Goals

Increase sales through fewer stock outs.
Decrease inventory costs through optimal inventory levels.
In This Course You Learn To:
Use exponential smoothing, the most popular forecasting method.
Test your forecasts before putting the company (or your reputation) at risk.
Assess whether your forecasts are adding value.

Course Chapters
  1. Introduction: Review scope of course, need for better forecasting, perspectives on forecasting.
  2. Naive Forecast: Create a universal performance benchmark for any forecast. Define value added forecasting.
  3. Linear Extension: Prepare any time series to test forecasts before making a real-world forecast. Assess the linear extension method.
  4. Exponential Smoothing: Apply the most popular—and often most accurate—method to a real-world example.
  5. Data Cleaning: Explore when to clean data, and when to leave it alone.
  6. Multiple Forecasts: Use simple techniques to work with multiple forecasts for the same product/product line.
  7. Five-Step Forecasting: Review and apply the fundamental sales forecasting process.

Details
It is surprising how many product managers do not know how to do basic forecasting. We boil it down to five steps, and we show you how to complete each one. 

This course is all about doing, not talking. You look over our shoulder and view the computer screen as we forecast sales for multiple products and industries.

Every forecaster should be able to do exponential smoothing. It is by far the most popular forecasting approach among forecasters.

One of the biggest leaps you can make as a forecaster is accuracy measurement. We show you the best way, and we use it throughout the course.

Forecasting software works, so you don't need to understand formula mechanics. Instead, we focus on how to use forecasting software wisely.

We are confident that mastery of the basic concepts provided in this course will significantly increase your forecast accuracy. The result: fewer stock-outs, higher sales, and lower inventory costs.

Included in this course:
  • 7 lectures
  • 7 lecture copies (pdf)
  • 6 Excel workbooks (actual spreadsheets used in six lectures)
  • 7 sets of quiz questions (one per lecture)
  • 6 sets of exercises to help the learner master the course

When you successfully complete all lectures and quizzes, you become certified. A personalized certificate is awarded, which you can download.

The latest and most advanced thinking on forecasting has been distilled into essential lessons and techniques. We suspect you can't find a more succinct yet effective way to learn best-in-class sales forecasting fundamentals.

Video Snipits

Illustrative video clips from the Fundamentals course are provided below, starting with Chapter 1.
The start of Chapter 2 ...
A brief look at Chapter 4.
A short clip from Chapter 7