The most successful organizations have a strong sales forecasting function, which allows them to precisely design their operations to match expected sales levels. In the Effective Sales Forecasting course, we discuss how to construct a robust forecasting system. Topics covered include the drivers of forecast accuracy, the forecasting process, sales forecasting techniques, detecting cresting sales, structural improvements to the process, related Excel tools, and how to measure forecast effectiveness.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the problems associated with sales forecasting


• Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each approach to sales forecasting, as well as the situations in which each one works best


• Describe the forecasting method in which a smoothing constant is used


• Recall the information revealed by the correlation coefficient


• List the different methods that can be used to expand sales


• Determine the impacts of constraints on projected sales


• Present the structural improvements that can be applied to the sales forecasting process


• Define the forecast modeling options available within Excel, and the information they provide


• Summarize how forecasting error information is used