The small and medium-sized business segment is growing – in the US and worldwide – and SAS has the expertise and drive to support them. Nowhere was that more evident than at the SAS headquarters when Susan Duchesneau, Head of North America SMB Practice at SAS, welcomed more than 100
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
"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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
