Building on a solid statistical forecast foundation: use a focused enrichment tool

The process of anticipating future demand is referred to as forecasting, and it is a crucial capability for a company that wants to remain competitive, keeping costs low. However, forecasting can be a complex and time-consuming process if done fully manually by your demand planners. Increasingly companies turn to external experts to run their forecasts as a service, to use statistics to bring the quality of the forecast to the next level whilst automating a significant part of the planning cycle.  

For many years the Planning Services team within EyeOn has proven to help businesses in a variety of industries forecast demand for their products or services using advanced statistical models, analytical techniques, and professional in-depth and actionable reporting. While a state-of-the-art statistical forecasting process offers many benefits, not all business knowledge, such as a complete understanding of their customer’s long-term goals, strategic initiatives, or market knowledge can be automated in the statistical forecasting engine. These insights are of utmost importance to the final planning process quality.  

This is where forecast enrichment tools can help. They allow the customer to add additional information, insights, or modifications to the statistical forecast generated by the Planning Services team, but only where needed. Think of projects landing, one-time promotions, and specific agreements with their suppliers. For the forecast services to our customers, we apply our unique demand planning ‘light’ tool, powered by the Jedox planning platform. Jedox is a leading cloud-based platform for planning, analysis, reporting, and data consolidation tasks. 

Integration

Jedox seamlessly integrates with various data sources, including databases, and can be directly integrated into your monthly process by being linked to other tools already in place. Also, it will be connected to the EyeOn Honeycomb platform, the platform on which the statistical forecast is created and continuously improved. This allows for quick in-depth insights into the added value of the enrichments. 

Ease of use

Jedox offers collaborative features that enable multiple stakeholders to contribute to the forecasting process. Users can share information, provide inputs, and collaborate on forecast adjustments within the platform. The Planning Services tool allows for easy review and enrichment on each level in e.g., the product and customer hierarchy. This facilitates cross-functional collaboration, aligns different perspectives, and incorporates diverse domain knowledge to enhance the accuracy and relevance of the forecast. 

Lastly, the Jedox platform can be opened on a variety of devices, which makes it possible to add information anywhere, anytime, significantly decreasing the time it takes from receiving information to turning that information into added value through better quality forecasts.