Forecasting Methods for Companies

1449 Words3 Pages

Abstract

Companies forecast in different ways and for different reasons. For the sake of my current employer, some of the reasons to why they forecast is to ensure that there are plenty of cellular phones in stock or even to make sure that the company has enough numbers to assign to customers when they purchase wireless service from us. The following paper will compare and contrast various forecasting methods while also elaborating on the method that my current employer use for forecasting sales and mobile identification number (MDN) requirements.

Forecasting Assignment

Forecasting is the ability to plan ahead for future expectations of what the future may hold. For example, business forecast every year for what they feel that particular company should accomplish. A sales department forecasts how many sales not only the department should do as a hole but how many sales each individual sales representative should also do. Every year, meteorologists forecast the number of hurricanes that may or may not hit the United States as well as other countries. The above leaves me to ask, what is forecasting? In a lack of words, forecasting is predicting what may or may not happen in the future. The forecast could simply be about sales of automobiles, wireless services or the number and strengths of hurricanes. Forecasting is defined as "to calculate or predict some future event or condition, as a result of study and analysis of pertinent data." (15c, Unknown) There are four basic types of forecasting qualitative, casual relationships, simulation and time series analysis. The following paper will compare and contrast forecasting methods and discuss t...

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References

Arsham. H. (2003). Time Series Analysis and Forecasting Techniques. Retrieved online February 1, 2006 from http://www.elia.jde.aca.mmu.ac.uk/resdesgn/arsham/opre330Forecast.htm#rasofm

Author Unknown. (15c) Retrieved online from https://ecampus.phoenix.edu Pro Request library on Monday, January 31, 2006.

Chase, R., Jacobs F. & Aquilano N. (2005) Operations Management for Competitive Advantage. 11th Edition.

Jensen, P. (2004). Operations Management/Industrial Engineering. Retrieved online from http://www.me.utexas.edu/~jensen./ORMM/omie/opearation/unit/forecast.

Wales, J. (2006). Delphi Method. Retrieved online January 31, 2006 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphi_method

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