Demand Forecasting

Maintaining profitability requires generating consistent, accurate forecasts over time using an analytics-based solution. SAS approaches the problem by delivering software and services to help:

• Get correct and complete data when you need it from any system in any format. Data management tools access all types of data, including downstream POS data and upstream supplier data, then automatically transform and cleanse the data to get it ready for analysis.
• Generate accurate, demand-driven forecasts at any hierarchical level. Using a wide range of forecasting models within our patented forecast engine, you'll get a true picture of demand that relies not only on historical demand data, but also includes POS consumption data and market indicators such as price, promotions and weather.
• Determine optimal demand-shaping actions. Via a user-friendly interface to industrial-strength SAS Analytics, you can test various scenarios and conduct what-if analyses to gauge the impact of changes in your marketing strategies or product mix on demand and profitability.
• Measure forecast performance against KPIs. An interactive dashboard lets you monitor, track, alert and report forecast performance metrics.
• Proactively drive S&OP processes. An advanced consensus forecasting-planner workbench delivers fully automated, statistically driven, weighted consensus forecasts along with workflow, allowing senior-level management to guide the S&OP process.
• Seamlessly integrate robust forecasting capabilities with your planning environment. Web services allow you to invoke our patented forecasting engine directly from the SAP APO demand planning module, so you can improve the accuracy of your forecast without ever leaving the comfort of your familiar planning environment.
• Share information companywide via a self-service Web interface. Users interact with and drill down through reports as needed.
  

• Comprehensive data integration. Because other forecasting systems do not have integrated data management and data cleansing capabilities, those forecasts will deteriorate over time as data quality erodes. SAS provides a complete portfolio of data integration capabilities to ensure data quality and integrity, enabling you to maintain forecast accuracy.
• Complete integration. SAS integrates individual technology components within your existing IT infrastructure into a single, unified system - resulting in an information flow that transcends organizational silos, diverse computing platforms and niche tools.
• What-if analyses. Maximize profitability with the ability to understand the financial impact of changes in product and marketing mix, enabling you to optimize supply/demand balance. 
• The most comprehensive, accessible business intelligence capabilities. SAS offers an integrated business intelligence platform that provides consistent, accurate information based on a comprehensive view of the business - along with a suite of intuitive interfaces with self-service query and reporting capabilities. You'll spend less time looking for information and more time driving strategic decisions.
• Tailored to fit your business. With other vendors you either change your processes to fit their solutions or spend lots of money reconfiguring their solutions to fit your processes – in effect, paying twice. SAS tailors the solution to fit your business like a glove, delivering ROI in six months or less.