Short-Horizon Forecasts
Forecasting in a marketing and sales environment presents specific challenges and opportunities. One challenge is the need to produce very detailed forecasts very quickly to help in tuning promotions or directing sales activities. Forecast Server can automatically detect day-of-week and day-of-month effects, holiday patterns, promotion impacts, disruptions, and other factors affecting short-term forecasts. What's more, Forecast Server can be tied directly to your point of sale or other real-time data source to give you instant, top-quality forecasts.
Long-Horizon Forecasts
Long-term planning requires a completely different set of forecast methods. Forecast Server supports model-based approaches that reflect product lifecycle effects, the impact of competitors on market share, cannibalization and churn, price sensitivity, even macro-economic impacts such as recession-recovery patterns. Long-horizon forecasts often rely more on soft data, such as management insight, than hard facts, such as historical sales. Forecast Server has the tools and integrated workflow features required to combine all available data into the most accurate forecasts possible.
Collaborative Forecasting
Forecast Server is built on the Assumption Owner concept. That is, forecasting usually involves the insight of many people spread throughout an organization; and, it is best to delegate the responsibility for managing each key assumption in a forecast to the specific individual who is in the best position to understand the assumption. For example, if your goal is to produce a worldwide forecast for your products, you might want to have each regional manager own the forecasts for sales in their region.
Forecast Server supports this kind of forecasting by allowing you to dissect a forecast into its parts and assign each part to an Assumption Owner. Owners can manage their individual forecasts from anywhere in the world using an intuitive and rich Web-based user interface. Forecast Server manages all details associated with authentication, version control, rollback, currency translations, and other logistical issues while giving Assumption Owners a powerful set of tools to help in their analyses.
Let Us Help
Forecast Server can be configured to work within virtually any IT environment and can automate a wide variety of forecasting tasks from data collection to executive-level reporting. Call +1-919-859-4101 to speak with a Vanguard representative and find out if Forecast Server is right for your specific project.
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