Explains quantitative sales forecasting and why a business would construct a sales forecast. Also explains moving averages, variations from trends, forecasting using extrapolation, scatter graphs and limits of sales forecasting
Theme 3 Topic 6
Quantitative Sales Forecasting
Quantitative Sales Forecasting
Sales forecasting – estimating the likely revenues of a product over a future period.
Why do businesses construct a sales forecast?
Identify stage in product lifecycle
Makes cash flow forecast more accurate
Supports achievement of sales maximisation, increase efficiency
Budgets
Predict stock requirements/staff levels
Make decisions on growth/expand/retrench
Moving Averages (Time-Series Analysis)
Moving averages – looks at data over a period of time and averages out the data. Identifies underlying trends
by smoothing out data which is seasonal or erratic.
Three quarter moving averages:
Monthly Sales (£) 3 month moving total (£) 3 month moving average (£)
January 9,000
February 12,000 9,000 + 12,000 + 15,000 = 36,000 36,000/3 = 12,000
March 15,000 12,000 + 15,000 + 15,000 = 42,000 42,000/3 = 14,000
April 15,000 15,000 + 15,000 + 18,000 = 48,000 48,000/3 = 16,000
May 18,000 15,000 + 18,000 + 21,000 = 54,000 54,000/3 = 18,000
June 21,000 48,000 16,000
July 9,000 48,000 16,000
August 18,000 48,000 16,000
September 21,000 63,000 21,000
October 24,000 57,000 19,000
November 12,000 60,000 20,000
December 24,000
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