Rolling Forecast and Performance-Attribution Consultant

The mandate

The current forecast can be refreshed but cannot consistently explain why performance differs from plan or which operating decision should change next. Price, volume, mix and delivery-capacity effects are blended into residual variance. The consultant will deliver a Rolling Forecast and Attribution Operating Pack that separates those effects and connects them to a repeatable business-partner discussion.

The assignment starts on 19 October 2026 for six months at four days weekly. Gurugram workshops define source data and decision questions; remote model work follows an agreed version and access protocol. The pack comprises driver definitions, a controlled forecast model, attribution rules, an assumption register and a pilot meeting guide for selected services portfolios.

Milestone one on 18 December 2026 supplies a signed driver dictionary, reconciled baseline and forecast-error diagnosis. Milestone two, due 18 February 2027, is a tested model and price-volume-mix bridge with independent reviewer challenge of representative periods. Milestone three on 18 April 2027 delivers two live business-partner cycles, corrections from pilot use and a witnessed handover refresh by retained analysts.

The enterprise FP&A head and business-finance sponsor accept each milestone. Attribution must reconcile to controlled results, explain rather than bury residuals, and avoid double-counting the same change across price, volume and mix. Retained users must refresh assumptions, reproduce a selected variance bridge and identify the operational owner of each material action. Acceptance does not depend on future revenue meeting a desired forecast.

The sponsor provides financial results, delivery-capacity data, commercial assumptions and named reviewers able to resolve definition disputes. The scope excludes enterprise system implementation, sales compensation redesign and changing accounting policy. New business units or materially different revenue models require a priced change. The project ends when the operating pack and pilot transfer pass acceptance, leaving resource and commercial commitments with management.

What you will own

• Define price, volume, mix and delivery-cost drivers using source records, documenting cases where contract complexity makes a simple arithmetic bridge misleading.
• Reconcile the baseline forecast and actuals, classifying unexplained variance before proposing a new model or promising improvement in accuracy across selected services portfolios.
• Construct scenario logic linking demand, capacity and contribution, with visible assumption owners and explicit boundaries between planning evidence and execution commitments.
• Test attribution against representative periods, removing double-counting and explaining residuals that require business judgement rather than an automatic balancing category.
• Pilot business-partner meetings using decision questions, action owners and evidence deadlines instead of expanding the existing reporting pack with additional charts.
• Transfer the forecast refresh, attribution controls and review guide through retained-user replays and documented resolution of issues observed during the live cycles.

Candidate qualifications

• Demonstrate at least twelve years in FP&A or business finance with senior services-sector planning responsibility. Provide a forecast or attribution model you personally built or materially redesigned, the operational decision it supported and how its output reconciled to actual results. The engagement requires analytical authorship alongside leadership-level interpretation.
• Show deep capability in price-volume-mix, utilisation, bench and delivery-cost economics. Explain a case where the conventional variance formula was misleading because contract scope, staffing or mix changed, and how you corrected the model without losing reconciliation. Candidates must be able to expose limitations rather than produce false precision.
• Bring practical business-partner facilitation with commercial and delivery leaders. Evidence should show how a review cadence moved from describing past variance to deciding a future action, including the assumption owner and follow-up test. Strong modelling must be matched by a process that retained leaders are willing and able to use.
• Prove fixed-fee delivery with signed definitions, reviewer participation and retained-user transfer. Describe how you handled late data or a sponsor's desire to include unrelated planning problems without compromising milestone acceptance. System familiarity is useful, but this is a finance operating project, not a software implementation or outsourced enterprise planning seat.

Application

Applications for this mandate are received in one way only: through the India Board Terminal's application process. It is automated end to end. Your Executive Passport travels to the mandate holder in its confidential form, your answers to the three questions below are read before anything else in your file, and every stage that follows is recorded on your applications page.

There is no address to write to and no intermediary to call. The mandate holder reads what the Terminal delivers and nothing else, which is what keeps the process the same for every applicant and keeps your name out of it until you release it. Applications close on 13 October 2026. Mandate reference PCT-CON-2026-IND-45.