There are many cases in forecasting and demand planning, allowing you to take advantage of market intelligence and economic factors. For example, weather forecasts could help you improve your short-term forecasts or foresee a potential growth in longer-term demand. Knowing about the promotions of your products can help you define correctly their working and safety stocks. Finally, the information about the prices of your product and your competitors’ products can be useful in forecasting and demand planning.

Although this may seem obvious, few companies take full advantage of forecasting models which take this information into account. The most common practice is to use judgment. However, a recent study conducted by the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting has shown that judgmental forecasts are often less accurate than the forecasts using appropriate forecasting techniques. If you include promotions in the forecasting model, than the Forecast Value Added may increase up to 15% in comparison with judgmentally adjusted statistical forecasts.

Lancaster Centre for Forecasting gives courses on Business Forecasting with Marketing and Economic Drivers. We explain how one can take advantage of external information in forecasting and improve forecasting accuracy.

If you would like to find out more, please visit courses page with the full programme and prices.