Key Point: Coefficient of Variation is not a perfect measure of forecastability. However, if used properly, it can add value to a business’s forecasting process. In the world of forecasting, one of the key questions to consider is the forecastability of a particular set of data. For example, a salesman might consistently be better at
You have a favorite forecast accuracy metric(s) you’ve been practicing within the organization for a while, and now you think you are ready to bring it to the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) meeting as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of your demand planning process. But you are not sure exactly how to go about
I spent some time discussing MAPE and WMAPE in prior posts. In this post, I will discuss Forecast BIAS. Forecast BIAS can be loosely described as a tendency to either Forecast BIAS is described as a tendency to either over-forecast (meaning, more often than not, the forecast is more than the actual), or under-forecast (meaning, more often
In our line of work at Arkieva, when we ask this question of business folks: What is your forecast accuracy? Depending on who we ask in the same business, we can get a full range of answers from 50% (or lower) to 95% (or higher). How is this possible? Imagine a management team being given
Key Points on MAPE: Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE) is a useful measure of forecast accuracy and should be used appropriately. Because of its limitations, one should use it in conjunction with other metrics. While a point value of the metric is good, the focus should be on the trend line to ensure that the
Extending sales and operations collaboration requires a clear articulation of business rules and information transfers. As a result, knowing exactly what questions to ask is crucial. In this short blog series, I will provide a list of questions to ask the various roles and people involved in the S&OP process. These questions can make a
In our last post, Sujit discussed the importance of gathering input from participants as a way to mitigate biases. In this post, I will explain why the sales team should be required participants and what their influence is on the forecasting process.
Recently, someone forwarded a Live Science web link to me. The web page had information on how human brains are able to read words and make sense of them even when the letters are jumbled up. The website suggested that it was possible for a human brain to make sense of the words as long