For businesses to best prepare for the future, they must incorporate scenarios into their models. Scenarios allow modelers and planners to view possible outcomes for the future, and in turn, help them to make decisions.
When thinking about scenarios, your initial thought might be best case vs. worst case. While those two extremes may give some helpful insights, they do not always address the reality a business.
As business complexity grows, so does the need for flexible models that accurately represent organizations.
New products, regions or even seasonal variations can dramatically impact your business and make scenario development feel impossible.
In this blog, we’ll define the term “scenario manager” and describe when and why to use one in business modeling. We’ll also show you how Quantrix is the perfect tool to create and manage your scenarios.
What is a scenario manager?
A scenario manager is a tool or method to organize, create, and compare scenarios in a model. They usually include defined inputs, outputs and formulas to compute outcomes/variances.
When should you use a scenario manager?
Use a scenario manager if…
- The model requires multiple variables
- Inputs come from many users
- Sensitivity analysis is required
- Quick model expansion is needed
Using a scenario manager in business modeling improves model organization, enforces a repeatable “what-if” pattern, isolates important variables, reduces model size/duplication, and captures at-a-glance insights for end users.
Traditional spreadsheets offer a built-in scenario manager, however, for models with any higher levels of sophistication, they’ll hit a wall. Excel, for example, is limited in flexibility – summaries are static and only allow 32 input/result cells. If you don’t want to use the built-in scenario manager in spreadsheets, you will have to build your own, which entails managing numerous complex formulas that will need to be maintained carefully as your business grows.
There’s a better way: Quantrix!
When you build a scenario manager in Quantrix, you’ll notice some major improvements compared to traditional spreadsheets:
- Unlimited scenarios
- Unlimited input variables (more than 32)
- One formula (no offset required)
- Automatic updates & summaries (pivotable)
See it in action:
The benefits of unlimited input variables, unlimited scenarios, range-based formulas, and automatic updates are significant. If you’ve been struggling with scenarios in your spreadsheet tool and you’re looking for a replacement, Quantrix is the answer!
Want to try it for yourself?
We offer a free 30-day trial and personalized demos. We can work with you to show you how Quantrix can improve your current modeling situation.
