FORESIGHT, Issue 33

Description

Spring 2014

Special Feature: A Roadmap to Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment

• A Roadmap to Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) Jeff VanDuersen and John Mello
  For many companies, especially those in the consumer-products industries, formal collaborations with supply-chain partners can mitigate if not prevent miscommunications, misinformation, and missed opportunities in forecasting and fulfilling consumer demand. Jeff and John build on their experience in an implementation of a Collaborative Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment (CPFR) process to lay out a roadmap for companies to follow, sidestepping the known hurdles along the route.
  
• Commmentary: Challenges along the Road to Implementing CPFR by Ram Ganeshan

Articles

1. 1. Clickstream Analysis for Forecasting Online Behavior by Ram Ganeshan 
      A clickstream is a sequence of clicks a customer goes through on a website before he or she exits the site. When the website is an online retailer, the clickstream provides insight into how the customer navigates the online store. Potential customers can have multiple entry points into the site – they could have searched for a relevant product, responded to a promotion, or visited the site with the intention to research, compare, and possibly purchase the products the store has to offer.
   2. Forecast Quality in The Supply Chain by Steve Morlidge 
      Building on his two previous publications in Foresight on the measurement of forecastability, Steve shows how forecast quality can be objectively measured using the relative absolute error (RAE) metric and how this metric can be used to reveal the potential for improvements in forecast accuracy. He presents compelling evidence that many companies fail to achieve levels of relative error that are better than a simple “same as last period” naïve forecast, and that around 50% of individual forecasts fail to meet this benchmark. He makes it clear that, while there is a great need for improvement in forecast quality, there is the potential for forecasters to accomplish just such improvement.
   3. Book Reviews
      Predictive Business Analytics: Forward-Looking Capabilities to Improve Business Performance by Lawrence S. Maisel and Gary Cokins; reviewed by S. McKay Curtis
      The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting by Alan Greenspan; reviewed by Geoff Allen
      The Bet between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon over Earth’s Future; reviewed by Ira Sohn
   4. Hot New Research: Getting Real about Uncertainty Paul Goodwin