Business requirements are constantly changing, so to stay up to date and empower your company, entrepreneurs need to be more proactive in incorporating progressive software into their existing systems. For example, demand planning software will allow you to forecast demand for your services and products accurately. In addition, they will enable you to improve inventory management and forecasting and adapt to new marketplace changes. However, before you choose your demand forecasting software, you need to know what features it should contain.
What features should demand forecasting software have?
The market offers you a plethora of offerings from various vendors. However, you need to learn the mandatory features of demand forecasting software to choose only the quality offerings. So, what are demand forecasting software’s required features:
- Interactive statistical forecasting
The above feature is essential for accurately predicting the number of your services or products. Moreover, it will allow you to adapt the different methods according to your workflow in an interactive and comfortable system.
You can experiment and test different variations of events and generate forecasts for each of these scenarios. For example, a quality demand forecasting program predicts future demand by analyzing historical sales data. The program’s system will select a winning method for your sales. In addition, users should be able to apply manual adjustments and try out different scenarios.
- Segmentation Analysis
Segmentation analysis is crucial in forecasting because it divides customers, markets, and other factors into distinct groups. This makes it much easier for planners to review and adjust forecasts and goals for individual segments. Segmentation analysis can also assess performance levels by tracking key performance indicators.
- Workflow
The workflow feature will allow you to control your demand planning process, speed up various techniques, and ensure collaboration. Demand planning software should automate routine demand planning operations, such as data collection and preparation.
- Data Integration
When making forecasts, you need to connect multiple data sources, such as ERP historical data and external data about market demand’s current and future position. The data integration feature is so important for a demand forecasting program. It will allow you to connect to each source system and make more informed decisions.
- Consistent demand planning
Planning should be user-friendly. The program should provide the ability to tailor planning to different business needs. A good solution can give you access to data and planning via the Internet, cell phone, or Excel spreadsheet. Cell locking, cost allocation, aggregation, and disaggregation functions are also must-haves.
- Product Lifecycle
The best demand forecasting programs allow you to visualize your product’s life cycle gradually. The program should have curve modeling, similar modeling, and cannibalization models to do this.
- Promotion Planning
In addition to forecasting, programs should also be able to use marketing tools effectively—strategies and resources to promote the product.
What can these functions do for you?
Demand planning is very important for companies. Since today’s market is changing rapidly, companies need a tool to help them adapt to new demands. Demand Forecasting software has excellent forecast analysis skills and will allow you to improve collaboration and integration between departments. Other benefits of using demand forecasting software are:
- Accuracy of new products, promotions, and intermittent demand
- Integration with legacy systems
- Effective definition of forecasting rules and product segmentation
- Improved decision making