Business Environmental forecasting
In today’s business world rapid changes are too frequent. It would be crucial for managers to invent new ways of surviving in the ever-changing business environment. They would have to build up the capacity of a firm to face the changes and adapting themselves to changes. To prepare for such ongoing eventualities, managers will have to prepare themselves for really understanding the remote and the immediate environments of business and mechanisms of changes that affect their industry or firm. Forecasting is a useful tool for planning. For instance, in sales planning, it helps to estimate and forecast the market share of a firm. Forecasting is an important aid in effective and efficient planning. It helps management in reducing its dependence on chance. Forecasting is helpful in better planning based on assumptions about the future course of events.
Firms may find it difficult to project sales of their product. Identifying future sales problems is not easy for companies, small or big. All forecasting techniques can be classified as either qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative techniques are based primarily on opinions and judgments. Quantitative techniques are based primarily on the analysis of data and the use of statistical techniques. Several qualitative and quantitative techniques are available to business.
