With 2021 upon us and COVID-19 vaccinations making their way around the world, there is hope. We're starting to see new opportunities develop. Some markets are already back to their pre-COVID strength, while others are slowly getting there. The hard part now is predicting what will the future hold.

As organizations look at their 2021 forecasts, using traditional run rates and historical averages does not make sense. The dip from 2020 often skews every chart and throws off any historical prediction tool's data. The figure below shows where many organizations were predicting their business for 2021. When the impact from COVID hit in March 2020, most businesses saw a significant dip in earnings-making their previous predictions irrelevant.When accounting for COVID in the numbers with a three-year historical trend, the long-term prediction can show a very flat or limited growth forecast. However, when a rolling 12-month historical trend is used as a short-term prediction, the forecast could produce a negative growth.