Cross‐sectional analysis: The new frontier in planning

Cross‐Sectional vs. Time‐Series Analysis. The strategic position of a business is not immutable. It can be altered by external changes in the market it serves, the technology it uses or by a conscious strategic choice. When such changes do occur, a business's own historical experience may be a poor basis for predicting what will happen next. If a planning tool is based solely on the experience of a single business, something may change, causing the time‐series model to fall apart.