If products are your business, success is a balancing act. You need to be able to actively and effectively secure sales and efficiently manage the process of getting goods to the customer.

Given the inextricable interdependencies of sales and operations planning, ongoing success for a growing or large business is only feasible if you’re able to accurately forecast demand and integrate forecasting into your sales and marketing plans.

Accurate, integrated forecasting gives you the ability to strategically direct your businesses to achieve competitive advantage on a continuous basis:

optimise marketing, sales, financial control and purchasing
formulate effective marketing strategies for products
accurately set purchasing quotas
confidently and cost-effectively schedule advertising expenditures and sales promotions
establish operating budgets and manage cash flow and capital budget / expenditure decisions
reduced excess inventory
fewer stock shortages which result when demand exceeds supply
fewer unnecessary production line changes to fulfil unanticipated demand
improved customer service levels as supply and demand balance
more economic purchasing power

At STL Warehousing, we have more than 10 years’ experience in forecasting, sales and operations planning, so we have the forecasting, sales and operations planning expertise required to help you balance the need for stock against the cost and the timing.

In our forecasting, sales and operations planning service, we:

Consider the factors that influence forecast accuracy (including availability of product, demand history, capability of computer system, other available history (i.e., new products, design changes, changes in customer base, promotional actions, economic indicators)

determine the items to be forecast and how far in the future it should extend
determine how frequently should the forecast be made, reviewed and revised
determine an acceptable tolerance of forecast error

condition the data by removing the effects of unusual events (outliers) that are not likely to happen again

consider problems that may require data adjustments, such as unusual weather, addition or loss of major customers, special promotions, and changes in price or package size.

determine the most accurate forecasting method

devise an ABC-analysis of the items to forecast: A-items are reviewed each month by management, whereas only those B- and C-items with a significant deviation between forecast and actual demand need to be reviewed by management

have marketing, sales and logistics talk to each other using a common language and set of guidelines