Realistic Business Forecasting (eBook)

Realistic Business Forecasting

Contents

Part 1: Introduction and Overview

Part 2: Essential Quantitative Techniques

Part 3: The Macro-environment

Part 4: Industry and Firm Specific Drivers

Part 5: Introduction to Forecasting Techniques

Part 6: Short-Term Forecasting

Part 7: Long-Term Forecasting

Part 8: After the Forecasts - What Next?

1 Introduction

2 Acme Food Stores Plc

3 Are Forecasting Errors Inevitable?

4 Channel Tunnel- Case Study

5 Sampling

6 Analysing Historical Data

7 Probability & Contingency Planning

8 Queuing & Simulation

9 Simulation: Modelling Major Incidents

10 Working with Constraints

11 Benchmarking

12 Scenarios

13 Elasticities

14 Overview of Drivers Influencing Forecasting

15 Inflation & Exchange Rates

16 Quantifiable Macroeconomic Factors

17 Less Quantifiable Macroeconomic Factors

18 Industry Drivers

19 Internal Drivers

20 Market Positioning

21 Firm Structure & Control Mechanisms

22 Simple Regression

23 Multiple Regression

24 Dummy Variables

25 Regression - Miscellaneous Topics

26 Time Series - Introduction

27 Japan Air Traffic

28 Single Exponential Smoothing

29 Triple Exponential Smoothing

30 Autoregression

31 Acme Food Stores Plc - Time Series Model Comparison

32 Long Term Forecasting

33 Long Term Forecasts CTD 'Science'

34 Long Term Forecasts CTD 'Art'

35 Financial Forecasting

36 How Did It All Work Out?

37 General Index

An extract from the Full Contents' list:

1 INTRODUCTION Why this book? / Why Bother with Forecasting? / Short-Term Long-term Forecasting / Focus on Food / The Missing Link / The Modelling Process / Objectives of a Model / Acceptability

2 ACME FOOD STORES PLC Introduction / The Food Store Sector in the UK / Overall Growth / Market Shares / Stores and Revenue per Outlet / Financial Performance in Detail / Employees / Additional Issues for Acme / In Store Operations - Self Scan / Online Sales / Suppliers

3 ARE FORECASTING ERRORS INEVITABLE? / Chapter Overview / Systemic Errors / Technical Errors / Robustness of Forecasts / Ranking Factors by Robustness / Labour Costs / Labour Costs per Unit Produced / Raw Materials / Sector Demand / Company Demand / Company Revenue

4 CHANNEL TUNNEL- CASE STUDY / Overview / Market Volume / Market Shares / Forecasts / General Observations / Market Size / Tunnel Market Share / Closing Remarks

5 SAMPLING / Why Sampling is Important / Mean and Standard Deviation / Normalisation / Sampling, Standard Error and T Distribution / Introducing Sampling / Sample Standard Deviation / Standard Error of the Mean (SEM) / Degrees of Freedom (DoF) / T-Distribution / Degree of confidence / Confidence Interval / German Stores / UK Stores / How Could These Results Change? / Sample Quality / Sampling: Endnotes / Annex on Standard Deviation and SEM / Introduction / The Problem / Method 1- Simulation / Method 2 - Direct Calculation / Back to the Owner's Problem