Question

11. You are responsible for the Demand Forecasting group at a mid-size company. Six weeks into the fiscal year, you are called to a meeting with two days of notice with the vice-president of sales, one of the finance directors and the company president. This is in reference to an email from executive leadership that the sales goals and plans are mis-aligned with your fiscal year forecast. It seems that your forecasts are 3.8% below sales plans and 3.5% below sales goals. How will you approach this meeting and what information will you use for the meeting?

Answer 1

I have been assigned a very important responsibility for the demand forecasting of a company. The sales plan and the sales goals are more than that of the demand forecast. So at the meeting, I will have to provide clarification and convince them about the reason for the difference between the expected demand and sales. I will put through the following information based on which, I have made the demand forecasting-

1. The company's reviews for each quarter of the business scenario. ie. to consider the important factors that affect the demand for things in per quarter.

2. The economic scenario of similar competitive industries at present. What is the condition of the market as well as that of the economic conditions of the customers? I will furnish the current economic factors that will affect the demand

3. I will show them the previous years's demand, based on which this year's demand forecasting has been predicted.

4. I will try to conduct a rolling forecast in these two days' time to give them a more appropriate long term forecasting of demand.

5. Then I will again tally the result with the expected sales plan and goal and give them an accurate result and in this way, I will try to prove my point.