Sales Forecasting Management - Attitudes towards sales forecasting management in a Swedish retail firm

Abstract

With a larger uncertainty and a more rapid change in today’s business environment, a heavier role to play lies within predicting future sales, also known as sales forecasting. Although prediction becomes more important in order to not lose market shares, not all companies regard the sales forecasting process as a key function within their organization. RESEARCH ISSUE AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY Sales forecasting is common practice in the retail industry but little is known of what methods and techniques are used and what the attitudes towards sales forecasting management are. Since this is not documented and sales forecasting works as an important information input to organizational planning, we will empirically explore and analyze the attitudes towards sales forecasting management and the familiarity with forecasting techniques within the organization of KappAhl. What are the attitudes towards sales forecasting management within different departments involved in the process at KappAhl? -especially the attitudes towards four aspects of current practice; quality, availability, usability and satisfaction METHOD In order to explore and analyze the attitudes towards the sales forecasting process within KappAhl, a questionnaire, regarding this and the familiarity with different forecasting techniques, was sent to people involved with the sales forecasting process. EMPIRICAL FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS Overall, forces within KappAhl desire a more unified view on how to produce and use a sales forecast. If instructions and routines are made clear for the producers, they will give the forecasts a higher credibility since the forecasts become more consistent over time. If old forecasts are followed-up, saved and later used as references for similar situations, it will be easier to achieve a higher rate of accuracy in the future. Implementation of measurements of the accuracy will over time increase the accuracy itself since the follow-up is used to evaluate the performance.