Chapter 4

Managing Sales Information

Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press

Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information

Market demand forecasting

marketing decision support system

- an MDSS is an ongoing future-oriented information structure designed
to collect, collate, categorize, edit, store, and retrieve information on
demand to aid decision making in an organizations sales and marketing
programme

Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press

Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information

Marketing decision support system

TRANSACTIONAL SYSTEMS

USERS

MDSS

Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press

Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information

Forecasting process

The forecasting process is defined as the series of decisions and

actions taken by a business organization in:
identifying the forecasting objectives
determining the independent and
dependent variables
developing a forecasting procedure
using the available data in the
selected method to estimate the sales in
future

Copyright 2011 Oxford University Press

Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information

Forecasting process contd.

Develop forecasting
procedure

Determine
independent and
dependent variables

Evaluate performance
results against the
forecasts

Select forecasting
analysis method
Comprehend total
forecasting procedure

Collect, collate,
gather and analyze
data
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Forecast objectives

Present all the

assumptions about
data

Make and finalize

the forecast

Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information

Popular methods in forecasting

Qualitative methods

Expert
opinion

Survey of
buyers
expectation

Sales force
composite

Delphi
technique
History analogy

Quantitative methods

Test marketing
Moving average
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Nave method

Trend method

Regression
method

Exponential
smoothening
Chapter 4: Managing Sales Information