Purchasing Managers' Index™ and World Economic Service: Smarter Insights and Forecasting

The company needed accurate and consistent sales and demand estimates across a broad range of countries and regions. Team members are frequently required to prepare presentations for the board and investor groups under tight deadlines.

The strategy and planning team faced numerous data-related challenges in connecting near-term shifts in demand with assessments of medium-to long-term prospects. Addressing this effectively required consistent datasets capable of bridging different time horizons.

Their primary needs included:

• Identifying high-growth end markets by analyzing country-specific trends.
• Setting quarterly and annual goals amid volatile conditions.
• Sourcing timely, consistent and frequently updated data across their end markets.

By leveraging the combined power of S&P Global’s Purchasing Managers’ Index^™ (PMI^®) and World Economic Service (WES) solutions, the strategy and planning team gained the consistent insights and forecasts required to navigate a highly uncertain macroeconomic and policy environment over the near- and medium-to-long-term.

Pain Points

The corporate strategy and planning team required access to timely, up-to-date information to support effective decision making. Relying solely on official data to assess the broader economic outlook can be difficult owing to issues such as reporting delays — often several months and subsequent revisions, as well as limited capacity within the team to collate and monitor a wide range of economic indicators.

As such, the team sought a service that could support their aims by:

• Piecing together fragmented time horizons: Providing reliable near-time signals alongside consistent medium- to long-term forecasts to better predict demand and identify new opportunities across end markets.
• Providing greater clarity in identifying inflection turning points: Spotting these shifts using only official data has been challenging for the organization, especially during periods of rapidly changing market conditions.
• Mitigating against issues arising from limited official data availability or lags in release: Official datasets can be incomplete and published with significant lags, making it harder to contextualize current conditions. They are also potentially subject to large revisions in subsequent releases.
• The first half of 2026 is an example. As of late May, national GDP figures were only available up to the first quarter of 2026, with some major economies such as India only having data through the fourth quarter of 2025. Moreover, because the first quarter covered the period spanning the start of the Middle East war, which began on Feb. 28 — any impact from the war in March is masked by the inclusion of January and February in the quarterly GDP data. Hence, even as the conflict rolled into its fourth month, the GDP data provided limited insight into its impact on economic performance. Analysts typically had to wait for second-quarter GDP data, usually available in July and August, to assess the effects of the conflict.

The Solution

The S&P Global Market Intelligence team's wide-ranging, market-leading capabilities in economic analysis and forecasting quickly helped determine which data products would best meet the team’s needs.

PMI data and economic forecasts work in tandem to deliver key insights. Published at the start of each month, PMI data is fully incorporated into the macroeconomic projections, which are updated monthly. This provides firms not only with an outlook for the coming quarter, but also with greater detail on emerging longer-term trends. Being able to identify turning points in vendor performance and new order inflows across key markets can be vital for making informed investment decisions and safeguarding against supply chain shocks.

The availability of real-time data during periods of increased uncertainty and instability is invaluable, with greater knowledge helping to ensure considered and balanced approaches to significant investment or operational decisions. Critically, the availability of forecasts means businesses are better able to map out the medium-to-long-term outlook, which aids the often-complicated task of bringing together disjointed timelines.

Economic forecasts benefit from inputs from an unparalleled range of experts within S&P Global. Areas of expertise include:

• Geopolitical and country risk issues
• Supply chain dynamics
• Energy supply, demand and pricing
• Commodity trends

The Benefits

The team was impressed by the specialists’ presentation from Market Intelligence and gained first-hand insight into the breadth of expertise across the PMI and economics teams, with access to economists and proprietary data that enabled them to better set expectations, sales targets and strategic benchmarks.

Therefore, the team subscribed to PMI and WES is benefiting from:

• Better decision making and improved resiliency amid uncertainty
• Coverage across countries and regions
• Earlier, clearer signals on trend changes
• Access to online publications of reports, press releases, commentary and data
• Direct engagement with experts across a range of issues
• Use of the information and materials in presentations

In today’s complex and dynamic economic environment, companies need to evaluate risks and develop mitigation strategies. The corporate strategy and planning team plays a key role in identifying potential threats and preparing appropriate responses. With economic forecasts covering 68 economies — representing over 90% of global GDP — updated monthly through the Global Link Model (GLM), organizations can run multiple alternative scenarios to assess different future outcomes. These scenario narratives and outputs, accessible via WES, enable teams to better understand potential risks, adapt their strategies proactively and enhance resilience amid ongoing uncertainty.