DB
REPLIES
Instructions:
A substantive reply includes at least 150 words analyzing
the thread as well as adding to the research and concepts put forth in that
thread. The goal is to create meaningful discussion. To simply restate the idea
already put forth or to concur with the first reply is not adding substantial
discussion. That is why it is good to do additional outside research.
REPLY #1
1 day ago
Punita Bajaj
DB 1 A: Nestle
COLLAPSE
Demand
Forecasting: As demand can be defined as the
quantity to which people are willing to buy at a given period of time, demand
forecasting is prediction of demand that may occur at a future point in time
(Archer, n.d.).
Summary: Chief
Industry Consultant Charles Chase is an innovator and expert in sales
forecasting who introduced predicting Nestle’s future demand with ‘demand
shaping’. This revolutionary demand-driven forecasting solution looks at
millions of demand signals rather than floppy trends and seasonality. The
technology used enables the company to see what is actually influencing
consumers’ purchasing patterns and gives them the advantage to get two, five
and even ten years ahead. Again, this takes out the skewed human judgment and
rather focuses on the mathematics of previous promotions to calculate future
demand. Then the data runs through the financial system to see how profitable
it was (Pierce, 2020).
Discussion: Demand
shaping has proved to be an essential tool for growth. Companies can go a step
further and implement this strategy not only by gathering precious promotional
data, but for order information, shipment data and much more. That way, the
numbers can prove whether an ad is worth promoting again, where their most
profitable customers order from, and which items are most popular. Minimizing
human interreference is a key point to emphasize technology doing the major
judgements with facts and stats. This does not mean that human judgement is not
to be trusted. On the contrary, innovative minds are certainly needed to create
and produce these marketing ideas. However, the two approaches can complement
each other to yield more accurate and resilient models (Zellner et al., 2021)
Demand sensing, shaping, and forecasting are all essential for predicting and
managing supply chain activities. But they are also difficult to create when
collaborative information such as quantitative forecasting methods are missing.
REPLY#2
Tiffany
Rector
Discussion Forum 1 Option A
COLLAPSE
Discussion Forum 1
Tiffany Rector
School of Business, Liberty
University
Professor Williams
07/05/2021
Option A
Forecasting as described by the class textbook
is when organizations “predict the quantity and timing of customer demand,”
forecasting is sort of like market manipulation as can be seen in the article
titled “Are Power Companies Playing Texas Hold’em?” by Jinjoo Lee. In the
article author Lee covers how powerplants in Texas were impacted by the winter
storm that Texas experienced in February and why it is since then power still
hasn’t been completely restored within Texas as Texas faces sweltering summer conditions.
However, although “wear and tear from the February winter storm is one possible
explanation; market manipulation is another. They aren’t mutually exclusive.”
(Lee, 2021) In the article the potential that power companies may be purposely
manipulating the market for higher gains in brought up when Lee writes “The
electricity market fiasco in February led to high rewards for certain market
participants and painful losses for other. The former group’s appetite for
reward might have been piqued by the scarcity even, while for the latter, the
rewards of spiking profits could start to overwhelmingly outweigh any costs of
being caught out for manipulation.” (Lee, 2021) surprisingly, “selling
electricity in Texas isn’t terribly rewarding,” (Lee, 2021) this is surprising
because Texas is one of the biggest states and has some of the hottest weather
so it would make sense for electricity prices to be higher with people
constantly having to run the cooling systems in their homes, and the large size
of Texas and high population would make one think that electricity companies
would make quite a lot in Texas, but “the maximum price that power plants can
reap has come down to $2,000 per megawatt-hour, down from $9,000.” (Lee, 2021)
With companies realizing that hotter weather in Texas could lead to higher
demand for electricity as it hasn’t fully returned since the storm in February,
there could be a potential for companies to forecast the growing need for
electricity and decide to wait until demand is high enough to fix damaged
plants and provide electricity for more households in Texas. This might not
turn out to be what happens though as “in June, the state passed a mandate
ordering the public utility commission to establish rules for the
weatherization of power plants, giving the commission power to levy fines as
large as $1 million for those that don’t comply.” (Lee, 2021) This rule would
require companies to fix power plants and make it where they are able to
withstand storms like that of February stopping the potential for companies to
wait until demand is higher to repair plants and provide more electricity.