Board, “The 2026 Planning Intelligence Report” (press release, September 16, 2026; survey of 300 CFOs, CIOs and COOs at enterprises with at least $100 million in revenue)
On September 16, the planning software company Board released a survey of 300 CFOs, CIOs and COOs at enterprises with at least $100 million in annual revenue. Eighty-three percent said their board has made a strategic decision based on a forecast they already knew was outdated, and 40 percent reported significant business consequences from that decision. Three-quarters said roughly half or more of their planning decisions rely on data more than 30 days old.
Board sells planning software, and its own explanation is the one its product answers. Its CFO, Gordon Pothier, puts the cause down to data that moves faster than the planning cycle. The full report sits behind a sign-up form, and the release names no research firm, fieldwork dates or question wording, so these figures deserve the caution any vendor survey does.
Read the 83 percent sentence slowly, though. In the release's wording, the people who knew the forecast was stale were the executives answering the survey. A faster data pipeline shortens the lag between the forecast and the business, and it has no answer for an executive who already had the newer picture. Whether these executives said so before their boards decided, the release does not say, and the report that might is behind the form.
This week's pieces kept returning to that spot, from a hiring vendor's pooled selection rates to the boardroom voting records in Friday's piece: a summary that was accurate when it was made, carried into a room by people who knew more than it said.
The last time your board acted on a forecast that was already out of date, who in the room knew, and what would it have cost them to say so before the decision?
