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8 Reasons Prophecy is the Demand Forecasting Software for your business

Here are some really crucial things we think you should know about Prophecy's approach to demand forecasting and planning:

  1. Forecasting using statistics has limitations

Scales - statistical demand forecasting versus judgement

Statistical demand forecasting is almost never the complete solution or even a major part of the solution. Statistics cannot interpret or successfully predict the timing or magnitude of events like promotional activity, competitor activity, incentives etc. which are behavioural rather than mechanistic in nature. These factors have a much greater influence on short and medium term sales.

In addition, much real-world business forecasting activity is reviewing existing forecasts in the light of another week/period of actuals.  In this environment, new information from customers / evolving promotional activities contributes far more to forecast changes than merely adding another month of actuals to the statistical algorithm.

Prophecy™ naturally comes equipped with a powerful, world-class statistical forecasting engine.  However, business forecasters need much more than just a cookbook of complex statistics.

  1. Prophecy specifically addresses the limitations of statistical forecasting.

Business users and Prophecy

It was developed by an experienced specialist business forecaster, for business forecasters.

Successful business forecasting comes from using commercial peoples' market knowledge and judgement and applying it objectively and thoughtfully to future plans. The business forecaster needs significantly different tools to the library of statistical algorithms which many 'demand forecasting' systems are limited to. Prophecy provides these different tools!

  1. Prophecy lets you extend the benefits by using the same system to forecast & plan prices, revenues and margins

Forecast volume through to money (revenue, margin etc.)

Make Volume forecasting 'meaningful' by extending through revenue, gross margin etc..  Fully integrate volume forecasts into a single company forecast.

Prophecy™ also helps you analyse and track performance versus previous year or budget for any measure (volume or money) at any relevant level of detail.


  1. Prophecy gives business forecasters a protected, secure and easy to use environment in which to generate their forecasts.

Forecasters need to be able to view their forecasts in just the way they want, which varies through time and from person to person, using a minimum of I.T. skills.

Prophecy - a secure forecasting environment

They must be able to navigate quickly and easily through the different levels of product and customer, and to see the effects of the changes they make versus Budget, last year etc. instantly. When it comes to publishing the forecast, they need to be able to share it with other users easily, securely and with no manual processes involved. Prophecy delivers all of this, and much more!

  1. Prophecy lets you integrate Trade Promotions into the overall forecasting process.

Prophecy - a secure forecasting environment

Prophecy has an optional built-in Trade Promotions Planning module, which lets your forecasters manage, forecast, analyse and approve their Trade Promotions.

Excel for demand forecasting
  1. If you are using a  spreadsheet to develop your forecasts, you are missing out on significant predictive aids, insights and views.

Excel lacks the carefully thought-out forecasting functionality that is available to you through a purpose-made demand forecasting solution like Prophecy.

In addition, loading actuals, new products and customers into Excel is complex and error-prone (or, even worse, manual), and the essentially single user nature of spreadsheets really stretches their application in multi-forecaster situations.

Prophecy enables automated actuals, products and customers maintenance, multi-user forecasting and planning, with minimal system maintenance and no manual consolidations.

Prophecy hosts its data in Microsoft SQL Server, which provides infinitely better scaleability than spreadsheet-based solutions, as well as greater resiliance and fallback.

  1. Prophecy is a reliable, always on, multi-user system and allows all forecasters to 'hit' the same database concurrently.

That is a business benefit, not a technical benefit.

Multi-user demand forecasting

Because complexity means cost and controlling costs is a business issue. Prophecy's unique database design stores everybody's forecasts in a single data 'cube'. All forecasters share this cube and can read or write to the cube in real time. 

Prophecy's database design removes the majority of complexities, administrative overhead and duplication of data seen in rival systems, where it is necessary to supply multiple sub-cubes to each forecaster on the network and to subsequently consolidate each sub-cube into a big cube on a weekly or monthly basis.

So, Prophecy takes costs out, by taking out complexity.

  1. Prophecy is exceptionally quick  and easy to implement.

Its database management software is of the same high ease of use standard as its client software.

A Prophecy Script iconProcesses are created via visual click and point techniques and can be saved as Scripts, enabling any user to perform routine pre-prepared database management procedures with just a couple of clicks on a Windows icon.

Prophecy stores its data in a Microsoft SQL Server database, making access from other systems robust and straightforward.

Therefore, Prophecy is cheap to implement, and its ongoing cost of ownership is low.

10 reasons why you should contact Data Perceptions to arrange a Prophecy demo:

  1. It employs the most appropriate forecasting methods for real-world markets.
  2. It minimises reliance on complex and difficult to understand statistical algorithms which are too inaccurate for short and medium term forecasting purposes.
  3. It seamlessly supports multi-user forecasting and workflow.
  4. It elegantly extends to financial measures, enabling a complete and visible single company forecast.
  5. It lets all users monitor and analyse performance of the plan (actuals to date plus forecasts thereafter) against previous years or budgets at any level of detail. Spot issues earlier!
  6. It is easy to use. You do not need to be a statistician or an IT guru to use it productively.
  7. It is easy to implement.
  8. It is easy to manage.
  9. There is nothing similar available.
  10. It is proven and affordable.
Find out more...

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