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This article is about sales forecasting in real world markets.

It is designed to summarise the thought processes and proven techniques of sales forecasting in business which form the inspiration for much of Prophecy's functionality.

Forecasting sales is a vital business activity.  Inaccurate forecasts cost your business money and are disruptive to the achievement of targets and goals.  So why conduct the activity of sales forecasting in a sub-optimal software solution?

The 80:20 rule states that 80% of your sales, revenue or profit typically come from the top 20% of your customers.

In our experience, many companies have not checked to see whether the rule applies to them - frequently they are surprised to learn that it actually does!

 Applying the implications of the Pareto rule to sales forecasting allows you to take big steps towards improving the quality of your forecasts and the productivity of your sales forecasting process.

This article contains a link to an Excel spreadsheet you can use to quickly check the 80:20 rule using your own data, as well as recommending in detail the changes to the forecasting process that can be made, should the 80:20 rule apply.

This article explains in detail how many of Prophecy's powerful sales forecasting and analytical features will help your forecasters produce better thought out and more accurate forecasts, plans and budgets in less time.

This white paper (PDF) explains why Prophecy is so appropriate for real-world, multi-user sales forecasting. It aims to summarise the business case for Prophecy in a single article.