Abstract: The disclosure relates to a method for creating an improved forecasting model. The method includes identifying a plurality of drivers affecting actual sales or demand of a product or service; receiving a respective data set for each of the drivers; generating one or more lagged data sets for each driver by applying lags to the data set associated with the driver; for each driver: forming a group of data sets by grouping the data set associated with the driver with the lagged data sets for the driver; and selecting a data set in the group of data sets that best correlates with sales or demand changes of the product or service; determining which one or more of the selected data sets for the drivers increases forecasting accuracy for sales or demand of the product or service; and training a forecasting model using the one or more selected data sets.