BNET Business Dictionary
Business Definition for: Forecasting
- the prediction of outcomes, trends, or expected future behavior of a business, industry sector, or the economy through the use of statistics. Forecasting is an operational research technique used as a basis for management planning and decision making. Common types of forecasting include trend analysis, regression analysis, Delphi technique, time series analysis, correlation, exponential smoothing, and input-output analysis.
Additional Resources
- Is Forecasting Really Worth the Effort?
- Is Forecasting Really Worth the Effort?RE: Is Forecasting Really Worth the Effort?Are you serious?Yes forecasts aren't always accurate but that's not the point. The most successful sales teams forecast accurately because they understand the market and thier customers. Forecasting is more important as an early warning system - that allows...
- Discussion threads 2008-09-17
- Why "Scientific Forecasting" Flops
- Sales forecasting in most firms is a mess. The alternative -- scientific forecasting with a computerized market model -- is a proven solution. Why then is scientific forecasting so rare? The answer is fear, on the part of everyone involved. Sales reps are worried ...
- Blog posts 2007-08-02
- How to Fix Your Forecasting
- Since scientific forecasting isn't going to happen inside most firms, what's the best way to turn the forecasting process into something useful? It's not impossible, but it requires some extra work on the part of sales management. Here are the four steps: Redefine your sales process in terms of...
- Blog posts 2007-08-03
- The Sales Forecasting Techniques
- Many sales managers do not recognize that sales forecasting is their responsibility. In this paper we summarized techniques that manager used into two types: qualitative and quantitative techniques. This paper also discusses the use of computer software in sales forecasting in Serbia. Forecasting activity should help managers to make better...
- White papers 2006-05-17
- Forecasting Can Be a Waste of Time
- A couple of days ago, in the post "Is Forecasting Really Worth the Effort?" I suggested that the effort expended in building sales forecasts from the bottom-up (i.e. asking reps what they think they will sell) was pretty much a waste of time.  This was an issue that I also...
- Blog posts 2008-09-18
- New forecasting tool from SAS
- SAS (sas.com) has introduced High-Performance Forecasting, an analytics-driven product built on the SAS 9 Intelligence Platform. SAS says its new offering provides large-scale automated forecasting that allows companies to reduce forecasting error, increaSAS (sas.com) has introduced High-Performance Forecasting, an analytics-driven product built on the SAS 9 Intelligence Platform. SAS says...
- Research articles 2004-11-01
- Forecasting Can Be a Waste of Time
- Forecasting Can Be a Waste of TimeRE: Forecasting Can Be a Waste of TimeGood point vrsarti. Thats why most sales managers always lowball a forecast. Why sales reps don't even bring up what they know is close to a close in their forecasting. It always gets upped to what the...
- Discussion threads 2008-09-19
- An Application to Forecasting Inflation in Canada
- This paper evaluates the forecasting performance of factor models for Canadian inflation. This type of model was introduced and examined by Stock and Watson (1999a), who have shown that it is quite promising for forecasting U.S. inflation. Using a dimension-reduction method similar to traditional principal-components analysis, we extract a small...
- White papers 2001-11-01
- Forecasting The Future
- Most people consider demand forecasting as a job, which does not require any kind of specialized skills. . However, good forecasting depends the activeness of warehouse facility. Demand forecasting is the ability to forecast the demand that will remain constant all through the customer base. The process of good forecasting...
- White papers 2000-05-01
- Forecasting for Marketing
- There's a ton of research on forecasting, and many studies have tested different forecasting methods to find out which are most effective. This paper takes a look at the evidence and provides some useful managerial guidelines for business forecasting. The selection tree for deciding on the best forecasting method is...
- White papers 2004-09-23
- Large-Scale Automatic Forecasting: Millions of Forecasts
- Web sites and transactional databases collect large amounts of time-stamped data. Businesses often want to make future predictions forecasts based on numerous sets of time-stamped data sets of transactions. There are many time series analysis techniques related to forecasting, and an experienced analyst can effectively use these techniques to analyze,...
- White papers 2001-08-07
- Forecasting: Another Victim of the Financial Crisis?
- The Find: The credit crisis has claimed another victim: forecasting, with managers at nearly half of organizations offering knee-jerk reactions to developments rather than laying out a long term strategy. The Source: Research from KPMG UK. The Takeaway: When KPMG interviewed senior executives at...
- Blog posts 2009-04-06
- Forecasting Sales: The Importance Of Forecasting In Business Planning
- Forecasting has been described as an attempt to foresee the future by examining historical data and patterns and applying judgment to projections created from those patterns. Forecasting technicians might say that the art of forecasting consists of generating unbiased estimates of the future value of some variable, such as sales,...
- White papers 2008-12-18
- Business Forecasting: What Do You Expect?
- Forecasting demand is a serious challenge to most organizations. As Mark Twain famously said, "the art of prophecy is very difficult, especially with respect to the future." Difficult, yes, but essential. Demand forecasts are used for all manner of planning purposes -- from capital budgeting to raw materials ordering to...
- Blog posts 2007-06-28
- Sales Forecasting
- Sales forecasting is a difficult area of management. The Reasons for undertaking sales forecasts is businesses are forced to look well ahead in order to plan their investments, launch new products, decide when to close or withdraw products and so on. The sales forecasting process is a critical...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Approaches to Sales Forecasting
- This article is about forecasting in real world markets. It does not mention Prophecy or Data Perceptions once! It is designed to convey the approach to business forecasting which formed the inspiration for much of Prophecy's functionality. Real world markets are difficult to forecast using statistics because the events which...
- White papers 2003-03-03
- The Salesperson's Role in the Sales Forecasting Process
- The article starts with the fact that as the competition in markets for products and services continue to become more intense, it is imperative for organizations to improve their attempts to plan for the future. This non-empirical paper looks at past research as it applies to the roles of salespeople...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- The Wild, Wild, West of Sales Forecasting
- Forecasting and meeting revenue targets will continue to be the most important job for even the roughest, toughest senior sales executive. Forecasting revenue targets and communicating revenue expectations is too important a task for the Sales Vice President to delegate down to the individual sales rep.The VP of Sales'...
- White papers 2003-01-01
- Revenue Forecasting - How Is It Done? Results From a Survey of Low-Income Countries
- This paper takes stock of revenue forecasting practices in low-income countries, and provides a comprehensive and condensed account of the revenue forecasting process. Based on a new dataset on 34 low-income countries, it catalogues forecasting practices and procedures from inception until budget submission, focusing primarily on institutional aspects and processes....
- White papers 2005-02-01
- The Political Economy of Revenue-Forecasting Experience From Low-Income Countries
- This paper analyzes interference and timeliness in the revenue-forecasting process, using new data on revenue-forecasting practices in low-income countries. Interference is defined as the occurrence of a significant deviation from purely technical forecasts. A theoretical model explains forecasting interference through government corruption. The data broadly supports the model, and the...
- White papers 2005-01-01
