BUSINESS FORECASTING is an estimate or prediction of future developments in business such as sales, expenditures, and profits. Given the wide swings in economic activity and the drastic effects these fluctuations can have on profit margins, it is not surprising that business forecasting has emerged as one of the most important aspects of corporate planning. Forecasting has become an invaluable tool for businesspeople to anticipate economic trends and prepare themselves either to benefit from or to counteract them. If, for instance, businesspeople envision an economic downturn, they can cut back on their inventories, production quotas, and hiring’s. If, on the contrary, an economic boom seems probable, those same businesspeople can take necessary measures to attain the maximum benefit from it. Good business forecasts can help business owners and managers adapt to a changing economy

Professionals in planning functions who want to enhance their skill set

Students looking to build a career in Business Forecasting

Course will help management to implement strategic objectives, strategies, processes, planning and controlling. One of the primary focuses of operations management is to effectively manage the resources of an organization so that the organization can maximize the potential of the products or services produced or offered by the company.

Introduction

Need for planning and forecasting

Supply Chain Flow and Product Hierarchy

The 4 Ws of the Forecasting Process

Introduction to Forecasting Techniques

Introduction to Business Planning and Forecasting Recap

Data Cleansing

Introduction to Data Cleansing

Detecting Outliers

Statistical Outliers

Business Event Outliers

Correcting Outliers

Outlier Detection and Correction Using Forecasting Software

Data Cleansing Recap

Simple Forecasting Models

Simple Methods and Their Utility

Introduction to Simple Moving Average

The Same As Last Year

Simple Forecasting Models Recap

Exponential Smoothing

Introduction to Exponential Smoothing

Exponential Smoothing Family

Understanding Additive and Multiplicative Seasonality

Smoothing Constants

Importance of data length

Exponential Smoothing - Pros and Cons

Choosing the Right Exponential Smoothing Model

Exponential Smoothing - Examples and Computations

Exponential Smoothing Modelling Recap

Introduction to ARIMA

Components of ARIMA

Reading the ARIMA model

Intermittent & Discrete Data Models

Intermittent Demand Series

Reading Croston's Intermittent Demand

Pros and Cons of Croston's Intermittent Data Model

Discrete Data Series

Intermittent and Discrete Data Models Recap

Error Measurement

Introduction to Error and Improvement Measurement

Measure of Model Fitment R - Squared

Behavioral Measure Bias

Popular Quantitative Measures

Process Measure Forecast Value Add

Analyzing the Error

Error Measurement Recap

New Product Forecasting Using Machine Learning

Introduction

Need For New Product

New Product Classification

Types of New Product Forecasting

Forecasting by Analogy

Similar Product Selection by Machine Learning

Best Product Pick

Forecasting for new to the world product

Planning Function & Process

Introduction to Planning Function

Key objectives and best practices

Key planner skills and success commandments

Functional roles and responsibilities

Consensus process and forecast cycle

Top Down approach

Using POS and Syndicated Data