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Forecastin
What is
forecasting?
decisions
Production
Inventory
Personnel productivity
Facilities
Types of
forecasting
Qualitative Forecasting
Methods
Quantitative Methods
Explanatory Methods
Time-series Methods
Qualitative
Forecasting
Quantitative Methods
Quantitative methods use numbers -- sales numbers, web traffic
numbers, the amount of new accounts or cancellations of existing
accounts -- for a specific period depending on the breadth of the
forecast being performed.
Quantitative methods can be further broken down into
explanatory methods and time-series methods.
Explanatory Methods
Explanatory forecasting methods use data to attempt to explain trends
and to forecast future market direction based on existing data. These
consider past performance and marketing trends, such as consumer
spending reports and consumer confidence indexes, to attempt to
determine the future path for a certain product, website or company.
Explanatory methods involve looking at market activity to explain how
and why trends occurred, not just to predict what will occur. Because the
"how" is important here, this method is different than a time-series
method which just considers what the future trends will be.
Seasonal Patterns
Data points variances measured and compared from year to
year can reveal seasonal fluctuation patterns that can serve as the
basis for future forecasts. This type of information is of particular
importance to markets whose products fluctuate seasonally, such
Trend Analysis
Trend