With the pivot from subscription to usage-based and product-led revenue models, businesses are finding new ways to align forecasts with actual customer usage. Salesforce’s new consumption forecasting solution in Sales Cloud (built on top of Data Cloud) was unveiled at Dreamforce; it’s now in pilot and will be generally available in February 2025.
Salesforce Consumption Forecasting allows revenue operations teams to harness the power of data to improve predictability and drive growth. You can bring your organization’s external data (i.e., product usage and platform telemetry) into your forecasts to make them more accurate and complete, while also allowing you to use the AI model of your choice to power those insights.
Aligning forecasts to product usage, with greater flexibility
Consumption-based models are becoming more common across industries, from tech/SaaS to manufacturing. Unlike traditional opportunity-based forecasting, consumption forecasting requires a granular, real-time view of customer usage patterns. Instead of guessing or relying on historical data alone, businesses can now make forecasts aligned with actual product usage.
Flexible consumption forecasting can help you proactively address customer needs, respond to market (and organizational) changes, and optimize resources. Salesforce Consumption Forecasting brings flexibility by supporting subscription, usage-based, and product-led revenue models.
Flexible forecasting for dynamic revenue models
Salesforce Consumption Forecasting allows you to integrate external data sources for a more holistic view of customer behavior. For example, a hybrid model combining product-level and account-level data can capture both high-level customer trends and detailed insights into individual product usage.
This flexibility makes it easier to move beyond static, manual forecasting, enabling sales, customer success, finance, and product teams to make data-driven decisions and adjust forecasts as usage patterns shift. You can leverage platform telemetry to refine models and track seasonal trends, creating forecasts that align more closely with real-world consumption.
Consumption forecasting requires a cultural shift, not just a technological one
Effective forecasting models take into account the needs of sales, customer success, finance, and product management, allowing each team to focus on their own goals while working from the same data. For that to happen successfully, consumption forecasting requires a culture shift across departments.
When all teams are aligned on the consumption forecasting process, they should see the following persona-based capabilities and benefits:
- Sales can access actionable insights to manage their entire book of business effectively, seeing both booking and revenue forecasted with actual performance at an account level.
- Customer Success teams can monitor customer health to anticipate upsell opportunities or churn risks, using insights to tailor support. When a customer is burning their consumption hotter than anticipated, CS can be proactive with their outreach to avoid overages, secure early renewals and upsells, and achieve higher NRR.
- Finance can rely on consumption forecasts for more accurate financial planning, incorporating seasonality and market trends.
- Product Management can analyze usage patterns to adjust pricing strategies, bundle structures, and improve product-market fit.
By aligning forecasts with organizational goals and personas, Salesforce Consumption Forecasting helps teams collaborate and make data-driven decisions that benefit the entire organization.
The future of revenue operations with Salesforce is here — and Atrium is leading the way
Salesforce Consumption Forecasting is transforming revops by aligning forecasts with real-time usage patterns, automating key processes, and enabling flexible, persona-driven insights. With Atrium’s expertise in Salesforce revenue intelligence and consumption forecasting, we can help you build robust, AI-powered forecasting systems tailored to your unique business needs.
Whether you’re transitioning to a consumption model or looking to optimize your current operations, we can help you navigate the complexities.
