History

The Peter Meier Forecasting Model was developed by Peter Meier, former Managing Director of Starrag ag, an important manufacturer of machine tools in Eastern Switzerland. The machine tool industry has a very volatile order intake, which makes the forecasting challenging. The most important factor influencing the volatility of order intake in the machine tool industry and also for most other manufacturers of capital goods is the economic cycle.

The uniqueness about our forecasting model is that it can reliably simulate economic cycles and thus also forecast them. We have a very good understanding of how and which economic factors affect the industry and sub-sectors.

After using his forecast model for several years at Starrag, at the end of 1990s Peter Meier went into business for himself and became an independent forecaster. For this purpose, he founded the USP Consulting GmbH. The first customer was Swissmem, the Swiss Association of the Mechanical, Electrical and Metal Industry. Since then the association obtains industry forecasts from us. Shortly afterwards, he was able to acquire the first companies as customers, who received company-specific order forecasts.

The forecast model is proving to be a great success and more and more entrepreneurs are interested in it. His reputation in the industry has grown steadily, not least because he was able to forecast the last three global economic crises, namely the dotcom crisis in 2001, the financial crisis in 2008 and the current crisis, which started as early as 2019.

In 2017, first talks between hpo and Peter Meier took place as he was looking for a successor for his company due to his retirement. After a short time, Peter Meier and hpo signed an agreement. The year 2018 was all about the transfer of know-how and in 2019 USP Consutling GmbH became the property of hpo group ag and was renamed to hpo forecasting ag.

• 1998
  USP Consulting GmbH was founded by Peter Meier
  
• 2017/2018
  Beginnung of cooperation between USP and hpo and Know-How
  
• 2019
  Permission of the exclusive rights forecasting model and renaming of the company to hpo forecasting ag. hpo forecasting ag, like hpo management consulting ag, is a subsidiary of the hpo group. You will find more information about hpo management consulting ag here: www.hpo.ch/en
  
  Publication of the book "The Economy as an Oscillating System" by Hanser Verlag written by the founder of the forecast model, Peter Meier