Sales Forecasting

A quantitive method of predicting what a firms future sales will be. Uses quantitive methods to estimate the future dale levels and trends over a specific period of time

Benefits of Sales Forecasting

Operations: can help with production schedule, capacity needs to expand HR: increases staff, make redundancies, train workers for new areas Marketing: new marketing campaigns, reductions in prices to increase slowing sales, introduction of new products Finance: monitor cash flow, invest or wait on new projects, find sources of finance

Drawbacks of Sales Forecasting

- Time consuming, especially if variation are taken into account. can change rapidly and needs to be redone - New business cannot use it because they do not have enough sales - interpretation of data can be biased by the person reading it, can be seen as good or bad.