffee all day now?

Tobias: (laughs) No, definitely not. They’re a key interface between futureEXPERT and our ERP system. They enrich our ERP system with additional information, and I still provide them with the critical products for closer review. Now they actually have the time and mental space to do that — which has also led to even better planning.

Tina: So if I understand correctly, you’ve now found a good balance between the planning team and futureEXPERT, which has both improved forecast quality and reduced manual workload. Would you agree, and what makes you say that?

Tobias: In summary, we can now respond to changes much more proactively — for example, to optimize our material orders. That’s a real strategic advantage that goes beyond pure efficiency. And even though I was initially hesitant about Python, I now actually enjoy experimenting with it and diving deeper into data analysis. It’s amazing how quickly you get results when you have the right solution. You definitely don’t have to be a data scientist to create solid forecasts with futureEXPERT. The support from your team and the tutorials really make it easy to get started. It’s worth it!

Tina: That’s a great closing statement, Tobias. Thank you so much for your time and your honest insights. We’ll stay in touch — whether you have a question or just want to share an idea. You know our team is always here for you!

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