Demand forecasting predicts future sales trends based on current demand determinants. It is important for business planning purposes. There are several key steps to demand forecasting including determining the objective, nature of goods, appropriate forecasting method, and interpreting results. The period, level, purpose, product type, and other factors must be defined. Demand forecasts help businesses fulfill objectives, prepare budgets, stabilize production and employment, expand, make decisions, and evaluate performance. They are significant for both short and long-term business planning.

1. DEMAND FORECASTING

2. MEANING OF DEMAND FORECASTING
Demand results in sales
which constitutes the
primary source of
revenue for the business.
A forecast is a prediction
or estimation of a future
situation, under given
conditions.
Demand forecasting
predicts the future trend
of sales given the present
state of demand
determinants.
Demand forecasting is
different from demand
estimation in the sense
that the former predicts
about the future trend of
sales while the latter tries
to find out expected
present sales level, given
the present state of
demand determinants.
Forecast can be both
physical as well as
financial in nature and are
used mostly for planning
purposes.

3. PURPOSE OF
DEMAND
FORECASTING
• Forecasting is done for both the long run as well as short run.The
purposes of the two, however, are different.
• In a short-run forecast, seasonal patterns are of prime importance.
Such a forecast helps in preparing suitable sales policy and proper
scheduling of output to avoid over-stocking or costly delays in
meeting the orders. Besides giving an idea of likely demand, short-
run forecasts also help in arriving at suitable prices for the products
and in deciding about necessary modifications in advertising and
sales techniques.
• Long-run forecasts are helpful in proper capital planning.When
installing production capacity, an element of flexibility in their
availability must be ensured to take care of planned and expected
changes in production. Long-term planning thus helps in saving the
wastage in material, manhours, machine-time, and capacity. Long-run
forecasting is usually used for ‘new unit’ planning, expansion of the
existing units, and planning long-run financial requirements and
manpower requirements.

4. DETERMINING THE
SCOPE OF A
FORECASTING
EXERCISE
• Before taking up a forecasting exercise, one must know the
specific purpose for which the predictions are sought.The
sales forecasts can have differing interpretations and
applications, depending upon the purpose of the forecast.
Defining the scope of the forecasting exercise is, therefore, a
necessary pre-requisite.
• There are at least 6 considerations that need to be taken care
of while determining the scope of a forecasting exercise:
• Period of forecast
• Level of forecast
• General purpose or specific purpose forecasts
• Forecasts of established products or new products
• Type of commodity for which forecast is to be
undertaken
• Miscellaneous factors to be included or not.

5. • Period of forecast:
• As a first step, one must decide about the length of the period for which the
forecasting exercise is taken up.The periods are usually divided into (a)
Short-run (b) medium term (c) long-run.
• Short-run forecasting: In the case of short-run forecasting, one is looking for
the factors that bring fluctuations in the demand pattern in the market.The
most important factor in this regard may be the weather conditions. As the
weather conditions influence the demand for consumer goods, it indirectly
affects the demand for machinery, equipment, raw materials, etc., needed to
produce these consumer goods.Thus, seasonal factors are the ingredients of
short-run forecasts.
• Medium-term forecasting: In the case of medium-term forecasting,
experience and sound judgment are more important than statistical
forecasting.The medium-term forecasts can assist in the decision about the
timing of an activity, like advertising expenditure.These forecasts also
contribute to the control or revision of the decisions based on long-run
forecasts.The main feature of medium-term forecasts is the trend.The
direction of the trend has important implications for subjects like employee
recruitment and training, etc.
• Long-run forecasting: In the long run, the validity of the trend itself must be
ascertained. If the trend is likely to change for the worse, this would have
implications for the firm’s entire long-term strategy, it could suggest the
wisdom of diversification policy for the firm. For long-run forecasts, reliance
is usually placed on statistical techniques, though judgment remains an asset
in identifying the variables that are mainly controllable and are likely to
influence future sales. In the very long-run analysis, one must include
variables relating to socio-psychological aspects particularly an analysis of
the inter-relationship of economic, psychological, and sociological factors
determining consumer behaviour.

6. • Levels of forecast:
• Sales forecasting may be undertaken at any one of the following levels:
• Macroeconomic forecasting: It is concerned with business conditions
over the whole economy.These business conditions are measured with the
help of some appropriate indices like those relating to national income,
industrial production, wholesale prices, etc.These indices are provided by
official and non-official agencies, and these can be treated as basic
assumptions on which to base the demand forecasts.
• Industry demand forecasting: Such forecasts can give indications to a
firm regarding the direction in which the whole industry will be moving.
These forecasts, based on surveys of consumer intentions and analysis of
statistical trends, are generally supplied by trade associations to their
members.The business may use such forecasts to compare the trends of
industry sales with its own current and expected sales and thus determine
its market share.
• Firm demand forecasting: A big firm would like to do forecasting of its
products independent of the rest of the firms in the industry. Such
forecasting reveals whether the company is well placed to maintain or even
better its share in the market.
• Product line forecasting: It helps to decide which of the products or
products should have priority in the allocation of the firm’s limited
resources.

7. General purpose or specific
purpose forecasts:
Though a general forecast is useful for a
firm, it will be even more helpful if the
general forecast is broken down into
specific forecasts with respect to
commodities, area of sale, domestic and
export markets.
Forecasts of established or
new products:
Problems and methods of forecasting
differ in these two cases . For the
established products past sale trends
and competitive conditions are known,
while this is not the case for new
products, hence suitable forecasting
methods need to be adopted in this
regard.
Type of commodity for which
forecast is to be undertaken:
Economists broadly classify good into
three categories – capital goods,
consumer durables and non-durable
goods. For each of these categories of
goods there would be distinctive
demand patterns.
Miscellaneous factors to be
included or not:
The forecaster should decide how much
the sociological and psychological
factors are going to enter the
forecasting exercise. To be more
effective, this exercise must also include
the factors like the features peculiar to
the product and the market, nature of
competition, impact of uncertainty and
risk and the consequent errors in
accuracy, etc.

8. STEPS INVOLED IN DEMAND FORECASTING
• The following steps are necessary to have an efficient forecast of demand:
• Step 1: Identification of objective
• Step 2: Determining the nature of the goods under consideration
• Step 3: Selecting a proper method of forecasting
• Step 4: Interpretation of results
• This can be explained as follows:
• Identification of objective: It is necessary to be clear about what one wants to get from the
forecast.The purpose of the exercise may be the estimation of one or more aspects, like
quantity and composition of demand, price to be quoted, sales planning, inventory control, etc.
The approach to the problem will accordingly differ.

9. • Determining the nature of goods under consideration:
Different categories of goods have their distinctive demand
patterns. It is, therefore, necessary to determine the class in
which the goods fall.These categories are capital goods,
consumer durables, and non-durables.This will help us in
identifying the approach of the forecasting exercise and in
determining the variables to be considered for forecasting.
• Selecting a proper method of forecasting: The selection of an
appropriate method of forecasting is related to the objective of
forecasting, the type of data available, the period for which the
forecast is to be made, etc. For example, if the data shows
cyclical fluctuations, the use of a linear trend will not be
suitable. Similarly, general trends may be more useful for long-
run forecasting, while seasonal patterns will be more important
for short-term forecasts.
• Interpretation of results: Mere preparation of forecast does not
lead the management anywhere. Interpretation of results is of
equal importance.The efficiency of a forecast depends largely
upon the efficiency in the interpretation of its results. Most of the
time, the forecasted results are to be well-supported by the
background factors that have not entered the exercise of
forecasting. Further, we need to frequently revise the forecasts
in light of changing circumstances because forecasts are, in the
first instance, made on the assumption of continuation of past
events.

10. SIGNIFICANCE
OF DEMAND
FORECASTS
• The significance of demand forecasting is shown in the
following points:
• Fulfilling objectives
• Preparing the budget
• Stabilizing employment and production
• Expanding organizations
• Taking managerial decisions
• Evaluating performance
• Helping the government
• This is explained in the following manner:

11. • Fulfilling objectives: Implies that every business unit starts with certain pre-decided objectives. Demand
forecasting helps in fulfilling these objectives. An organization estimates the current demand for its products and
services in the market and moves forward to achieve the set goals.
• Preparing the budget: Plays a crucial role in making the budget by estimating costs and expected revenues.
• Stabilizing employment and production: Helps a firm to control its production and recruitment activities.
Producing according to the forecasted demand of products helps to reduce the wastage of the resources of the firm.
This further helps the organization to hire human resources as per the requirement.
• Expanding organizations: Implies that demand forecasting helps in deciding about the expansion of the business.
If the expected demand for products is higher, then the organization may plan to expand further. On the other hand,
if the demand for products is expected to fall, the organization may cut down the investment in the business.
• Taking managerial decisions: Helps in making critical decisions, such as deciding the plant capacity,
determining the requirements of raw materials, and ensuring the availability of labor and capital.
• Evaluating performance: Helps in making corrective decisions, for example, if the demand for the firm’s products
is low, it may take corrective actions to improve the level of demand by enhancing the quality of its products or
spending more on publicity and advertising.
• Helps the government: It enables the government to coordinate import and export activities and plan
international trade. It could also pertain to boosting the level of production in the country.

12. DETERMINANTS OF DEMAND FORECASTING
• Goods can broadly be classified into three categories as follows:
• Durable consumer goods
• Non-durable consumer goods
• Capital goods
• While forecasting demand for each of these categories, we keep in mind
different considerations because different types of goods have their own
distinctive demand patterns.
• This is explained in detail in the following slides.

13. • Consumer durables: Each consumer durable has a special market for its product,
which in turn has its peculiarities. So, forecasting demand for individual products in
such cases requires special techniques adapted to meet these peculiarities.
Moreover, the demand for consumer durables falls into two categories:
replacement demand and new demand. Forecasts should be made separately for
both. The special difficulties or peculiarities in forecasting in case of consumer
durables are as follows:
• Changes in size and characteristics of population.
• Saturation limit of the market
• Existing stock of the goods
• Replacement demand vs. New demand
• Income level of the consumers
• Consumer credit outstanding
• Tastes and scales of preferences of consumers
• The forecaster of consumer durables, therefore has to use to different techniques to
predict his future level of sales.

14. • Non-durable consumer goods: These include those consumer goods which can
only be used once, e.g., food, beverages, tobacco, etc. Demand for such goods is
basically influenced by the following factors: purchasing power (or disposable
income) of the consumers (Yd), price of the commodity (P) as well as population
and its characteristics (S). Symbolically, it is
D = f(Yd, P, S)
• Capital goods or producer’s goods: Capital goods are defined as those goods
which help in further production of goods. Capital goods include factory buildings,
machinery, equipment, tools, etc. Capital goods are, therefore, demanded only
when there is a demand for the goods which these capital goods help in producing.
In other words, demand for a capital good is a derived demand, which will depend
upon the profitability, level of capacity utilisation and wage rates in the industries
using the capital good. Moreover, demand for a capital good is of two kinds:
• Replacement demand
• New demand

15. • The following information is needed for estimating capital good’s demand:
• Growth possibilities of the industries using the capital goods.
• The norm of consumption of capital goods per unit of installed capacity. It is assumed that the
norms of consumption often remain stable. However, in practise one finds cases where
shortages arise, like in case of construction of bridges where mild steel is sometimes used
when constructional steel is not available. Thus, though the norms usually remain stable but
they are sometimes violated too.
• The extent of excess capacity in the industry using the producer’s goods.
• The forecast of demand for the good which the producer’s goods help in producing.
• The existing stock of the producer’s goods.
• The age-distribution of the existing stock of producer’s goods
• The rate of obsolescence.
• The availability of funds and costs of funds to the firms using the producer’s good.
• The nature of tax provisions on re-equipment.
• The prices of substitutes and complementary goods.
• The market structure within which the producer’s good operates.