Forecasting Software

Vanguard offers a comprehensive set of solutions for improving the quality, reliability, and speed of budgeting and forecasting activities throughout your organization. Not only is Vanguard's business forecasting software the most accurate available, it also makes the process of creating forecasts easy.

Whether you have data warehouses full of historical data or only your best management estimates, Vanguard helps you produce the highest quality forecasts possible using Wizard-style guides, easy-to-assemble models, and interactive Web reports.

Powerful Forecasting Methods

Unlike most forecasting software, Vanguard combines all three proven forecasting methods into a unified solution.

• Time-series forecasting: Supports 21 different techniques to extrapolate trends and patterns from your historical data.
• Simulation-based forecasting: Evaluates thousands of scenarios based on your assumptions when historical data is scarce.
• Statistical forecasting: Automatically finds the relationships between multiple inputs and your business outcomes.

Vanguard walks you through each step in the forecasting process using Wizard-style guides. However, for more programmatic control, you also can manually access Vanguard's forecast engine.

Collaborative Business Forecasting

When forecasting knowledge is spread throughout your organization, Vanguard directly involves key individuals in a collaborative forecasting process. Each individual builds a component model that represents his or her piece of the forecast. Vanguard then assembles all of the components to create the complete forecast. The intricate complexities of aggregating the component models when they are built by people in different countries using different currencies, different time scales, different update schedules, etc., are all handled automatically by Vanguard.

Beyond the Forecast

Vanguard lets you go beyond forecasting by telling you exactly what drives your forecast and what you can do about it.

• What-if analysis: Checks your forecasts under critical scenarios.
• Sensitivity analysis: Reviews your forecasts and determines which factors have the greatest impacts.
• Forecast optimization: Determines the best possible decisions in order to improve future outcomes.

In addition, forecasts are always inputs to some other decision-making process within an organization; so, Vanguard lets you dynamically link your forecasts to these processes. For example, Manufacturing can directly link to product demand forecasts from Marketing and Sales and use them in real-time to optimally schedule production as part of a Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) activity.

Forecasting Software Comparisons

Vanguard offers four products for business foresting:

• Operational Forecasting Suite
• Strategic Forecasting Suite
• Business Analytics Suite
• Vanguard System

The following sections will help you decide which product best fits your needs. You can use the Product Comparison Chart for a quick overview of each product's capabilities.

Operational Forecasting Suite

The Operation Forecasting Suite is designed to prepare time-series forecasts in support of operational planning. To use this product you must have a good set of historical data on which to base the forecasts and your underlying business conditions must be stable. With these conditions, the Operational Forecasting Suite can generate very accurate forecasts.

Vanguard's underlying forecast engine has ranked first in accuracy in every benchmark we have ever performed using published data sets. The product also support unlimited batch forecasting, giving you the ability to forecast demand for thousands of SKUs at a time.

For more details, refer to the Operational Forecasting Suite product page.

Strategic Forecasting Suite

The Strategic Forecasting Suite includes all of the capabilities of the Operational Forecasting Suite, plus the ability to build Monte Carlo Simulation models. This product is ideal in cases where you have limited or no historical data, such as in planning a new product development, choosing the appropriate marketing plan, or understanding the risks your business faces.

Vanguard's Monte Carlo simulation engine is the fastest available in any commercial product. Vanguard even supports Grid-based computing to give you the ability to perform simulations in seconds that would otherwise take days to prepare with spreadsheet-based models.

For more details, refer to the Strategic Forecasting Suite product page.

Business Analytics Suite

The Business Analytics Suite includes all of the capabilities of the Operational and Strategic Forecasting Suites, plus the ability to perform decision tree analysis and business optimizations. This product is designed for professional modelers who need the highest level of functionality.

Once you have generated a good prediction model, the next step in business planning is to use the model to test alternative plans in the search for the optimal plan. The Business Analytics Suite includes a very powerful optimizer that can automatically find the optimal business strategy for you.

Vanguard's Stochastic Optimizer can solve any optimization problem. There are no requirements regarding linearity, discontinuities, or other model characteristics that limit virtually all other optimization tools. The Stochastic Optimizer even supports Grid-based computing, making it possible to solve massive problems using spare CPU time on your colleagues' desktop computers.

For more details, refer to the Business Analytics Suite product page.

Vanguard System

Each of the products above is deployed as a single-user desktop application. The Vanguard System supports all of the capabilities of all of the products above, but is deployed as a Web-based, client server application that supports many users. The server-based delivery makes it possible to collaborate on large modeling projects and it lets you link your models to internal applications.

For more details, refer to the Vanguard System product page.

Vanguard's Forecast Server lets users prepare batch forecasts using a Web browser interface.

Vanguard will automatically find the best forecast method and parameters to fit your historical data.

You can override Vanguard's selection of forecast method, parameters, or both.

Advanced Outlier Rejection technology will automatically identify missing data or inconsistent data that should be excluded from your forecast analysis.

Vanguard's Outlier Rejection will even detect level shifts that are common when the addition or deletion of inventory items affects a related item.