spend more time adding value to the demand forecast. eliminate mundane, repetitive and mechanical tasks.
How much time is spent on the mundane, mechanical aspects of your forecasting process? How much delay is added by these processes, leaving less time to actually develop a considered forecast?
These tasks add no value to the forecasts, other than putting you in a position to start forecasting.The diagram below shows some, but by no means all, of the time-wasting mechanical aspects of demand forecasting.
What does each element have in common? Not one of them actually helps to make a better forecast! They are a prerequisite to allow you to start forecasting. A significant part of the forecasting process is frequently consumed by these activities.
Prophecy helps you reallocate time from non-value-added to value added activities.
The next section, 'The Solution', shows the types of activity that add value to the forecasting process. Prophecy helps the forecaster with these tasks too, by presenting and analysing data in the most helpful, flexible ways and through state of the art statistical forecasting models.
Here is a diagram showing all the 'value added' aspects of the demand forecasting process that Prophecy will help you achieve:
Prophecy empowers the forecaster, who has an intimate knowledge of the detailed
dynamics
of how products sell within your customers, to develop demand forecasts that they
are accountable for and believe in.
In fact, the human forecasters rather than the software are the most important aspect of the demand forecast
improvement
process. But they need the time and tools to apply their skills, and Prophecy gives
them the best possible tool. Prophecy offers 3 modes of statistical forecasting
- batch, wizard and on-demand, but the power to accept, reject or change a statistical forecast definitely needs to reside with the business forecaster.
What's more, a statistical forecast algorithm is unlikely to magically improve the quality of its forecasts with just one more observation added to the history. Therefore the review and update process needs to come mainly from the forecaster's knowledge of changing events and trends.
That's why Prophecy is right for real-world business forecasters - it gives them the appropriate tools they need in a easy to use, friendly, robust and secure environment.