Capterra Glossary
Demand Forecasting
Demand forecasting allows businesses to predict customer demand for a product or service that they produce. Demand forecasting allows businesses to get a better handle on how to prepare for certain customer orders. Businesses are then able to determine how much of a product to order and assemble. Demand forecasting is necessary for appropriate planning. It will likely be a highly technical process that involves appropriate analysis of market trends to make an educated forecast of the demand for something.
What Small and Midsize Businesses Need to Know About Demand Forecasting
Proper demand forecasting can allow a small business to better predict how much of a product they will need. In doing so, they can determine how much of a product's component parts to order, how much staff time to allot, and how much revenue to budget.
Related Terms
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
- Procurement
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
- Vendor
- Supply Chain Planning (SCP)
- Telematics
- Senpai
- Vendor Management
- Value-Added Reseller (VAR)
- Bill of Materials (BOM)
- Supply Chain
- Smart Factory
- Scanner
- SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
- Radio-frequency Identification (RFID)