Sales Forecasting Practices in Macedonian Small-Scale Manufacturing Plants

Literature Review Of Sales Forecast Issues

Sales forecasting is a concept for projection of future demand for the company’s products. It is “the art and science of predicting future events” (Heizer & Render, 2004, p. 104) to reduce uncertainty about changes in the environment and to predict “what the future will be” (Armstrong, 2001, p. 2). According to Moon (1999, p. 8), “Any sales forecast should be thought of as a best guess about expected levels of customer demand for company's goods or services, during a particular time horizon, given a set of assumptions about the environment”. Understanding ‘what is sales forecasting’ is the first step towards improving of sales forecasting performance, the company's plans and the planning process. Based on lessons learned from 15 years working with hundreds of world famous companies, Moon et al. (1998), proposed the seven keys to manage sales forecasting effectively. Accordingly sales forecasting is a process, not forecasting methods.