Demand forecasting predicts future demand for a firm's products and helps with production planning and scheduling, acquiring inputs, financial planning, pricing strategy, and advertising planning. The key steps are specifying objectives, determining the time horizon, selecting a forecasting method, collecting and adjusting data, estimating results, and interpreting them. Common techniques include consumer surveys, expert opinions, statistical methods, and opinion polls. Consumer surveys directly interview a sample of potential consumers to determine future purchase plans, while expert opinions aggregate sales representatives' assessments of demand in their regions.

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Vibhor AgrawalVibhor Agrawal

2. DEMAND FORCASTING
 Demand forecasting is predicting the
future demand for firm’s product.
 Demand forecasting helps in
following areas:-
1. Planning and scheduling production.
2. Acquiring inputs.
3. Making provision for finances.
4. Formulating pricing strategy.
5. Planning advertisement.
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3. Steps in demand forecasting
 Specifying the objective.
 Determining the time perspective.
 Making choice of method for demand
forecasting.
 Collection of data and data adjustment.
 Estimation and interpretation of results.
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4. Techniques of demand forecasting.4
Survey Statistical
Consumer Opinion poll
1.Complete
Enumeration
• Sample Survey
• End use Method
1. Expert Opinion
2. Delphi Methods
3. Survey of
Managerial Plans
4. Market Experiment
1 Trend
Projection
Method
2 Barometric
Method.
3 Econometric
Method.

5. Techniques of demand
forecasting.
 Consumer survey method- Direct interviews-
1. Consumer Survey Method – Direct Interviews
a.Complete enumeration
b.Sample survey
c.End-use method
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6. 1.Complete enumeration:-
1. In this, almost all the potential users of
the product are contacted and are
asked about their future plan of
purchasing the product in question
2. The quantity indicated by the consumers
are added together to obtain the
probable demand for the product.
DF= ID1+ID2+……..+IDn
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7. 2.Sample survey
 Under this , only a sample of potential consumers or
users is selected for interview.
 Consumers to be surveyed are selected from the
relevant market through a sampling method.
 Method of survey may be direct interview or mailed
questionnaire to the sample- consumers
DF = (ID+ ID+…….ID)N
Cn
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8. 3.End-use method
 Ist stage :- Identify and list all possible users of the
product in question.
 IInd stage :-fixing suitable technical ‘norms’ of
consumption of the product under study.
 IIIrd stage :- Application of the norms.
 Final stage :- Aggregate the product- wise or use-
wise content of the item for which the demand is to
be forecast.
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9. Opinion poll methods
1. Expert opinion method
2. Delphi method
3. Surveys of Managerial plans
4. Market studies and experiments
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10. 1.Expert opinion method
 In this, sales representative of firms assess the
demand for the targeted product in the areas,
regions or cities that they represent.
 The estimates of demand thus obtained form
different regions are added up to get the overall
probable demand for a product.
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11. 2.Delphi method
 Under this method, the experts are provided
information on estimates of forecasts of other
experts along with the underlying assumptions.
 The experts may revise their own estimate in the
light of forecast made by other experts.
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12. Statistical methods
 Trend projection methods
 Barometric methods
 Econometric method.
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