business forecasting Posts

Tag: business forecasting

Advanced Analytics | Analytics | Data Management | Data Visualization

Charlie ChaseApril 26, 2022 0

Misnomers regarding outliers and their usefulness in statistical modeling

Outliers provide much-needed insights into the actual relationships that influence the demand for products in the marketplace. They are particularly useful when modeling consumer behavior where abnormalities are common occurrences or unforeseen disruptions that impact consumer demand. But why do demand planners cleanse out outliers, when many are not really

English

Manufacturing | Retail

Analytics

Mike GillilandMay 19, 2021 0

Issues, current state and future direction of business forecasting (book excerpt)

Last week Len Tashman, Udo Sglavo and I announced release of our new collection: Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. Today, we share an excerpt from the book, one of the sixteen opinion/editorial "Afterwords" contributed by influential leaders in academics and industry, this one by

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Analytics

Mike GillilandMay 11, 2021 0

(new book) Business Forecasting: The emerging role of AI and ML

With my collaborators Len Tashman (Editor of Foresight) and Udo Sglavo (VP of Analytics R&D at SAS), we are happy to announce the release of our new collection, Business Forecasting: The Emerging Role of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (Wiley, 2021). Building upon our previous collection Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and

English

Advanced Analytics | Machine Learning

Charlie ChaseSeptember 27, 2017 0

Is demand sensing and shaping a key component of your company’s digital supply chain transformation?

Depending on who you speak with you will get varying definitions and opinions regarding demand sensing and shaping from sensing short-range replenishment based on sales orders to manual blending of point-of-sales (POS) data and shipments. Most companies think that they are sensing demand when in fact they are

English

Manufacturing | Retail

Advanced Analytics | Analytics | Machine Learning

Charlie ChaseMay 18, 2017 0

Straight talk about forecasting and machine learning

Are you caught up in the machine learning forecasting frenzy? Is it reality or more hype? There's been a lot of hype about using machine learning for forecasting. And rightfully so, given the advancements in data collection, storage, and processing along with technology improvements, such as super computers and more powerful

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Manufacturing | Retail

Data Management | Machine Learning

Charlie ChaseOctober 7, 2016 0

Machine learning changes the way we forecast in retail and CPG

Machine learning is taking a significant role in many big data initiatives today. Large retailers and consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies are using machine learning combined with predictive analytics to help them enhance consumer engagement and create more accurate demand forecasts as they expand into new sales channels like the

English

Manufacturing | Retail

Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandAugust 19, 2016 0

Business Forecasting book review in JBF

Book Review in Journal of Business Forecasting The Summer 2016 issue of Journal of Business Forecasting includes a book review of Business Forecasting: Practical Problems and Solutions. The review is by Simon Clarke, Group Director of Forecasting at The Coca-Cola Company. You may be familiar with Clarke's many previous contributions

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandJune 10, 2016 0

Practical advice for better business forecasting

SAS® Insights is a section of the sas.com website devoted to being "your top source for analytics news and views." It contains articles, interviews, research reports, and other content from both SAS and non-SAS contributors. In a new article posted this week, we added three short videos containing practical advice

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandFebruary 11, 2016 0

Model interpretability in forecasting

"The Role of Model Interpretability in Data Science" is a recent post on Medium.com by Carl Anderson, Director of Data Science at the fashion eyeware company Warby Parker. Anderson argues that data scientists should be willing to make small sacrifices in model quality in order to deliver a model that

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandOctober 26, 2015 0

Highlights from IBF Orlando

Last week I had the pleasure of attending (with six of my SAS colleagues) the IBF's Best Practices Forecasting Conference in Orlando. Some of the highlights: Charlie Chase and I were interviewed by Russell Goodman of SupplyChainBrain.com. The videos will be posted on SCB's website later this year. Meantime, enjoy

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandAugust 28, 2015 0

Fall 2015 forecasting education opportunities

You may not be in London on October 7 to take advantage of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting's free workshop on promotional forecasting. However, there are still plenty of forecasting educational opportunities coming up this fall: SAS Business Knowledge Series Best Practices in Demand-Driven Forecasting (Chicago, September 24-25) My colleague

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandAugust 21, 2015 0

Judgmental adjustments to the forecast

So you think you can outsmart your statistical forecast? Apparently, lots of people do. In "Judgmental Adjustments to Forecasts in the New Economy" (Foresight, Issue 38 (Summer 2015), 31-36), Manzoor Chowdhury and Sonia Manzoor argue that forecasters are becoming more dependent on judgmental adjustments to a statistical forecast. Sometimes this

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Data Management

Charlie ChaseMarch 12, 2015 0

Are you using downstream data to improve forecast accuracy?

Downstream data have been electronically available on a weekly basis since the late 1980s. But most companies have been slow to adopt downstream data for planning and forecasting purposes. Let's look at why that is. Downstream data is data that originates downstream on the demand side of the value chain. Examples

Manufacturing

Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandNovember 14, 2014 0

Gaming the forecast

Business forecasting is a highly politicized process, subject to the biases and personal agendas of all forecasting process participants. This is why many -- perhaps most -- human adjustments to the forecast fail to make it better. And this is why relative metrics, such as FVA, are so helpful in

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Advanced Analytics | Analytics

Mike GillilandOctober 8, 2014 0

Significant Digits in Business Forecasting

My favorite dog trick is the group hug. This is achieved by taking a dog's bad habit (rising up on strangers who don't really want a 70# dog rising up on them), and "flipping it" into something cute and adorable. It's all a matter of controlling perception, and that is

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Advanced Analytics

Jack HymansonJuly 17, 2014 0

Beyond sensing and shaping... Beyond supply and demand

What is your primary goal as a supply chain professional? It’s not about demand sensing, demand shaping or even supply planning and demand planning. At the end of the day, it’s about profit optimization. Albeit important, demand sensing and shaping are only a piece of the equation and if isolated, decisions

Manufacturing

Mike GillilandFebruary 14, 2014 0

The miracle of combining forecasts

Life gifts us very few miracles. So when a miracle happens, we must be prepared to embrace it, and appreciate its worth. In 1947, in New York City, there was the Miracle on 34th Street. In 1980, at the Winter Olympics, there was the miracle on ice. In 1992, at the Academy Awards, there was

Mike GillilandFebruary 5, 2013 0

Business forecasting effectiveness at the APICS Triangle Chapter (February 12)

If you happen to be in Raleigh, NC next Tuesday evening, please come out for the APICS Triangle Chapter professional development meeting, 6:00-8:00 pm. While I can't make any promises about the caliber of the evening's speaker (me), you are assured a good meal and good conversation with representatives from

Analytics

Courtney PetersJanuary 30, 2013 0

Forecasting improves search revenues by 300 percent for midsize business

To read more ongoing tips and insights for small and midsize businesses, follow our SAS4SMB blog series or visit SAS for Small and MidSize Business. We all wish we could predict the future. After all, when a company knows its sales for next week, next month and next year, it

Mike GillilandSeptember 26, 2012 0

Could you be POTUS?

Business forecasting is a dismal field of endeavor, fit for dismal people like myself. In an attempt to make this field interesting to people who aren't so dismal by nature, our friends at PollyVote Election Forecasting ask the question: Could you be President of the United States? The PollyVote project is

Advanced Analytics

Udo SglavoSeptember 1, 2011 0

Your forecast is almost accurate

Emails – it’s hard to imagine that there used to be a time people worked without them – at least in our industry. When I started at SAS in 1996 the amount of business email I received on a particular day was almost less than the amount of spam mails

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Tag: business forecasting