For any company or online retailer managing large volumes of complex and continuously evolving demand patterns presents a common problem, and that is before you look at the inventory forecasting or demand forecasting. For most companies planning and forecasting inventory demand is guesswork at best.
We sometimes wonder why companies take the risk on guesswork when it comes to demand forecasting especially when the risk is lost sales, increased costs and poor customer service due to inaccurate forecasts, out-of-stocks, overstocks, unsuccessful promotions, markdowns and out-of-season items play havoc with a company’s bottom line.
It does not take complex accounting to figure out that not too many companies can remain profitable by writing off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of inventory on an annual basis or sitting on the shelves due to guesswork and poor demand forecasting.
Over time we have seen many examples of excel demand forecasting templates; however, none of these addresses the full range of fluctuating demand patterns without requiring the use of multiple changes and large amounts of expert intervention.
You can now see why Intuendi has developed our Demand Forecasting Software, the next generation of demand forecasting that addresses the broad, dynamic nature of demand while eliminating the need for multiple changes and significantly reducing the level of intervention and expertise.
Given the costly and detrimental effects of poorly forecasted demand, why aren’t companies giving this aspect of their supply chains more attention? Simply put: it’s not that simple which is why we developed Intuendi Demand Forecasting Software. We set out to solve three key challenges when it comes to demand forecasting:
- Demand frequency can be erratic, intermittent, lumpy, or seasonal—and could be a mixture of all of these. It can also be continuously shifting or evolving in rate and pattern due to trends, product lifecycle stages, or simply just having a previously less complete picture of expected demand occurrences.
- Demand levels can be erratic and/or seasonal. They can also, of course, be influenced by trends, product lifecycle stages, and/or demand frequency continuity and patterns.
- Other external factors such as planned demand, promotions, and holidays (especially those that move from year to year) have significant effects.
Start using Intuendi Demand Forecasting Software and see how we have solved these three key challenges in demand forecasting.
