Forecasting with Promotions - Half day event in London
Thursday 14 October 2010, 14:00
City University, Main Building, Northampton Suite, London
OR Society - Forecasting Special Interest Group - Half Day Event
Forecasting with Promotions - Current practice and future prospects
Date: 14th October, 2pm-6pm
Fee: free of charge
Address: City University, Main Building, Northampton Suite C
Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, UK
This afternoon event will cover different aspects of the challenges in promotional forecasting & evaluation for supply chain management, which badly affects retailers and manufacturers alike. The two keynote presenters, Gareth Brentall (MD of Promax Europe Ltd) and Barry Grange (CEO of Retail Express), both with many years of practical experience in the area, will describe their own distinctive approaches to the challenges in promotional forecasting. The event will kick off with Prof. Robert Fildes, director of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting, giving an overview of current practices and research in promotional forecasting. The event will also offer ample opportunity to network amongst practitioners, vendors and academics.
Attendance at this event is FREE but places are limited, so you must register by email. To register - or to receive invitations to future events - please email Sven Crone at s.crone@lancaster.ac.uk.
Programme
13:45 - 14:00
Registration
14:00 - 15:00
Current research in Forecasting Promotions - Judgment v Statistics?
Prof. Robert Fildes, Distinguished Professor, Lancaster Centre for Forecasting
Abstract: Effective promotional forecasting is important to cost-effective operations across the supply chain. Academic research has claimed this problem is ‘solved’ but there is not much evidence in practice that suggests that companies are satisfied or can implement these proposed solutions. This presentation will examine current practices, in particular how expert judgment is used to improve forecasting accuracy in companies as well as its limitations. Much current software is not supportive of the promotional forecasting activity but has the potential to improve accuracy. An alternative approach is through the use of econometric methods and the presentation will conclude with a review of current econometric approaches and how recent developments in modeling can lead to better forecasting accuracy.
15:00 - 16:00
Promotional Forecasting
Barry Grange, CEO of Retail Express
Abstract: Predicting the customer response from promotions and advertising continues to be a major headache for most retailers and manufacturers, making promotions much less effective than they should be. No amount of analysis is going to compensate for poor promotional forecasting and this talk will discuss the issues and challenges of accurately forecasting promotions for decision making examining work that has been undertaken with major retailers in North America and Europe to meet these challenges.
Forecasting with Promotions - Retail Express Presentation
Forecasting with Promotions - Retail Express Report
16:00 - 16:30
Tea & Coffee break
16:30 - 17:30
What's a good Promotion?
Gareth Brentall, MD Promax Europe Ltd.
Abstract: This presentation discusses the development of a strategic framework on which to assess the quality of a promotion or a promotional program. To do this models are needed to estimate normal sales - often called 'the baseline', which consists of components for level, trend and seasonality. A number of causal factors are then used to modify the baseline to reflect promotional activity; price is the obvious one, but other factors may be significant e.g. shelf positioning, advertising, school holidays, etc. This data is typically sourced from EPOS, or 'scan' sources, and is usually by account by product. The final multi-causal model is the used to predict the actual consumer sales based on future promotional activity. How good a promotion was - and probably more importantly, will be is measured in terms of Efficiency (how much money was spent) and Effectiveness (the uplift in sales). This allows us to produce a single key performance indicator (KPI) to evaluate a promotional program and thus allocate promotional funds in the most appropriate way.
Forecasing with Promotions - Promax Presentation
Forecasting with Promotions - Promax Report
17:30 - 18:00 Open discussion & Closing remarks
Please find the event Agenda (pdf) on Forecasting with Promotions to download or print the full announcement, including times, abstracts of the talks, speaker biographies, address and directions.
About the SIG: The forecasting special interest group aims to increase the understanding and practical use of forecasting amongst interested members of the society. The meeting is sponsored by the Operational Research Society and organised by the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting. To receive future invitations and updates please email Sven Crone at s.crone@lancaster.ac.uk.
